DELAGRANGE BEATS HIS AIRSHIP RECORD (09-08-1908)

DELAGRANGE BEATS HIS AIRSHIP RECORD.

Stays Up 31 Minutes, but 3 Minutes Are Deducted for Touching Ground on First Round.

WRIGHT IS NOT DISTURBED

Says Frenchman Has Yet to Show That He Can Fly in Wind and at Higher Altitudes.

PARIS, Sept. 7. — Leon Delagrange, President of the Aviation Club of France, to-day beat his world’s aeroplane record made yesterday.  he circled the field at Issy eighteen times at an average height of thirteen feet and remained in the air thirty-one minutes.

As, however, Delagrange’s aeroplane touched the ground while making its first round of the field, three minutes were deducted, making the official time twenty-eight minutes.

M. Delagrange carried thirty liters of essence in the machine’s tank, but was forced to discontinue his flight before all of it was exhausted, owing to interference of the lubricating oil with the sparking apparatus of the motor.  M. Delagrange is confident that he will be able to remain in the air an hour before the end of the week.  The experts watching the aeroplane duel between Delagrange and Wilbur Wright, the Dayton, Ohio, aeroplanist, exhibit the liveliest interest in the manoeuvres of the two machines.

Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908