The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-13

wrong estimate had been made as
70 the force needed to sustain moving
bodies IN the air. Sone mathematic-
ians, reasoning from false data, had
concluded that If it took certain
amount OF power to keep thing from
railing, 1t would take much additional
power to make 1t advance My expert
ments showed Just the reverse. I
round that 1t took much less force to
push body rapidly through the air
than was needed to simply sustain 1t
there. l found, in short, that the con-
dit1ons of air travel with my planes
ana OF land and sea travel were in
one important respect the opposites of
one another. An ocean steamer run
ming at twenty knots an hour will take
several times as much coal as is re-
CURED to run 1t at thegr rate Of ten knots
an hour. The nnaited, express uses
great deal more coal than the slow
freight Tor the same weight and dis
lance This Is not so in aerial flight
with planes. actual experiment
SHOWS, 1 repeat, that the faster the
speed the less the force required to
sustain the planes, and that it would
cost less to transport such planes
through the air at a. high rate of speed
than at low one. / found further
that one horsepower could carry brass
plates weighing 200 pounds at the rate
1900 SAAeSAA LII ~ illllCS Oil uOuT III
horizontal flight Everything, how
ever, depended upon the flight being
strictly horizontal r found that if
1t were the least irregular the power
must be Increased in proportion to
the irregularity."
A TEN YEARS SEARCH.
1T must have been interesting, Mr.
Langley" said 1.
1t was interesting" replied Mr.
Langley, but so far it had been con-
ducive to no practical results. 1 had
been working, now for years, seeking
to learn the principles involved in
flight. I thought / discovered some
of them. The field, you know, was en-
t1rely new. l had to make, and to a
large extent invent, the machinery I
used. My experiments showed me that
must have very light engine; but
they did not tell me how to get It, They
ala not show me how to keep the flight
horizontal, nor did they give me any
idea how such a machine as I might
construct could be made to start and
alight In safety. There were a number
OF other things which I should have
liked to know, and some Of which I
still hope to learn which were entirely
In the dark. AS the result of my
work had some extremely important
ana valuable facts, but my experiments
SO far had not told me how to apply
those facts to the making of machines
for flying. / had only the conviction
that what had hitherto been an i'm
possible fancy might in the future be-
come a mechanical fact, I could see
at any rate, from what I had learned,
that the subject was worth q new
and scientific Investigation
RUBBER MOTORS.
How did you go about the work of
applying your facts ?" said I.
Il next began very different kind
OF experiments" replied Mr.. Langley.
The average man might have looked
upon my next work as something child
1sh. spent many hours In expert
menting upon little toys, which / tried
to make actually fly. had my facts.
you know, and 1 wanted to see how
they would work out in actual prac-
tice. The only thing that had yet been
done in making toys or anything that
would fly was by an ingenious French
man, named Penaud, who, a decade or
more ago, had made a flying toy by
twisting strands Of rubber, which, in
untW1sting, turned g. little propeller
wheel made of a couple of feathers.
The propellers moved the toy forward.
They kept 1t in the air for a number
OF seconds, enabling it to fly from fifty
to 100 feet. Simple as this toy looked,
1T was the father of future flying
machine, and France. ought to have
the credit of it, I tried the same thing
again and again on, a larger scale, my
object being to learn what the con-
ditions were by which, we could secure
horizontal flight In free air."
What did you find2"
Il did not find out a great deal The
rubber models flew SO irregularly and
for so short a time that could not
learn much from them. 1 soon saw
fhof r HOY !,
er. / must have something that would
make machine fly long enough for
me to observe how 1t flew. In. other
words, in order to learn how to make
a flying machine I must have a flying
machine to begin with.
THE STEAM ENGINE.
81 examined and experimental on
every kind of a motor" Mr., Langley
went on. II tried compressed air, car
bonic acid gas, the storage battery
the primary battery and many other
things, including the gas engine. The
last was the most promising, and it
may some day prove to be the best;
but like everything else 1 found it too
heavy, for you see the engine had to
be exceedingly light In proportion to
the power. After much experiment
Of this kind l concluded that the only
immediate hope was in the steam en-
CINE, and that 1t could only be used
provided 1t could be built to a degree
of Iightness which had hitherto never
been attained. l had to have nearly
one horse power to give me a good
chance for any practical experiment.
Now, 1t is only few years since an
engine developing this amount of pow
er weighed as much as a horse him
self. In other words, 1t weighed some
thing like 1000 pounds 1 had to have
one horse power engine and boiler
which together would weigh less than
ten pounds, or one-hundredth the
weight of a horse, and I at once went
to work to make it. 1t took me q year
to construct it, and 1 had the best of
mechanics to help me. I reduced the
rebuilding, until now / have what I
believe to be the smallest one horse
power engine in the world. Its moving
parts, as | told you, weigh just TWEEN
ty-six ounces, or less than two pounds
AS it was with the engine, so 1t has
been with every part of the machine
Every part Of it has had to be made
over and over again, auntil, as the re-
suit OF the greater part Of my leisure
Tor the past fifteen years, have ac-
compl1shed what you have seen today"
FLYING MACHINES OF FUTURE.
Eyes, Mr.. Langley" said T. that is
true, you have worked, but you have
succeeded n
Yes" replied Mr.. Langley, Il have
succeeded. I have proved both theo-
retically and practically that ma
chimes can be a, made which will
travel through the air. The ques-
ton Of the development of the fact
is one OF the future. My motive and
interest in the work up to this time
have been purely scientific ones, but If