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In 1906, A Santos Dumont, after a number of successful experiments with dirigible cigar shaped gas balloons, completed an aeroplane flying machine. It consisted of the following parts: a) A system of aeroplanes arranged like the capital letter T at a certain upward angle to the horizon and bearing a general resemblance to box kites: b) a pair of very light propellers driven at high speed; and c) an exceedingly light and powerful petrol engine. The driver occupied a position in the centre of the arrangement, which is show in figure 52. The machine was furnished with two wheels and vertical supports which depended from the anterior parts of the aeroplanes and supported it when it touched the ground on either side. With this apparatus he traversed on the 12th of November 1906 a distance of 220 meters in 21 seconds.
About a year later Henry Farman made several short flights on a machine of the biplane type, consisting of two main supporting surfaces one above the other, and a box shaped vertical rudder behind and two small balancing aeroplanes in front. The engine was an eight cylinder Antoinette petrol motor developing 49 horse power at 1100 revolutions a minute and driving directly a single metal screw propeller. One the 27th of October 1906 he flew a distance of nearly half a mile at Issy les Molineaux, and on the 13th of January 1908 he made a circular flight of one kilometer, thereby winning the Deutsch Archdeacon prize of $2,000. In March he remained in the air for 3 and ½ minutes, covering a distance of 1 and ¼ miles, but in the following month a rival, Leon Delagrange, using the same machine made by the same people, surpasses his performance by flying nearly 2 ½ miles in 6 ½ minutes. In July Farman remained in the air for over 20 minutes; on the 6th of September Delagrange increased that time to nearly 30 minutes. And on the 20th of the same month Farman again came in front with a flight lasting 42 minutes and extending over 24 ½ miles.
But the best results were obtained by the Wright Brothers, Orville Wright in America and Wilbur Wright in France. On the 9th of September 1908 the former, at Fort Myer, Virginia, made three notable flights; in the first he remained in the air 57 ½ minutes and in the second 1 hour and 3 minutes, while in the third he took with him a passenger and covered nearly 4 miles in 6 minutes. Three days later he made a flight of 45 miles in one hour 14 1/3 minutes and on the 17th he had an accident (one of his propellers coming into contact with a stay) by which his machine was wrecked, himself seriously injured. And Lieutenant Selfridge, who was with him, killed. Four days after, Wilbur Wright at Le Mans in France beat all previous records with a flight lasting 1 hour 31 minutes, 25 seconds, in which he covered 56 miles. And subsequently on the 11th of October he made a flight of 1 hour 9 minutes accompanied by a passenger. On the 31st of December he succeeded in remaining in the air 2 hours, 20 minutes, 23 seconds.
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