On Soaring Flight

E.C. Huffaker

IBUKI - Annals of Science #003 $4.25

In his introduction to this article, S.P. Langley says, "It is generally known that birds sustain themselves in the air in two ways:

"First. By direct exercise of mechanical power, as in a large class of birds that flap their wings. ...

"Second. Another and important class of birds, including the largest, can fly without flapping the wings and are able to glide over the landscape (sometimes from horizon to horizon), on nearly motionless pinions, in a manner and with an effect which is not easily explained on known mechanical principles, and is in striking contrast with the labored way of other birds. This manner, which has never yet been completely accounted for, and which is called "soaring flight," forms the special subject of the following article."

This article appears, with an introduction by S.P. Langly, in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1897.