Every American must feel a glow of pride when he stops to think that it was two of his fellow-countrymen, Wilbur and Orville Wright, who invented the airplane. But it is largely to France, our great ally and friend, that the credit must go for improving upon the invention of the Wrights, and making possible the wonderful aerial feats, the marvelous flights and accomplishments of the airplane of to-day. From the first day they saw an airplane flown, the French were wildly enthusiastic. They gave freely of their money and their encouragement to help the good cause along. French inventors attacked the problems of the heavier-than-air machine with a will, and their unfailing determination and refusal to accept defeat or failure made final victory inevitable. But before we could have the powerful fighting machines, the big cross country fliers and the seaplanes of to-day, there were many difficulties of construction which had to be met and solved. First of all the pioneer designer had to choose between the monoplane, the biplane and the triplane. The monoplane was light in weight and could fly faster with the same powered engine than the biplane. But it was difficult to know just how to brace and strengthen the single pair of wings. In the biplane the struts between the wings gave strength and firmness. The wings of the monoplane were braced by wires to the body, but often they did not prove strong enough and the airplane collapsed in mid-air. In spite of this danger the monoplane was much in favor because of its speed. Slower in speed, but stronger and a better weight lifter was the biplane. And in addition to strength it possessed more natural stability, a much sought after quality in the pioneer days. Even more stable and with greater lifting powers than the biplane was the triplane, but the difficulty here was the lack of an airplane motor of sufficient strength to drive it. Until clever engineers came to the rescue with an improved aircraft motor, the triplane was very much in disfavor. The monoplane, indeed, captured most of the early records for speed and it was this type of machine that was generally built by the sportsman type of airman, while men like the Wright brothers and others whose aim was to develop an airplane of unusual reliability and suited to many purposes, turned to the biplane and gave many hours and months and years of their time to its improvement.