Chapter I: Part III

I EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH HEAVIER-THAN-AIR MACHINES 77
II FIRST PRINCIPLES OF AN AIRPLANE 91
III THE PIONEERS 99
IV THE AIRPLANE IN THE WORLD WAR 128
V SOME OF THE PROBLEMS THE INVENTORS HAD TO SOLVE 150
VI FAMOUS ALLIED AIRPLANES 170
VII GERMAN AIRPLANES IN THE WORLD WAR 189
VIII HEROES OF THE AIR 205
IX THE BIRTH OF AN AIRPLANE 223
X THE TRAINING OF AN AVIATOR 232
XI THE FUTURE STORY OF THE AIR 244
READING LIST 256
INDEX 259

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Seaplanes NC-1, NC-3 and NC-4 of the U. S. Navy starting the
trans-Atlantic flight from Rockaway. The NC-4 on its
victorious trans-Atlantic flight, sixty miles at sea _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE
Montgolfier experiment at Versailles, 1783 10
The first cross-channel trip 11
Diagram showing the main features of the spherical balloon 16
Cocking's parachute 30
A German Zeppelin 31
Inflating a service balloon on the field 40
Army balloon ready to ascend 41
Giffard's airship 54
Santos-Dumont rounding the Eiffel Tower 55
Baldwin U. S. "Dirigible No. 1" 66
The British Army "Baby" dirigible 67
Cross section of the gas bag of the _Astra-Torres_, showing
method of car suspension 70
"The Blimp," C-1, the largest dirigible of the American Navy 72
The balloon of the _U. S. S. Oklahoma_ 73
Diagram showing the essential parts of an airplane 95
Wright starting with passenger 98
An early Farman machine prior to start 99
Wright machine rising just after leaving the rail 114
An early Wright machine, showing its method of starting from a
rail 114
The propeller department in one of the great Curtiss factories 115
A photograph of northern France taken at a height of three
thousand feet 138
An airplane view of the city of Rheims, showing the cathedral 139
Diagram of an internal combustion engine cylinder, showing
principle on which it works 157
This photograph shows the relative size of the giant Caproni
bombing plane and the French baby Nieuport, used as a speed
scout 170
The Spad, the pride of the French air fleet 171
A Handley-Page machine tuning up for a flight 182
The launching of a Langley, a giant bombing airplane 183
Side view of a Sopwith triplane 187
An American built Caproni airplane 188
This Curtiss triplane has a speed of one hundred and sixty miles
an hour 189
A giant Gotha bombing plane brought down by the French 198
German Fokker plane captured by the French 199
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker 218
The first bag of mail carried by the U. S. Aero Mail Service 219
A photograph made ten thousand feet in the air, showing machines
in "V" formation at bombing practise 242
A group of De Havilland planes at Bolling Field near Washington 243