14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 8l 



Washington, D. C, 



June 3, 1925. 

 APPENDIX II 



( Ames-Taylor Report ) 



THE LANGLEV FLYING MACHINE. 



Memorandum for Dr. Charles D. Walcott, 

 Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. 



1. In connection with our letter to you of even date, concerning 

 the label on the Langley Flying Machine in the National Museum, 

 we beg to add the following remarks of an historical nature, and our 

 views and conclusions in some detail. 



2. Professor S. P. Langley became actively interested and en- 

 gaged in the study of aeronautics in 1887, and was assiduous in 

 the theoretical and experimental study of the subject till his death 

 in 1906. The more important of his results were finally published 

 in Volume 27 of " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," 

 Part I, issued in 1891, entitled " Experiments in Aerodynamics " ; 

 Part 2, the " Internal Work of the Wind," 1893 ; and Part 3, the 

 "Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight," 191 1. In the course 

 of his study he became convinced of the possibility of " mechanical 

 flight," /. e., of constructing a heavier-than-air machine, to be 

 driven by an engine, and sufficiently powerful and stable to carry a 

 man. To this end he constructed certain models about 12 feet 

 wide by 15 feet long, weighing approximately 30 pounds, each 

 driven by a 1^ horsepower steam engine which with its boiler 

 weighed not over 7 pounds per horsepower. These models actually 

 did fly, in one case as long as i minute and 49 seconds and for a 

 distance of 4,300 feet. These two machines made successful 

 flights on May 6. 1896, in the presence of Dr. A. Graham Bell, and 

 on November 28, 1896, in the presence of Mr. Frank G. Carpenter. 

 The model machines numbered 5 and 6 were placed on exhibition 

 in the National Museum on April 21, 1905. Finally, by the aid of 

 a grant of $50,000 made by the Board of Ordnance and Fortification 

 of the War Department in December, 1898, which was later sup- 

 plemented by funds to the amount of $20,000 from the Smithsonian 

 Institution, he constructed in the years from 1898 to 1903 a full- 

 size flying machine (which he called an "aerodrome"), a repro- 

 duction on a scale approximately 4 : i of these steam models which 

 had previously flown in 1896. The engine of this final machine 

 was a radial 5 cylinder, water cooled, gasoline type. 5 inch bore 

 ^^y 52 i"ch stroke, developing 52.4 horsepower at 950 r. p. m., and 



