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Updated: May 20, 2025
And folks laughed at Santos Dumont, at the Wrights, and at all the other fellows, who said they could take a heavier-than-air machine, and skim above the clouds like a bird; but we do it I've done it you've done it." "Hold on, Tom!" protested Mr. Swift. "I give up! Don't rub it in on your old dad.
In November, 1906, nearly the whole civilized world was astonished to read that a rich young Brazilian aeronaut, residing in France, had actually succeeded in making a short flight, or, shall we say, an enormous "hop", in a heavier-than-air machine. This pioneer of aviation was M. Santos Dumont.
By speed in this connection is not meant high velocity, but that a movement, produced by power expressed in some form, is the sole and most necessary requisite to movement through the air with all heavier-than-air machines.
If we come down to the mythology of more recent times we find our pious ancestors in New England thoroughly convinced that the witches they flogged and hanged were perfectly able to navigate the air on a broomstick thus antedating the Wrights' experiments with heavier-than-air machines by more than 250 years.
Moreover, the French military authorities evinced a certain disposition to relegate the dirigible to a minor position, convinced that it had been superseded by the heavier-than-air machine.
Ahead firing only is possible; the weapon cannot be trained astern, while similarly the line of fire on either broadside is severely limited. This is one reason why the machine-gun armament of aerial craft of the heavier-than-air type has not undergone extensive development.
This was in the closing days of the French monarchy, and the ascent of the Montgolfiers' first hot-air balloon in 1783 which shall be told more fully in its place put an end to all French experiments with heavier-than-air apparatus, though in England the genius of Cayley was about to bud, and even in France there were those who understood that ballooning was not true flight.
It must not be supposed that the invention of the steerable balloon was greatly in advance of that of the heavier-than-air machine. Indeed, developments in both the dirigible airship and the aeroplane have taken place side by side. In some cases men like Santos Dumont have given earnest attention to both forms of air-craft, and produced practical results with both.
The endless traffic of a main highroad behind the lines passes the station day and night. Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the airships, pinning her aëronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines.
The great difference, of course, between the airplane and the airship is that the former sustains itself as a heavier-than-air vessel by the lifting power of the air in relation to a body driven hard against it by its powerful engines, while the latter sustains itself as a lighter-than-air body because of the large amount of air displaced by a huge envelop loaded with gas much lighter than the air itself.
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