First Man Almost in Flight: The Sadly Ironic Story of Samuel P. Langley's Great Aerodrome
As the sun rises on May 6, 1896 it burns away the early morning fog that is hovering above the Potomac River just outside our nation’s capital. Sixty-one year old Samuel Pierpont Langley nervously paces on the deck of a specially designed houseboat and waits for the experiment that he’s spent ten years attempting to perfect to both literally, and figuratively, take flight. Standing by Langley’s side is his longtime friend, and renowned inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. Also, standing on the banks of the river and ready to observe this momentous occasion is then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and future President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The oddly shaped boat floats slowly down river just off the shore of small Chopawamsic Island off the coast of nearby Quantico, Virginia. The boat, also designed by Samuel P. Langley has two decks, not unlike an awkwardly shaped two-tiered barge, and jutting over the side of the houseboat is...