flight has been achieved, it is to be noted that between the
time of Le Bris, Stringfellow, and their contemporaries, and the
nineties of last century, there was much plodding work carried
out with little visible result, more especially so far as
English students were concerned. Among the incidents of those
years is one of the most pathetic tragedies in the whole history
of aviation, that of Alphonse Penaud, who, in his thirty years
of life, condensed the experience of his predecessors and
combined it with his own genius to state in a published patent
what the aeroplane of to-day should be. Consider the following
abstract of Penaud's design as published in his patent of 1876,
and comparison of this with the aeroplane that now exists will
show very few divergences except for those forced on the
inventor by the fact that the internal combustion engine had not
then developed. The double surfaced planes were to be built
with wooden ribs and arranged with a slight dihedral angle;
there was to be a large aspect ratio and the wings were cambered
as in Stringfellow's later models. Provision was made for
warping the wings while in flight, and the trailing edges were
so designed as to be capable of upward twist while the machine
was in the air. The planes were to be placed above the car, and
provision was even made for a glass wind-screen to give
protection to the pilot during flight. Steering was to be
accomplished by means of lateral and vertical planes forming a
tail; these controlled by a single lever corresponding to the
'joy stick' of the present day plane.

Penaud conceived this machine as driven by two propellers;
alternatively these could be driven by petrol or steam-fed
motor, and the centre of gravity of the machine while in flight