x PRACTICAL PURPOSE 289 



How completely Langley's belief in flight by aero- 

 planes has been justified is known now to everyone, 

 though his experiments are rarely mentioned. Fara- 

 day once said, referring to the electric dynamo, " I gave 

 you this machine as an infant ; you bring it back as a 

 giant." Had Langley lived, the same remark could 

 have been applied appropriately by him to the develop- 

 ment of flying machines from his models. Purely 

 scientific investigations gave the world the dynamo, 

 and with the construction of this means of producing 

 electricity there commenced a new era in engineering. 

 In like manner, the work of a man of science opened a 

 new epoch in the history of aerial navigation. 



When, in May, 1896, Langley's power-driven model 

 aeroplane flew over the Potomac River for a minute 

 and a half (for which time only it was provided with 

 fuel and water), and accomplished a flight of little over 

 half a mile before it settled down upon the water with 

 a gentle descent, the possibility of free dynamic flight 

 was established. It was Langley, and no one else, who 

 was the father of modern aeroplaning, both on account 

 of his investigations of the scientific principles of air 

 resistance and the work of the wind, and because he put 

 the principles into practice by constructing a self- 

 balancing heavier-than-air machine which would sustain 

 itself in the air so long as the power driving it lasted. 

 No one before Langley had succeeded in building an 

 aeroplane capable of sustained free flight with a man as 

 pilot. 



When Wilbur and Orville Wright commenced their 

 experiments in artificial flight, the only exact experiments 

 they could find as to the resistance of the air to machines 

 driven at different velocities were those made by the 

 man of science, S. P. Langley. They were the pioneers 



G.D. T 



