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Path of aerodrome flights, May 6 and November 28, 1896, near Quantico, Va., on the Potomac River – Historic Print

Path of aerodrome flights, May 6 and November 28, 1896, near Quantico, Va., on the Potomac River, [published 1911] — historic print
Path of aerodrome flights, May 6 and November 28, 1896, near Quantico, Va., on the Potomac River, [published 1911]. Historic print from the Ballooning collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This historic print of Path of aerodrome flights, May 6 and November 28, 1896, near Quantico, Va., on the Potomac River brings a moment of history to your wall. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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Path of aerodrome flights, May 6 and November 28, 1896, near Quantico, Va., on the Potomac River

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This diagram traces the flight paths of Samuel Langley's steam-powered aerodrome, an unpiloted model aircraft, on May 6 and November 28, 1896, over the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia. Langley, then secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, launched the machine from a houseboat, and the May flight is widely regarded as the first sustained, powered, unmanned flight of a heavier-than-air machine. The plate appeared in 1911 as plate 19 of the Smithsonian's memoir on Langley's mechanical flight work, published after his death in 1906. Its mapped routes show the aircraft's course over the water, which helps explain both the promise and the setbacks of his experiments.

Created / published[published 1911]
Medium1 print.
GenreDiagrams 1910-1920.Periodical illustrations 1910-1920.Prints 1910-1920.
NotesIllus. in: Smithsonion contributions to knowledge, vol. 27, no. 3. Langley memoir on mechanical flight. Part 1. 1887 to 1896 / Washington : Smithsonian Institution, 1911, by Samuel Pierpont Langley. pl. 19.
SubjectsAeronautics--1910-1920.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,096 × 3,269 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-179524

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