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[[image]] ORVILLE WRIGHT

[[image]] M SANTOS-DUMONT'S AEROPLANE "BIRD OF PREY" WHICH ACTUALLY DID FLY

[[image]] ONE OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS NI A FLIGHT IN A GLIDING MACHINE

[[image]] THE BLERIOT HYDROPLANE

[[image]] [[?]]

[[image]] [[?]] LA [[?]]

Children of some future generation may read in their school histories some such entry as this:

1907 - First practical airship invented and tested in actual flights by two young Americans, the Wright brothers of Dayton, O.

There are many clever students of aerial navigation - possibly this applies more to foreigners than to Americans - who believe that the two Ohio men have come nearer to producing a flying machine that will fly than any others have done. Gen. sir Baden-Powell is one of these. He declares that the Wrights have already surpassed the best achievements of Santos-Dumont - and they have not been at it as long as the Brazilian.

"We shall not have any balloons in the future. We shall have flying machines. The flying machine is heavier than air, just as the birds are. There are no balloons in nature." - Sir Hiram Maxim. 

Owing to the secrecy that the Wright brothers have always observed in connection with their trials and their inventions, men prominent in the science of aeronautics had been led to cast grave [[cutoff]] that Patrick [[cutoff]] der, an English Scientist, visited the Wrights' workshop at Dayton and saw one of the flights of their aeroplane.

Men of the highest standing in the business community of Dayton have asserted that on Oct. 5, 1905, one of the Wright brothers made a flight of 24 miles in his aeroplane. As the best that has been accomplished by any other inventor was a flight of 225 yards by Santos-Dumont in his bird of Prey at the Bagatelle trials last autumn[?] the Wright brothers' achievement easily earns for then the front place in the ranks of [[?]] navigation [[?]] that the statements of the witnesses [to] the trials are true.

[[cutoff]] from [[cutoff]] to 38 minutes [[cutoff]] the Dayton inventors. Those [[cutoff]] say that [[?]] driver of the [[cutoff]] have [[?]] control of [[cutoff]]. [[cutoff]] air [[?]] did not [[?]] [[cutoff]] of the aeroplane. [[cutoff]] [[?]] were circled, [[cutoff]] were gone over in [[cutoff]] direction, and the inventors were able to bring their contrivance [[cutoff]] without any [[cutoff]] difficulty or any [[cutoff]] something that has [[cutoff]]other inventors [[cutoff]] almost as [[cutoff]]as the problem of ascent.

Why all this secrecy concerning their invention if it can do all that they claim for it? [[cutoff]] the comment Santos-Dumont has [[cutoff]] claims, and he has challenged them [[cutoff]] for the prize of $50,000 offered by [[cutoff]] Daily Mail to the owner of the first [[cutoff]] shall travel from London to [[?]] distance of 185 miles. The Wright Brothers are poor men, and they do not [[cutoff]] challenge, their friends say, [[cutoff]] they hope to sell their invention for a [[cutoff]] a foreign government. It is generally [[cutoff]] that their contract is with the French [[cutoff]] the British government, and were the secret of their invention to be divulged, as would necessarily happen if they engaged in a public competition, then the contract would be void. At [[cutoff]] Wrights are abroad, engaged in [[cutoff]] in regard to their aeroplane and [[?]] up ideas for future use.

[[?]] descriptions given by eye witnesses of the flight in 1905, the Wright machine consists of two parallel surfaces about 30 feet long and six feet wide, with the frames strongly supported by trusses. In front is a rudder six feet square, by turning which the aeroplane is directed either upward or downward; and the rudder makes such a wide swing on its axis that considerable stability is insured to the machine. A small rudder is set at the rear, vertically between two propellers, [[?]] it is this rudder that guides the aeroplane wherever [[?]] inventor would go. The propellers are of wood and have only two blades, with a diameter of about three feet each. The whole contrivance weighs only 925 pounds [[cutoff]] motor of 25 horsepower.

To rise without accident from the ground has proved a stumbling block to many inventors. In order to accomplish this initial feat the Wrights constructed a single-rail track. The aeroplane rests on a truck before the ascent, and the truck is started by momentum given by the fall of a heavy weight from the top of a derrick. After running 30 feet, the aeroplane has gathered sufficient momentum to breast the atmosphere, and leaves the truck for its flight. The inventors say that a speed of 25 miles an hour will sustain the flight of their machine.

But there are other experiments being conducted in America toward the solution of aerial navigation just as important as those of the Wright brothers and Santos-Dumont, even if they have not attracted the same attention from the public. Proj. Bell of Washington, the inventor of the telephone, achieved a theoretical night with an airship that he himself likens to a flock of birds harnessed to carry among them weight of motors and operators - a large number of small kites joined together into [[cutoff]] each of a [[cutoff]]

A Capt. [[cutoff]] has the use [[cutoff]] vice [[?]] by [[cutoff]] succeeded in [[cutoff]] [[?]] a wire [[cutoff]] power [[cutoff]] but [[?]] the [[cutoff]] be has yet been[[cutoff]]

In [[?]][[cutoff]] Franklin, who [[cutoff]] an [[cutoff]]; [[cutoff]] [[?]][[cutoff]] at [[cutoff]] [[?]] and host [[cutoff]] Santos-Dumont, [[cutoff]] [[?]] of Germany and [[cutoff]] investors [[?]] doing the[[cutoff]] towards [[?]] accomplishments [[cutoff]]

[[?]] Mzolfier's [[cutoff]] launched in 83 and Dr. [[cutoff]] [[?]] his [[?]] of the [[cutoff]] balloon in [[?]]