Gliding

Extract

For the first several hundred years of the history of gliding, the design of motorless aircraft was attempted simply because these were, in the absence of any conceivable engine, the only possible devices through which the secrets of controlled flight by human beings might be discovered. In this short paper I do not propose to record any of the doings in this field. For as one of the most unexpected outcomes of the First World War, gliding was reborn in a shape which developed it as it is today, as the greatest sport of all time, involving the use of the energy stored in the atmosphere to maintain sustained flight.