Front:
Samuel P. Langley
Aviation Pioneer
45
USAirEGo
14
1988
92199
CA
SAN
Back:
SAMUEL P. LANGLEY
First Day of Issue: May 14, 1988
First Issue Location: San Diego, California
On May 6, 1896, seven years before the Wright brothers'
famous flight at Kitty Hawk, a steam-driven, scale-model
flying machine shot from a catapult sixteen feet above the
Potomac River. The model was built by Samuel Pierpont
Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. It
weighed twenty-six pounds and its engine produced a
single horsepower. But it flew! Alexander Graham Bell,
who observed the flight as witness and photographer,
wrote glowingly of Langley's achievement. Though it
would be seven years before the first powered manned
flight, Langley had demonstrated at last the practicality of
flight. Remembered for his aviation pioneering work,
Langley also achieved fame as an astrophysicist. A skilled
administrator and scientist, he developed the observatory
at the Western University of Pennsylvania into a major
astronomical center. In 1901, he became Secretary of the
Smithsonian and, in that capacity, performed his most
famous aviation experiments. Langley held that position
until his death in 1906.
No. 88-23
©1988 The Maximum Card Collection
A Division of Unicover Corporation • Cheyenne, WY 82008-0007
Original painting by Shannon Stirnweis
