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