THE TRIUMPH OF THE AEROPLANE 



2nd, 19 lo, made a still more remarkable flight, in which 

 he crossed the Channel, starting from the cliffs near 

 Dover, and after circling over French soil without land- 

 ing, returned to his starting-place. The aeroplanes 

 used by the two Frenchmen were of the monoplane 

 type ; that used by Mr. Rolls was a Wright bi-plane. 



Just at the time when the first successful cross- 

 Channel flight was made, the attention of aviators was 

 focussed on the flights being made near Washington by 

 Mr. Orville Wright in the attempt to fulfill the Govern- 

 ment tests which had been so tragically interrupted the 

 year before. On July 27th, 1909, Mr. Wright success- 

 fully met the conditions of the endurance test, by flying 

 more than an hour carrying as a passenger Lieutenant 

 Frank P. Lahm. Three days later a more spectacular 

 flight, to a distance of five miles across country and 

 return, over tree-tops, hills, and valleys, with a passenger 

 (Lieutenant Foulois), was accomplished without mishap. 

 This was in many respects the most important flight, as 

 suggesting the possible practical utility of the aeroplane, 

 that had hitherto been made. 



Later in the same year Mr. Orville Wright went 

 abroad with his aeroplane and made a large number of 

 flights at Berlin, demonstrating to the German people 

 the points of superiority of the aeroplane as against the 

 gigantic dirigible balloons to which that nation had here- 

 tofore paid chief attention. Mr. Wilbur Wright mean- 

 time remained in America to give flights about New 

 York Harbor during the Hudson-Fulton Centenary 

 Celebration. On October 4th (1909), he made a sensa- 

 tional flight up the Hudson from Govemor^s Island, 



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