The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-11
TUT IT nfbI1sr rEx.

Il "A bird t1i(t 4eh elix and won't sing
 must be made to sing" says the old pro- verb. Similarly. Prof. Langley appears
 to think that . machine which can fly
 and will not fiy must be made to fly. How to mako . success of the Job Is the
 problem that worries the expsrimsnters. Tn his latest model the Professor thought he had overcome all the di1icuIties. He had observed. as have all others. that a flying machine which has to bs lifted up
 and sustained by huge and cumbersome balloons offers faint hope of success.
 Sometimes the balloons burst and there is necessarily catastrophe. If this does
 not occur. the bulk of the balloon prac- ticaily places the machine at the mercy of aii the air currents and 1t is about as liable to travel in one direction as an- other. The abiest scientist of them all, while he is on the earth, cannot always tell what direction the upper air cur rents are following. or how strong they are. nor at what moment they may change. Hence the machines come to grief.
 Professor Lansiey;s machine was theo- retically designed to avoid all these dis advantages. By a system of wings and aeroplanes it was intended that when the machine was set in motion and the pro- pelier started to work the ship would 10 forward. up or down as the aeroplanes were inclined upward or downward. just as card, when propelled forward with the front end highest. will sail upward
 An inclined plane was prepared, down which the machine was to shoot with
 great velocity which would give 1t such . start upward and forward that 1t would continue its flight. just as buzsard might do.
 It was fine and plausible theory but.
 as too frequently happens. theory and practice failed to connect. The machine
 shot down the inclined plane, rose into
 the air. described graceful curve and
 dived into the Potomac river. Its rider,
 Prof. Maniey. had fortunately provided
 himself with a cork jacket and got off
 with nothing worse than a good wetting Of course he has plenty of explanations l for the failure. all of which may be more 1 or less plausible. but the fact remains that the bird refused to fly.
 Thus another snuch-heraided and fond | ly bslieved-in experiment has failed. As
 stated. Prof. Manley. the assistant of
 Prof. Langley. explains the failure. but whether his explanation wiil satisfy any body is the question. And another ques- ton, only to besdecided by future trials, is whether the next attempt will be more successful. There win be enthusiasts on
 the subject as there have been for cen turies. but enthusiasm doesn't propei air ships. Some day all the difiiculties may be overcome and men win fly through
 the air as birds do. but when? As The
 New York Times reasons:
 The bird that wants to fly and feels the
 need of flight tries to fly. and keeps on | trying until it can fly as well as 1t needs | to. The machine does only what it must | do in obedience to natural laws acting on i passive matter. Hence, if 1t requires, say,
 , thousand years to fit for easy flight a
 wings. or ten thousand for one which
 started with no wings at all and had to
 sprout them ab initio, it might be as-
 stunned that the flying machine which will
 really fly might be evolved by the com bined and continuous efforts of mathe- maticians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years-provided, of course. we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and endorsements as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials. No doubt the problem has attractions far those 1t interests, but to the ordinary man 1t would seem as if effort might be em- ployed moro profitably.