For more than a century past the problem of human flight by means of heavier-than-air machines appears to have exercised a strong fascination on the minds of French inventors and engineers, and since November, 1906, as the result of Santos Dumont's classic experiments, and more recently the longer successful flights of Henri Farman and Léon Delagrange, even the general public has become interested in the subject, and has at last been taught to realise that dynamic flight is not only a possibility, but a fact, and that with each day which passes the success already attained is being steadily carried another step forward towards the evolution of the eventual type of perfected machine.

If we except the performances of the Brothers Wright in America, it is admitted that France has led, and is still leading, the aeronautical progress of the world, and it is not difficult to understand why this should be the case.