Ferris Richard. How to fly or The Conquest of the Air

London, Edinburgh, Dublin, New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1910. — 475 p.In the year 1908 the world awakened suddenly to the realization that at last the centuries of man’s endeavour to fly mechanically had come to successful fruition. There had been a little warning. In the late autumn of 1906, Santos-Dumont made a flight of 720 feet in a power-driven machine. There was an exclamation of wonder, a burst of applause - then a relapse into unconcern. In August, 1907, Louis Bleriot sped free of the ground for 470 feet; and in November, Santos-Dumont made two flying leaps of barely 500 feet. That was the year’s record, and it excited little comment. It is true that the Wright brothers had been making long flights, but they were in secret. There was no public knowledge of them. In 1908 came the revelation. In March, Delagrange flew in a Voisin biplane 453 feet, carrying Farman with him as a passenger. Two weeks later he flew alone nearly 2J miles. In May he flew nearly 8 miles. In June his best flight was 10 miles. Bleriot came on the scene again in July with
a monoplane, in which he flew 3 miles.