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After many experiments with new models Langley at length
fashioned a steam-driven machine which would fly horizontally. It
weighed about thirty pounds; it was some sixteen feet in length,
with two sets of wings, the pair in front measuring forty feet
from tip to tip. On May 6, 1896, this model was launched over the
Potomac River. It flew half a mile in a minute and a half. When
its fuel and water gave out, it descended gently to the river's
surface. In November Langley launched another model which flew
for three-quarters of a mile at a speed of thirty miles an hour.
These tests demonstrated the practicability of artificial flight.
The Spanish-American War found the military observation balloon
doing the limited work which it had done ever since the days of
Franklin. President McKinley was keenly interested in Langley's
design to build a power-driven flying machine which would have
innumerable advantages over the balloon. The Government provided
the funds and Langley took up the problem of a flying machine
large enough to carry a man. His initial difficulty was the
engine. It was plain at once that new principles of engine
construction must be adopted before a motor could be designed of
high power yet light enough to be borne in the slender body of an
airplane. The internal combustion engine had now come into use.
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