JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 340
This excellent (and slightly bizarre-looking) display of quantitative data comes to us from The Illustrated London News for 17 January 1914. IT shows the great range and capacity of endurance and long-range flight taking place in Europe in 1913. This portrayal is extraordinary if you keep in mind that (as I wrote about in a post last week) the Wright Brothers had only arrived in Europe in the middle of 1908 to begin their revolutionary re-introduction of the concept of heavier than air flight to the Europeans. Just prior to the Wright's arrival the combined forces in Europe had barely been able to muster a sustained flight of two minutes, even as late as 1907. The exhibition of the Wright flyers made an instant and profound impression on all concerned, and the lessons of the Wrights imemdiately put into practice. Which brings us to this graphic, showing that flight in Europe had advanced enormously, with flights now routinely lasting many hours and taking place over a course of hundreds of miles--all of these changes taking place in five short years. World War I would be the next gigantic influence on the development of flight theory, airplane construction and the use of the skies, and that would all start taking place in less than a year from now. 
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