CHAPTER II

. The Aeroplane and the Airship. pp. 67-109

The Wrights improve their machine, and practise it in many flights over Huffman Prairie. Indifference of the neighbouring farmers; and of American, French, and British Governments. Wilbur Wright's visit to France, 1908. Record flights. Struggle to secure patents. Death of Wilbur Wright.

European pioneers. Ellehammer. German airships and French aeroplanes. Mr. Haldane's prophecy. French airship experiments. Successful voyage of _La France_, 1884. German airships of Woelfert and Schwarz. Brutality of the crowd. Alberto Santos Dumont; his airships. Controversy on the rotary principle. Santos Dumont's successes. Disasters to the airships of Severo and Bradsky. Count von Zeppelin. His first airship. Advantages and disadvantages of the rigid type. Early trials. List of pre-war Zeppelins. Wrecks and progress. Parseval airships. Schuette-Lanz airships. French aviation. Captain F. Ferber. The Antoinette engine. The Voisins. Delagrange, Farman, Bleriot, Esnault-Pelterie. First aeroplane flight over French soil by Santos Dumont. Diverse experiments. French improvements. The monoplane. Tractors and pushers. Ailerons. Centralized control. The wheeled undercarriage. The horizontal tail-plane. Early French flights. Wilbur Wright at Le Mans. Competitions and prizes. Bleriot's cross-Channel flight. Grahame-White and Paulhan. Glenn Curtiss. The _Circuit de l'Est_. Aviation meetings. The Champagne week. The Gnome engine. Blackpool and Doncaster. Chavez flies across the Alps. Record-making and record-breaking.

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