NATURE 



97 



THURSDAY, JAiNu/ircY 26, 1922. 



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The Langley Aeroplane and the 

 Hammondsport Trials. 



THE Americans most intimately associated with 

 the work of Prof. S. P. Langley have 

 written to the Royal Aeronautical Society and to 

 Nature protesting vigorously against the con- 

 clusions reached by Mr. Griffith Brewer and sum- 

 marised in a paper ^ read before the society in 



tober last. The conclusions were ^ : — 



(a) The Langley machine was not capable of 

 sustained free flight. 



{b) The Langley machine was not successfully 

 flown at Hammondsport, New York, on June 2, 

 1914. 



The correspondence is published in full in the 

 Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and 

 when discussion is closed it is to be hoped that the 

 society itself will consider the whole matter and 

 express an official opinion. In the meantime it 

 may be assumed that the American presentation of 

 the case is better than that of Mr. Brewer when 

 they claim that in all substantial respects the 

 original Langley aeroplane was capable of sustained 

 flight. It is true that certain modifications were 

 made for the Hammondsport trials which changed 

 the machine in some of its details, but the secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Walcott, 

 appears to put the matter very fairly when he 

 says : — 



" I was present at Hammondsport on May 31, 

 1914, and saw the machine with the original engine 



1 /4 fronau/ifa/ 7o«m<iZ, December, 192 1. 



2 Ibid., p. 629. 



NO. 2726, VOL. IO9I 



giving only two-thirds the original thrust and with 

 wings approximately of the original design, but far 

 rougher executed, get under way from rest and fly 

 gracefully, carrying, besides a man, more than 

 300 lb. of floats in excess of what the machine was 

 designed to carry. I am still confident that what 

 it did under these relatively adverse circumstances 

 is far inferior to what it was capable of doing in 

 its original condition." 



It is much to be regretted that anything happened 

 to prevent a successful flight of the Langley flying 

 machine on October 7, 1903, for no one with an 

 intimate knowledge of the subject can doubt that, 

 aerodynamically and structurally, the machine was 

 good. Aerodynamically it had been preceded by 

 a long series of experiments on a whirling arm, 

 culminating in the flight of a power -driven model 

 based on the results obtained. Although the prac- 

 tical man is loth to admit the fact, it is nevertheless 

 true that the very great bulk of trustworthy in- 

 formation is derived from tests on models by men 

 of science. For very many years to come 

 aviation will continue to draw its inspiration 

 from results obtained on models.- Structurally 

 the Langley aeroplane had been carefully 

 made and tested by loading with sand ; it is diffi- 

 cult to give credence to Mr. Brewer's suggestion 

 that the structure was obviously defective. Nor is 

 there lack of evidence in the other direction in the 

 later flights. The account of the original failure, 

 vouched for by Mr. C. M. Manly, the pilot on 

 the occasion, is that : — 



" The machinery was working perfectly and 

 giving every reason to anticipate a successful flight, 

 when this accident (due wholly to the launching 

 mechanism) drew the aeroplane abruptly downward 

 at the moment of release and cast it into the water 

 near the houseboat." 



This explanation is supported by clear observa- 

 tions of damage to the clutch which held the aero- 

 plane on the launching ways, but is apparently not 

 accepted by Mr. Brewer. 



Despite the failure to crown his efforts with a 

 striking popular flight, Langley 's work was a very 

 great achievement and removed many difficulties 

 from the paths of his successors, amongst whom 

 were the Wright brothers. 



The claims made for Langley by the Smithsonian 

 Institution are : — 



(i) His aerodynamic experiments, some published 

 and some as yet unpublished, were complete enough 

 to form a basis for practical pioneer aviation, 



(2) He built and launched, in 1896, the first 

 steam model aeroplane capable of prolonged free 

 flight, and possessing good inherent stability. 



