The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-30
FIRST AIRCRAFT
 MEMORIAL T0ITS MAKER AT CAPITAL
Rescued From Lake Keuka, N. Y. and Sent to Smith
 sOnian Institute.

ing machine ever built, has just come back to Washington from Lake Ken- ka,eN. Y,, where it demonstrated a few weeks ago that it was able to fly though, alas!. it's inventor was not alive to see it in the air.
 People say that he died of a broken heart, because of it's failure. But the artificial bird which he construct ed.r5 and which will henceforth float aloft Suspended by wires) in great -sa1l of the National Museum, is the best possible memorial of his genius.
 Of peculiar interest just at CSesent is the fact that the building Of this machine was made practicable by an expectation on the part of our gov ernment that it would be useful for war purposes. It was the war de- partment that provided the money for it's construction, away back in the earliest nineties. That 1t, failed 10 fiy on the occasion of it's first trial IS now known to have been due merely to an unlucky accident.
 ! MT. Langley, by the way Che was then secretary of the Smithsonian ln- stitution), had previously built a small model aeroplane on the same lines which, run, by steam, flew more than a mile. That was in lS90. It was hardly more than a toy, or course. but undeniab1y it demonstrat- ed his theory of flight.
 The Langley flying machine, which, nofwith standing it's accidental failure in 1903, took and kept the air success fully at Lake Keuka the other day. does not much resemble any modern tyne. It might be called double monoplane. having two pairs of wings i arranged tandem fashion. One might saw that it looks more like gigantic insect than a bird-though so to de- i scribe it would be far from accur- ate.s
 Langley. so far as his theories re- 1ating to human flight were concern ed.sswas esteemed ''crank" even py other scientific men who often said that he had greatly compromised his ! otnerwise- high reputation by his pur- suif of this crazy notion. Even l 3 :; vesrs ago manaight and perpetual ,nofion were classed as twin delusions; { to believe in the possibility of either was evideAce of a screw loose
 But that very remarkable man had :; come ~to realize certain things which i were not properly understood by oth- ! er folks. and one of these was the fact that the atmosphere is much denser fluid than is commonly sup !. nosed.- A toy balloon blown up by . child is filled with air at a pressure of nrobably not more than two at : nnospheres yet it is in effect soJfd { and may be thumped with the list without disturbing to any great extent its srigidity.
 If. then, the fluid be so dense, why i should not man find a means or Hoat- ,, inc, 'ir, it? True, a man weighs about :! i 900 times as much as an equal bulk of air: but so likewise do birds, vetsthey can fly This was just where the proposition differed 3rad1cally from the perpetual motion idea. The latter is dead against a known physl- cal law; but the fact that birds can fly was proof enough that no sucn , law forbade swimming in the air eas fishes do in the seal. if the proper . apparatus were emplos ed.
 The problem was to furnish the , requisite apparatus, and, to get nlnts I5on this point, MT. Langley made ela- borate studies of birds and Of thelr methods of accomplishing flight. OI the latter there were only tWo-Ilap- ping and soaring, It seemed opvlous that soaring was for man the only nracticable method. MT. Langley found it illustrated by the eagle and man-o'war hawk, which sustain themselves in the air with only an oc- casional flap of their wings, opposing these featheredt planes to. the breeze for their support He built, in the Zoo park at Washington, skeleton Bower sixty feet high, from which to hbserve the kite-like flight of bug Yards as they passed by on balancing , opinions.
 It seemed manifest to him, how ever, that even in a dead calm, with no wind to help him, a man pro- vided with suitable wings, or soaring planes, could keep af1oat in the air, . if only he could go fast enough. Here, as we now know, he. hit upon the essential and correct idea. To illus trate, it, he quoted the lines:
 When swift Camilla SCOUTS the plain, Runs1 o'er the unbending corn, and
 flies along the main.
 To get the picture, one must under stands that the word "corn" refers Gas Europeans use it) to wheat. It is, then, an even and fairly continuous surface over which Camilla is sup posed. to run, dHu dS MIL ~tLduSl0y said, she could certainly do it if she ran fast enough.
 Here, in a word, is the principle on which the construction of the first ] flying machine was based. We know today how absolutely correct it was.
 The principal difficulty with which this remarkable inventor had to con- tend was that of obtaining a motor which would drive his flying machine fast enough to keep it afloat. He , did succeed in constructing such a : motor; but, the more recent develop ment of the automobile engine-in Langleys time, of course there were no automobiles-had placed at the service of the aerop1ane an equip ment for propulsion far surpassing in efficiency anything that he knew.
 When, not long ago, Glenn Cur tiss, who, together with the Wright brothers, may be said to nave pe- veloped the flying machine, so far as America is concerned, wrote to the present secretary of the Smithsonian institution, Dr. Walcott, saying, "I would like to put the Langley aero- plane into the air." nothing could be more natural than the pleasure with which Dr. Walcott gave his consent.
 The consent, indeed, was given in such terms as to allow MT. Curtiss utmost latitude in regard to the trials .ss should make. Dr. Wa1cott saiA that he might launch the Langley fly ing machine with it's own propulsive
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