276 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE VOL. 27 



On the day following the trial a very careful inspection was made in the 

 hope of obtaining some more definite information as to just what caused the 

 accident, but the serious injury to the machine caused by the tug boatmen break- 

 ing it in the water had so greatly tangled tilings up that it was impossible to 

 tell anything- about it. The workmen were immediately put to work removing 

 fittings from the broken wings, rudder, etc., and dismounting the engine, which 

 was immediately reassembled on its testing frame and found to be absolutely 

 uninjured. The transverse frame of the machine was comparatively uninjured, 

 the damage done by the men on the tug-boat being the breaking of the machine 

 in two at a point just back of the cross-frame, together with the consequent de- 

 struction of the bearing points, " trestle," and certain fittings by which the 

 main guy-wires were attached to the main tubes and the pyramids. 



The situation which now existed was most distressing and disheartening. 

 Mr. Langley felt that he could not approve of further expenditures from any 

 Smithsonian fund, and the Board of Ordnance and Fortification of the War De- 

 partment having been severely criticised on the floors of Congress for its orig- 

 inal allotment for the work, deemed it inexpedient to incur a possible curtail- 

 ment of the funds annually placed at its disposal for general experimental 

 work through a manifestation of continued interest in the flying machine. 



As has already been stated, representatives from the Board of Ordnance 

 and Fortification of the War Department were present at both tests of the 

 huge aerodrome; on October 7 Major Montgomery M. Macomb and Mr. G. H. 

 Powell, and on December 7 General W. F. Randolph accompanied by Major 

 Macomb and Mr. Powell, represented the War Department, and Dr. E. S. Nash, 

 at that time Contract Surgeon, TJ. S. A., was officially present at both trials to 

 render medical assistance should it be needed. 



By permission of the War Department, the official report of the tests sub- 

 mitted by Major Macomb to the Board of Ordnance and Fortification is here 

 made public: 



Enc. 1st to 3d end't, BOF 6191. 



Report 



Experiments with working models which were concluded August 8 last hav- 

 ing proved the principles and calculations on which the design of the Langley 



aerodro was based to be correct, the next step was to apply these principles 



to the construction of a machine of sufficient size and power to permit the carry- 

 ing of a man, who could control the motive power and guide its flight, thus point- 

 ing the way to attaining the final goal of producing a machine capable of such 

 msive and precise aerial flight, under normal atmospheric conditions, as to 

 prove of military or commercial utility. 



Mr. ('. M. Manly, working under Prof. Langley, had, by the summer of 190.3, 

 eeded in completing an engine-driven machine which under favorable atmos- 



