Evening star., 1911-08-20
PIONEER OF THE AIR
Memoir of Prof. S. P. Langley
Is Finally Published.
BLAZED WAY FOR OTHERS
Came Close to Success After Years
of Patient Labor.
ROOSEVELT ASKED MACHINE
Construction of Man-Carrier for Use
in Spanish War Attempted for
Navy Department.

the present development of human flight.
The memoir is in two volumes, the first
BY Prof Langley himself, detailing the
work up to the close OF the experimental
period when the first steam driven model
was flown. This was May 6. 1896. The
second volume is the work of Charles
! Manley, Prof. Langley's chief assistant,
who designed and in a large part built
to have driven the man-carrring machine
/! built for the War Department. Both sec
tions of the work are rather technical.
and while of great interest to the modern
aviator and the follower of aerial de-
yelopment, they do not pretend to give
any of the human interest features that
| make the story SO Intensely dramatic
Won Little Recognition.
Readers of the books are commenting
that 1t is really remarkable that Prof
Langley. being the pioneer in human
flight has received so little recogni-
ton for his labors After the first OF
his steam-driven models was flown
popular magazine secureu from him a
story of that part Of his work This was
the only printed account of the work
published till after his death, with the
single exception of an authoritative ac-
count of the machines performance writ
ten under Prof. Langleys guidance and
published in The Star December Il. 1896
What is regarded as an equally re-
markable fact is that the development OF
mechanical flight after proceeding SO
far was laid aside after Prof. Langley
model was flown, and nothing more was
done till the flights of the Wright broth
ers in 19OS-04, attracted the attention OF
the world.
The memoir deals in large part with ex-
periments and their results that are now
accepted as matter of course facts. All
the time they were made, however they
were the first steps of great scientist
cropping blindly in the dark. They Illus
trate to nicely the cynical reference
that Prof. Langley afterward made tc
this stage of his experiments.
Stages of Development.
He said: 1T has taken me. indeed bu,
few years to pass through the stages
where an investigator is told that his al
legged observation was mistake; when
he is told that. if it were true, il would
be useless, and when he is told that 1t is
undoubtedly true, but that it has always
been known"
The volume deals with the principles on
which mechanical flight was founded
principles that were regarded as fantastic
speculation at the time, but that have
since been accepted as truisms. Having
secured a grasp of these elements, Prof.
Langley then started in to build a
| heavier -than-air flying machine. the first
that had ever been built anywhere. Up
flying machine was the ingenious paper
toy of Penaud, the French experimenter,
and this driven as 1t was by rubber
bands would support itself in the air for
less than ten seconds.
Prof Langley undertook to build a
larger machine not for the ostentatious
satisfaction of proving the theories on
which he had been working. but because
he said it was impossible to learn more
about the principles OF night ah W:.hoG, !,
was almost impossible to get flight with
out knowing more about the principles,
SO he felt confined in a vicious circle
from which there was little hope of es-
cape.
Built Remarkable Engine.
However. he started in 1892 building
the first of his steam driven machines.
He did it, But those three little words
encompass the history OF four years of
heartbreaking work. The problem
was difficult and discouraging in more
than one way lie was an old man at
the time and had no more than
casual knowledge Of steam engineer
ing There was literature in plenty,
but there might almost as we'll have
been none for all the help it was
Steam engines then were rated fairly
light at 500 pounds to the horsepower
But he wanted one just about one
one -hundredth Of the weight He
aimed to build such an engine as had
never been built before and practical
engineers told him it was impossible.
Finally he built an engine that
weighed twenty-three ounces His
whole power plant that included the
boiler and furnace with gasoline fuel
weighed seven pounds and developed
one and a quarter horse power. But
this success was won a vast expense
Of nervous energy. He was working
in secret all the time for fear of ridi-
cule, which hurt him worse than seri-
and as many blast lamps were made
and discarded before he got a combi-
nation that would raise 10 pounds OF
steam and keep it up In the mean
time he had built and discarded five
machines before he succeeded in max
ing one theoretically light and pow
erful enough TO fly.
At the end of all, when machine and
power plant both We're completed. came
the problem Of launching. This proved
almost an absolute stumbling block. His
experiment station was at Widewa ter,
Va. point selected for physical rea sons
and 10 escape objectionable publicity. 1t
was thirty miles from Washington. and
1
day However, a launching device was
installed after a total of twenty trips
spread over two years of constant work
and discouraging failure.
First Flight Of Machine.
At the end. May 26, 1896. the first OF
these experimental machines flew. 1t was
a model with thirteen-foot spread of
wings and weighed thirty pounds 1t
| flew half mile at the first successful
launch and afterward increased this DIS
tance to almost mile. 1t was not
| flown in high winds, but in a wind UP to
| twelve miles an hour it flew, circled and
rose to a height of some hundred feet
without a guiding hand on board. Thus
| at the end of practically fourteen years OF
work the problem of mechanical fight
| was solved. demonstrated. as Prof Lang
| ley said, "in the only satisfactory way,
| by a machine really flying.
But apparently the world was not yet
ripe for artificial flight. There were men
all over the world working at the prob
| lem. as they had worked in all ages.
| But though the news of these flights
was transmitted 10 the French Academy