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Page 23 text:
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THE REDWOOD. tial elements of safe and prolonged mechanical flight, used in public aero- nautical performances in Europe and America during the last seven years, comprehend the great problem which, I contend, was originally solved by Montgomery ; and to this western phy- sicist and mathematician, I believe, the impartial viewer will find, is primarily due the honor, not only of discovering, but of first practically demonstrating by physical experiments, the basic prin- ciples of aerial navigation. Born in California in 1858, the son of Hon. Zachary Montgomery, Assistant Attorney-General of the United States under Grover Cleveland ' s first admin- istration, this aeronautical scientist was in 1879 graduated from St. Ignatius College, San Francisco, thoroughly equipped for his chosen career. His early studies of bird-flight and wing- formation, and his numerous experi- ments with original soaring devices, earned the enthusiastic admiration of the brilliant Octave Chanute, who in later years expressed an ardent desire to experiment conjointly with Mont- gomery on the latter ' s farm at San Diego. At the International Conference of Aeronautical Scientists in Chicago dur- ing the world ' s Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Californian pi oclaimed new principles of human flight, to the utter amazement of the older scientists whose theories he assailed. Montgomery was a man of striking personality. His massive head, bald to the ears, sat firmly on immense broad shoulders, while his strong face, with its square jaw, resolute mouth, com- bative nose, and deep-set, penetrating black eyes, suggested an intellect and character of extraordinary grasp and power. His work in the sphere of aero- dynamics attracted widespread atten- tion. For a score of years he had la- bored incessantly in quest of the secret of aerial flight, and he felt that the secret was his at last, but failing to enlist capital in what the complacent earth-Avorms deemed an attempt to ac- complish the impossible, this humble Newton Avas forced by necessity to dis- continue for a time the work that most appealed to him and to avail himself opportunely of the proffered chair of Physics at Santa Clara University. A number of publications to which Professor Montgomery sent descriptive papers on aeronautics returned the ar- ticles with thanks, and one magazine offered the generous explanation that the matter was incomprehensible to most men and therefore not desirable for a periodical of general circulation. ' ' At Santa Clara, Montgomery utilized his spare hours in the construction of a flying-machine that should conform in every respect to the principles for- mulated by him; but, again, hampered by lack of means, and frequently criti- cized as a man who had turned great talents to little use, on account of an airship mania , he worked on silently and alone, but unceasingly, until, in 1905, he announced that he had built and tested in every conceivable way an aeroplane which possessed the essential
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Page 24 text:
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THE REDWOOD. elements of controlled flight and main- tained equilibrium. On April 29th, 1905, the quaint old Mission town of Santa Clara played host to thousands of people come to witness the long heralded ascent of the Montgomery airship. Correspondents and artists from many newspapers and mag azines were in the gathering on the college campus when the anxiously- awaited hour of exhilntion came. The confident Montgomery then introduced a startling innovation. Other experi- menters with aeroplanes had flound- ered around on the earth with their gliders, but this man daringly used a heated-air balloon to carry his glider and its pilot, Daniel Maloney, up to a height of 4,000 feet. Then the glider Vv is cut loose, and there ensued a spec- tacle, or series of spectacles, that kept the vast crowd either gaping in sheer wonderment or cheering in a frenzy of delight. Aviator Maloney glided eight miles in twenty minutes and safely alighted at a previously designated spot. Dur- ing that record-breaking flight, he ex- ecuted spiral and circling turns with ease and grace, described figure-eight evolutions, traveled in a horizontal course with the wind and against it, and indulged in thrilling dives, the hair-raising movement being checked by simply changing the angles of the wing surfaces. That flight, it has been said, inaugurated the era of flying-ma- chines that fly. The Scientific American of May 20th, 1905, referring to the Montgomery ma- chine, says: An aeroplane has been constructed that in all circumstances will retain its equilibrium and is sub- ject in its gliding flight to the control and guidance of an operator. Alexander? Graham Bell, in the same connection, declared that all subse- quent attempts at aviation must begin with the Montgomery machine . Prior to April 29th, 1905, the longest flights of man-carrying machines were the maximums of 1,000 feet by Lilien- thal and Ader, the 852-feet flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, and the 1377-feet flight of the Wrights in 1904 in the presence of Octave Chanute. All of these flights ended in damage to the apparatus ; but on the day of the eight- mile flight from the balloon in Santa Clara, aerial navigation began its new career on scientifically-determined principles. Detailed descriptions and numerous illustrations of the Montgomery aero- plane appeared in the aeronautical and scientific press, and there was ample incentive for such publicity, for the rec- ords of aeronautics show that failure was written over every attempt at aerial navigation prior to 1905. Be- fore that date, according to Victor Longhead, late secretary of the Ameri- can Aeronautical Association, and a well-known authority, all attempts at flight, without a solitary exception that is authenticated, had been marked by ever-present uncertainty as to equilib- rium, constant hazard to the operator and frequent accidents, ranging from mishaps to fearful fatalities.
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