THE LINCOLN COUNTY LEADER — AUGUST 25, 1899
IT FLIES AND FIGHTS ♢ Prof. Langley’s Combined
Airship and Dynamite Thrower
If current reports from Washington are true Professor S. P. Langley has invented a real flying machine and the most powerful engine of war known to civilized man. So mighty is the power of the little forty-seven-pound engine of the flying machine which he has originated that no model army could withstand it. A fleet of ironclads could be destroyed by it in fifteen minutes. Coast defenses would be broken up like rail fences before a tornado if once the aerodrome passed over them and dropped bombs into their midst. At least this is what Professor Langley's friends assert.
For three years past Professor Langley has devoted himself to the problem of aerial navigation. He claims to have solved it at last and to have built a machine which will render American armies invincible by means of bombs thrown from his airship. He calls it the aerodrome. This machine will be not less valuable in peace than in war. A man can settle himself to sleep in the car of one of these flying machines in the evening at Chicago, and wake up to find himself in New York by morning. Air travel will be more safe than transportation by land. The aerodrome can dart upon a sinking ship and snatch its passengers from peril. The airship, it is claimed, is as completely under control of its pilot as a locomotive is under the guidance of an engineer.
