CAPABLE OF SUSTAINED FREE FLIGHT: LANGLEY'S SUCCESS AS A PIONEER IN
AVIATION***


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THE FIRST MAN-CARRYING AEROPLANE CAPABLE OF SUSTAINED FREE FLIGHT:
LANGLEY'S SUCCESS AS A PIONEER IN AVIATION

by

A. F. ZAHM, Ph. D.

From the Smithsonian Report for 1914, pages 217-222
(WITH 8 PLATES)







[Illustration]

(Publication 2329)

Washington
Government Printing Office
1915




THE FIRST MAN-CARRYING AEROPLANE CAPABLE OF
SUSTAINED FREE FLIGHT--LANGLEY'S SUCCESS AS A
PIONEER IN AVIATION.

By A. F. ZAHM, Ph. D.

[With 8 plates.]


It is doubtful whether any person of the present generation will be able
to appraise correctly the contributions thus far made to the development
of the practical flying machine. The aeroplane as it stands to-day is
the creation not of any one man, but rather of three generations of men.
It was the invention of the nineteenth century; it will be the fruition,
if not the perfection, of the twentieth century. During the long decades
succeeding the time of Sir George Cayley, builder of aerial gliders and
sagacious exponent of the laws of flight, continuous progress has been
made in every department of theoretical and practical aviation--progress
in accumulating the data of aeromechanics, in discovering the principles
of this science, in improving the instruments of aerotechnic research,
in devising the organs and perfecting the structural details of the
present-day dynamic flying machine. From time to time numerous aerial
craftsmen have flourished in the world's eye, only to pass presently
into comparative obscurity, while others too neglected or too poorly
appreciated in their own day subsequently have risen to high estimation
and permanent honor in the minds of men.

Something of this latter fortune was fated to the late Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution. For a decade and a half Dr. Langley had toiled
unremittingly to build up the basic science of mechanical flight, and
finally to apply it to practical use. He had made numerous model
aeroplanes propelled by various agencies--by India rubber, by steam, by
gasoline--all operative and inherently stable. Then with great
confidence he had constructed for the War Department a man flier which
was the duplicate, on a fourfold scale, of his successful gasoline
model. But on that luckless day in December, 1903, when he expected to
inaugurate the era of substantial aviation, an untoward accident to his
launching gear badly crippled his carefully and adequately designed
machine. The aeroplane was repaired, but not again tested until the
spring of 1914--seven years after Langley's death.

Such an accident, occurring now, would be regarded as a passing mishap;
but at that time it seemed to most people to demonstrate the futility of
all aviation experiments. The press overwhelmed the inventor with
ridicule; the great scientist himself referred to the accident as having
frustrated the best work of his life. Although he felt confident of the
final success of his experiments, further financial support was not
granted and he was forced to suspend operations. Scarcely could he
anticipate that a decade later, in a far away little hamlet, workmen who
had never known him would with keenest enthusiasm rehabilitate that same
tandem monoplane, and launch it again and again in successful flight,
and that afterwards in the National Capital it should be assigned the
place of honor among the pioneer vehicles of the air.

When in March, 1914, Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss was invited to send a flying
boat to Washington to participate in celebrating "Langley Day,"[1] he
replied, "I would like to put the Langley aeroplane itself in the air."
Learning of this remark Secretary Walcott, of the Smithsonian
Institution, soon authorized Mr. Curtiss to recanvas the original
Langley aeroplane and launch it either under its own propulsive power or
with a more recent engine and propeller. Early in April, therefore, the
machine was taken from the Langley Laboratory and shipped