effect, when money and brains are diverted from
the driven plane to a closer imitation of natural flight.

Reverting from non-success to success, from consideration of the two
methods mentioned above to the direction in which practical flight
has been achieved, it is to be noted that between the time of Le
Bris, Stringfellow, and their contemporaries, and the nineties of last
century, there was much plodding work carried out with little visible
result, more especially so far as English students were concerned. Among
the incidents of those years is one of the most pathetic tragedies in
the whole history of aviation, that of Alphonse Penaud, who, in his
thirty years of life, condensed the experience of his predecessors and
combined it with his own genius to state in a published patent what
the aeroplane of to-day should be. Consider the following abstract of
Penaud's design as published in his patent of 1876, and comparison of
this with the aeroplane that now exists will show very few divergences
except for those forced on the inventor by the fact that the internal
combustion engine had not then developed. The double surfaced planes
were to be built with wooden ribs and arranged with a slight dihedral
angle; there was to be a large aspect ratio and the wings were cambered
as in Stringfellow's later models. Provision was made for warping the
wings while in flight, and the trailing edges were so designed as to
be capable of upward twist while the machine was in the air. The planes
were to be placed above the car, and provision was even made for a glass
wind-screen to give protection to the pilot during flight. Steering was
to be accomplished by means of lateral and vertical planes forming
a tail; these controlled by a single lever corresponding to the 'joy
stick' of the present day plane.

Penaud conceived this machine as driven by two propellers; alternatively
these could be driven by petrol or steam-fed motor, and the centre of
gravity of the machine while in flight was in the front fifth of the
wings. Penaud estimated from 20 to 30 horse-power sufficient to drive
this machine, weighing with pilot and passenger 2,600 lbs., through the
air at a speed of 60 miles an hour, with the wings set at an angle
of incidence of two degrees. So complete was the design that it even
included instruments, consisting of an aneroid, pressure indicator, an
anemometer, a compass, and a level. There, with few alterations, is the
aeroplane a