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Last updated 1/5/2025

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'Progress in Flying Machines' by O Chanute was published by The American Engineer and Railroad Journal in New York. The work itself is undated but the Preface is dated January 1894. It brings together 27 articles which had been published in the journal from October 1891 onwards.

A full copy of the work can be found online here.

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There is mention of a patent was issued in Great Britain in 1867 to Butler and Edwards for a steam powered aeroplane based on the Paper Dart.

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A section of the work about 'aeroplanes' (ie what we would now call 'wings'), gives details of some experiments that can be carried out with a sheet of paper weighted at one edge with a strip of cardboard and folded to create a dihedral angle and an aileron. There is no evidence that the author was aware that the same effects could be achieved by folding the edge over and over to create the necessary weight.

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