Ferber’s chief contemporaries in France were Santos-Dumont,
of airship fame, Henri and Maurice Farman, Hubert Latham, Ernest
Archdeacon, and Delagrange. These are names that come at once to mind,
as does that of Bleriot, who accomplished the second great feat of
power-driven flight, but as a matter of fact the years 1903–10 are
filled with a little host of investigators and experimenters, many of
whom, although their names do not survive to any extent, are but a very
little way behind those mentioned here in enthusiasm and devotion.
Archdeacon and Gabriel Voisin, the former of whom took to heart the
success achieved by the Wright Brothers, co-operated in experiments
in gliding. Archdeacon constructed a glider in box-kite fashion, and
Voisin experimented with it on the Seine, the glider being towed by a
motor-boat to attain the necessary speed. It was Archdeacon who offered
a cup for the first straight flight of 200 metres, which was won by
Santos-Dumont, and he also combined with Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe in
giving the prize for the first circular flight of a mile, which was won
by Henry Farman on January 13th, 1908.
A history of the development of aviation in France in these, the
strenuous years, would fill volumes in itself. Bleriot was carrying
out experiments with a biplane glider on the Seine, and Robert
Esnault-Pelterie was working on the lines of the Wright Brothers,
bringing American practice to France. In America others besides the
Wrights had wakened to the possibilities of heavier-than-air flight;
Glenn Curtiss, in company with Dr Alexander Graham Bell, with J. A. D.
McCurdy, and with F. W. Baldwin, a Canadian engineer, formed the Aerial
Experiment Company, which built a number of aeroplanes, most famous of
which were the ‘June Bug,’ the ‘Red Wing’ and the ‘White Wing.’ In 1908
the ‘June Bug’ won a cup presented by the _Scientific American_--it was
the first prize offered in America in connection with aeroplane flight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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