The Right to Fly

Extract

On the last occasion I had the honour of attending a meeting of this Society the members were expressing their admiration of the great work done by the late Wilbur Wright. This consisted in first studying the known suggested theories governing the physical laws of flight, and then, after much patient labour, embodying the result of his reflections in the form of an aerial apparatus. Then at great personal risk, with his brother's aid, testing his apparatus as a glider until he was satisfied that a practical machine driven by power could be made; which he successfully accomplished and piloted with results well known to this Society.

To-night we have to consider many theories governing a different kind of law and suggest means by which they can be reduced to practical regulations. We have not the same opportunities as the physicists, no official laboratories or opportunities for making experimental tests, and have to leave this to the cumbersome machinery of the administrative authorities of the governing political powers.