was in the front fifth of the wings. Penaud estimated from 20 to
30 horse-power sufficient to drive this machine, weighing with
pilot and passenger 2,600 lbs., through the air at a speed of 60
miles an hour, with the wings set at an angle of incidence of
two degrees. So complete was the design that it even included
instruments, consisting of an aneroid, pressure indicator, an
anemometer, a compass, and a level. There, with few
alterations, is the aeroplane as we know it--and Penaud was
twenty-seven when his patent was published.

For three years longer he worked, experimenting with models,
contributing essays and other valuable data to French papers on
the subject of aeronautics. His gains were ill health, poverty,
and neglect, and at the age of thirty a pistol shot put an end
to what had promised to be one of the most brilliant careers in
all the history of flight.

Two years before the publication of Penaud's patent Thomas Moy
experimented at the Crystal Palace with a twin-propelled
aeroplane, steam driven, which seems to have failed mainly
because the internal combustion engine had not yet come to give
sufficient power for weight. Moy anchored his machine to a pole
running on a prepared circular track; his engine weighed 80 lbs.
and, developing only three horse-power, gave him a speed of
12 miles an hour. He himself estimated that the machine would
not rise until he could get a speed of 35 miles an hour, and his
estimate was correct. Two six-bladed propellers were placed
side by side between the two main planes of the machine, which
was supported on a triangular wheeled undercarriage and steered
by fairly conventional tail planes. Moy realised that he could