When Did Man First Try to Fly?
~HOW MAN LEARNED TO FLY~
Man’s desire to conquer the air is older than recorded history. When a
kite was flown for the first time the principle of aviation, or dynamic
flight, was uncovered. For centuries man has sought the mechanical
equivalents for the things that keep a kite flying steadily in the
air,--the power that lies in the cord that keeps a kite headed into the
wind; an equivalent for the wind’s own power; an equivalent for the
tail which controls the kite’s lateral and longitudinal balance.
Each separate part of the modern flying machine, or aeroplane, was
worked out long ago, with the exception of the gas engine light enough
and reliable enough to be used for this work. The present generation
knows dynamic flight as a commonplace thing, not because we are so much
more clever than previous generations in designing flying machines,
but because of the development of the modern gasoline or internal
combustion engine.
Who Invented Flying?
No one invented flying, nor did any one man invent all the separate
parts of the flying machine. They are the result of evolution,--of the
combined work and thought of hundreds of men, many of whose names are
unrecorded. To attempt to find the true beginning of the modern flying
machine would be as difficult as attempting to discover who planted
the seed of the tree from which one has gathered a rose. But the tree
from which all the flying machines, or aeroplanes, of today have sprung
undoubtedly is Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley, third secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution.
Some of the Men Who Helped.
Taking the most conspicuous names of scientists who worked out various
details of the aeroplane during the past century we find that a century
ago Sir George Cayley built a machine on lines very similar to those
accepted today, and he went so far as to foretell the necessity of
developing the internal combustion engine before dynamic flight could
be a success. Mr. F. H. Wenham, in 1866, also built a flying machine
along conventional lines and tried to fly it with a steam engine, which
of course, proved too heavy.
[Illustration: One of Dr. Langley’s first models; a biplane with
flexible wing-tips and twin propellers. 1889.]
~EARLY TYPES OF FLYING MACHINES~
M. A. Penaud, a Frenchman, in experimenting with models, seems to have
been the first to discover the necessity of vertical and horizontal
rudders in maintaining balance. Mr. Horatio Phillips, an Englishman,
discovered, and patented, the use of curved instead of flat surfaces
for the planes. Otto and Gustav Lilienthal are said to have been the
first to attempt to balance aeroplanes by flexing or bending the wings.
Various others, including Messrs. Richard Harte, Boulton, Mouillard,
worked out ideas for balancing machines by the use of auxiliary planes
which could be set at different angles with regard to the line of
flight, thus forcing the machines to different positions by the force
of the air rushing against them.
Dr. Langley, trained in scientific investigation, conducted an
elaborate series of experiments covering many years and costing
thousands of dollars to test and prove the value of the claims of
the earlier investigators. Some things which he thought he was
the first to discover,--such as the effect of the vertical and
horizontal rudders,--he later found had already been proven by others.
Independently he covered the entire field of experiment and after
building hundreds of small models he succeeded, in 1896, in making a
machine weighing several pounds equipped with a very light steam engine
which flew safely as long as the fuel lasted. For his early experiments
Dr. Langley was afforded financial assistance by Mr. William Thaw of
Pittsburg. After the success of his small machines Dr. Langley was
asked to undertake the construction of a large, man-carrying machine,
and Congress voted him $50,000 to carry on the work. A large share of
this was spent on the development of a very light gasoline engine. The
machine finally was completed, but was twice broken through defective
launching apparatus. Congress and Dr. Langley were so ridiculed by the
public press that the machine was temporarily abandoned. Not, however,
until after Dr. Langley had successfully flown a steam driven machine
much larger than many of the racing aeroplanes of today.
But eight years after Dr. Langley’s death, which is said to have been
due to the heart-breaking disappointment he suffered in trying to
demonstrate the large machine, Glenn H. Curtiss, at the request of the
Smithsonian Institution, rebuilt the old Langley machine and succeeded
in making a flight with it at Hammondsport, N. Y., on May 28, 1914.
[Illustration: THE FIRST MAN-CARRYING AEROPLANE
First successful man-carrying aeroplane. Designed by Dr. Langley in
1898; flown by Glenn H. Curtiss at Hammondsport, N. Y., 1914.]
[Illustration: Front view of big Langley machine in 1914.]
While longer flights probably will be made with this machine none
will attain greater importance, because this first flight with it was
sufficient to establish for all time the fact that Dr. Langley built
the first man-carrying machine equipped with a gasoline engine and able
to fly and raise itself with its own power. This was considerably
more than was accomplished by other machines for some time after Dr.
Langley’s death. The Langley machine not only lifted the weight it was
designed to fly with, but also carried pontoon and other fittings,
added by Mr. Curtiss to make flight from the water possible, which
added 340 pounds to the original weight of the machine.
[Illustration: THE MACHINE WITH WHICH BLERIOT FLEW IN EUROPE
Copy of early Langley model with which Bleriot made first circular
flight in Europe.]
The connection between Dr. Langley’s work and present machines is now
very easy to trace, though not obvious until 1911, when the Smithsonian
Institution published memoirs written by Dr. Langley in 1897, and
some memoirs of Mr. Octave Chanute, a French engineer who resided in
Chicago, and who forms one of the main connecting links. The chain
is practically completed by notes left by the late Lieut. Thomas
Selfridge, U. S. A., America’s first martyr to aviation.
Dr. Langley’s knowledge is represented in modern aviation by three
distinct lines. The central and most direct line is through Dr.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, to the Aerial
Experiment Association, and thence to Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss, and finds
its expression in what is known as the Curtiss type of machines.
Another line is that carried by a Mr. A. M. Herring to Mr. Chanute and
by him transmitted to Mr. Wilbur Wright, finding expression in the
Wright type of biplane.
The third line is that leading to the modern monoplane school; M.
Bleriot having first copied in toto the tandem monoplane form,
generally known as the Langley type, and later, with the development of
better gasoline engines, developing into the monoplane as known today.
With the exception of M. Bleriot it is doubtful if the others fully
realized the source of their inspiration,--not to call it information.
Dr. Bell was interested in Dr. Langley’s work for more than ten years
before Dr. Langley gave up. He observed many of the trials, and his
reports of the first successful flights are incorporated in the
official publications of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Bell began
some independent experiments, but following Dr. Langley’s death he
formed the Aerial Experiment Association, to carry on the work left by
Dr. Langley. The members of this organization were, Mr. Curtiss, at
that time the most successful builder of light motors; Lieut. Thomas
H. Selfridge, U. S. A.; Mr. J. A. D. McCurdy and Mr. F. W. Baldwin, two
young Canadian engineers. Mrs. Bell financed the project, furnishing
the sum of $35,000 for the experiments.
~WHAT TWO BROTHERS ACCOMPLISHED FOR FLYING~
The Wright Brothers, for Wilbur Wright was joined by his brother
Orville in the experiments, were the first to reap success from the
seeds of Dr. Langley’s sowing. Mr. Chanute had been experimenting
with a biplane form of motorless glider with little success, because
of lack of means for balancing the machines in the air, until he was
joined by a former employe of Dr. Langley. He appears to have imparted
to Mr. Chanute the secret of the stabilizing effect of the Penaud
tail, or combination of vertical and horizontal rudders. Thereafter
hundreds of successful gliding flights were made with the Chanute
biplane, though Chanute seems not to have grasped the full significance
of the rudders,--though it was well understood by Dr. Langley. To
the Chanute machine, as described to him, Mr. Wright added first the
idea of flexing or warping the wings, after the fashion set by the
Lilienthals. He found, however, as Dr. Langley had found years before,
that in attempting to correct lateral balance in this way caused the
aeroplane to swerve to such an extent that the fixed vertical rudder,
as originally employed, did not correct the upsetting tendency that was
developed. Mr. Wright then arranged his rudder in such a way that when
the wing was warped the rudder turned in a way to offset the swerve.
This combination was patented all over the world and has resulted in
much complicated litigation.
To this machine the Wright Brothers added a gasoline motor in December,
1903, and with it made numerous flights during 1904-5. Their claims
were not generally credited however until a later date for their
experiments had been conducted with considerable secrecy, and during
1906, 1907 and until late in 1908 they did no more flying.
In the meantime M. Bleriot had made a copy of one of the early Langley
tandem monoplane models and made some fairly successful flights with it
in Europe. Later, as gasoline motors developed in power for weight, he
reduced the rear surface until the modern monoplane evolved.
While Bleriot was working in Europe, Dr. Bell’s Aerial Experiment
Association in America was evolving still another type of machine, and
the members of the association made the first successful public flights
in America. Mr. Curtiss won the Scientific American Trophy for the
first time on July 4th, 1908, by a straightaway flight of more than a
kilometer. The balancing system employed by the A. E. A. differed from
that employed by the Wrights and by Bleriot in that small auxiliary
planes took the place of warping planes for righting the machine. This
they claimed to be a superior method, first, because it eliminated the
use of the rudder as being absolutely essential to the balance of the
machine; second, because it enabled them to make the main planes rigid
throughout, and consequently stronger than the flexible planes.
There are several other names that must be mentioned in connection
with the early history of successful flight; these are the Frenchmen,
Messrs. Henri Farman, Maurice Farman, the brothers Voisin, and Santos
Dumont. These produced some of the first notably successful aeroplanes
in Europe but seem to have discovered nothing which has had any marked
effect upon the later development of flying machines. M. Farman adopted
the auxiliary planes used by the A. E. A. and modified them to suit his
ideas.
~WONDERFUL RECORDS OF AEROPLANES~
Volumes could be, in fact, have been written about the exploits of
the first demonstrators of the practical heavier-than-air flying
machines,--of the crossing of the English Channel by Bleriot, of the
flights by Wilbur Wright at Rheims, France; of Mr. Curtiss’ winning of
the first Gordon Bennet International speed trophy and his flight down
the Hudson from Albany to New York; of Orville Wright’s flight at Fort
Meyer, and the death of Lieut. Selfridge who was flying with him. The
barest record of these interesting accomplishments would fill volumes.
Of the aeroplane proper it is enough to say here that since 1908 its
development has been too rapid for accurate recording. In strength, in
speed, in reliability, in size and carrying capacity, it has developed
at a remarkable rate. At this writing the speed record is about 130
miles per hour; the duration record is more than 24 hours, non-stop;
the distance record is some 1,300 miles in one day; the altitude record
some 26,000 feet. New records succeed the old ones with such rapidity
that probably before this can be printed all these present records will
have been greatly eclipsed.
[Illustration: