The Saint Paul globe., 1897-06-06
A PRACTICAL FLYING MACHINE.

hour.
A PRACTICAL FLYING MACHINE.
The question asked of himself by the
youthful Darius Green has never
ceased to bother mankind. The scien-
tist as we'll as the crank has been
curious to know why, if birds could
fly, the master Of created beings could
not accomplish the trick. Now the an
swer Of science, as to the reason man
cannot fly, is that he can If he will
only go about it in the right way, and
science speaks with the yioce of Prof.
Langley, of the Smithsonian institute,
who has devoted a large portion Of
his life to the problem of aerial nav
igation. To Prof. Langley heavens
filled with commerce. are but a mat
ter of patient experiment no longer
vague dream, and he sees no reason
why pilots of the purple twilight"
should not, before many years, be in
cluded in the classified lists of wage
earnerS embodied in the census reports.
In word, Prof Langley has succeed
ed in constructing a flying machine
that will fly, and an account of his ex-
periments, his failures and his ulti-
mate success forms the basis of a most
| interesting magazine article of the cur
rent month. 1t is stripped of all tech
nlcalities, and no one reading it can
fail to agree with him that navigation
of the air is practicable and so far ac-
complished that only patience is need
ed to apply the method to practical use.
The principle Of the Langley aero
drome-air runner-is that which ena-
bles the skater to glide over thin ice
without breaking through In it's ele-
ments the truth which he has estab-
lished is that a plane surface, suffi-
cient speed given, will, in effect, sus-
tain itself in horizontal fight and can
be moved forward with a surprisingly
small expenditure of energy. This had
been proved by mathematicians to be
an absurdity; but, unfortunately for
the exact science of figures, the facts
were against them, and when he had
demonstrated the truth by a series of
! painstaking and practical experiments,
Prof. Langley took it as the basis of
| his work. His problem was to construct
machine that would afford the neces-
sary plane surface resistance and COM
bine rigidity with lightness In the con-
struction he followed the method of the
deacon with his one-horse chaise, and
when a weak spot was found it was
made ''just as strong as the rest" The
| story Of how the machine was eyoIy-
| ed, and to it was added the power, also
combining the greatest possible utility
with the least possible weight reads
like fairy tale Of science, not the least
| interesting part of which is the effort
that was necessary to supply the crea-
ture of steel tubing and canvas wings
the intelligence which would enable it
| to balance itself automatically while
in flight. In the end the desired object
was attained, and the problem now be-
fore those who would fly is no longer.
is such a thing possible, but by what
means the greatest practical results are
to be achieved.
Prof Langley is not a dreamer and
in his description of his efforts he stops
short at what he has accomplished and
| deVotes no space to the WOndrous pos
sibilities Of his work In this he sets
an example which the average reader
will not follow. The temptation is too
alluring to be resisted, and no one who
follows the story Of the patient en-
deavor will stop without at least a
thought of the time when the air run
ner will be matter of utility and not
of wonder. Be it near or far, that time
certainly seems to be approaching 1t
| requires but slight effort of the imag
ination to look forward to the day when
the airship, flashing it's red and green
light, will no longer arouse skepticism
| and ridicule. but will be accepted with
! the steamship, the telegraph and the
! railway as a matter Of commonest ne
cessity. The aerodrome of Prof Lang
| ley, incomplete machine though it is.
! is triumph of science and promises a
realization of the dream which has
been in the minds of men since the
day when the laws of motion and re-
sistance began to engage attention.
| The jeer of today is at the idea that
will be lauded tomorrow When the
paragraphers Of the country were aim
| ing their shafts of wit at the airship
of fiction, the description that would
| give the general public it's first accurate
knowledge Of a successful experiment in
aerial flight was on the press. The
wit who jeered at the airship may
live to see it common necessity Of
| his Iife. os
| I'm PROCESS OF ADJUSTMENT.
Curiously illustrative Of both the in
| terfering, meddling disposition Of men
acting in legislative capacity, and Of
| that other, fortunate disposition Of ma
| ture and human nature to adjust itself
| to changes in the routine Of affairs, Is
the treatment accorded the irruption OF
| the wheel in its latest form, the "safe-
! ty." The name i'll accords with the
| apparent conception of it by portions
Of the public and by all their repre-
sentatives. To them it is an imple-
'mnnf Of I1nSafetv tO hlr h aItarod ap5