Long before the Wrights first flew at Kitty Hawk military men realized the value of observation from the air, and balloons attached to cables had been used for that purpose in the Franco-Prussian and Boer wars for discovering the movement and disposition of troops. Clement Ader, however, was the first to succeed in securing an appropriation for the construction of a heavier-than-air machine which was to fly in any direction like a bird. In 1890 he induced the French Government to appropriate $100,000 for the construction of such an engine. After many experiments his machine failed to get off the ground, and in 1897, after seven years of hard work, the French Government refused to appropriate any more money. In 1905, however, as soon as the same government heard of the sustained manœuvred flight of 33 minutes, 17 seconds, done by the Wrights, they negotiated for the acquisition of the machine, provided it could attain a height of 3,000 feet. But at that time the Wrights had not flown over three hundred feet, nor risen above one hundred feet, and could not promise to fill the French requirements. The British Government had also given Sir Hiram Maxim an appropriation for constructing a flying-machine about the same time that the French Government was financing Ader. Maxim built one of the multiplane type, measuring 120 feet, equipped with two steam-engines of 170 horse-power and weighing 7,000 pounds, but like Ader’s experiment it never got off the ground. We have already noted the appropriations made by the United States Government to Samuel P. Langley for his aerodrome. It was the United States Government, upon the recommendation of President Theodore Roosevelt, which first ordered a military aeroplane in December, 1907, giving definite specifications for the same. The machine was required to carry two persons weighing 350 pounds and fuel enough for a 125-mile flight, with a speed of at least 40 miles per hour. The Wrights were the only persons to submit bids and they delivered a machine which Orville Wright flew at Fort Myer in September, 1908, making a new record of one hour, fourteen minutes, twenty seconds. An accident prevented the fulfilling of the two-passenger-carrying requirement. In August, 1909, however, the Wright biplane, with a wing spread of 40 feet and equipped with a 25 horse-power engine, flew one hour and twenty-three minutes with Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm as a passenger. The success of the Wrights naturally stimulated the French, Alberto Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian, who had experimented successfully with lighter-than-air craft, first circling the Eiffel Tower, while Louis Bleriot, the Voisin brothers, Captain Louis Ferber, Henry Farman, Leon brothers, Delagrange, and others began to experiment with aeroplanes.