Abstract
EXPERIMENTS made in May last, at Hammorideport, U.S.A., recall the great share which Prof. S; P. Langley had in the development of aviation, the occasion being the testing of a power-driven man-carrying aeroplane designed and constructed by Langley many years ago. The aeroplane was completed in 1903, and in September and December of that year two attempts were made to launch it from the top of a house-boat on the Potomac River, but owing to defective apparatus the aeroplane and pilot fell into the river. The experiments were discontinued owing to lack of financial support, and the rescued flying machine was carefully cleaned and preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. Now, eleven years later, with floats added to replace the launching apparatus, actual flight has been obtained on the aeroplane substantially as designed except for the floats. The engine weighed only 125 lbs., and actually developed 52 horse-power, a. relation of weight to horse-power roughly equivalent to that of the first successful Gnome engine.
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The Langley Flying Machine . Nature 93, 564 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093564a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093564a0