And they say that someday man will fly!

People tell me that some day we'll be able to take to the air in some sort of "aero-plane" or something. But read this carefully before you make that assumption again!
"The following letter has been on hand several weeks, but deferred on account of a constant press of matter by which the limited space in our former small sheet was crowded. Our respected correspondent has consented to excuse the delay.
Providence, ---- 1846.
Friend Porter: In January last, I addressed a few lines to you, asking information in regard to an article entitled Atmospheric Resistance, in the New York Mechanic, of December 11, 1841. In your answer, you say if the full surface is 30,000 square feet to each wing, (which makes 60,000 square feet,) only about half of one horse power would be required to sustain this weight, and I understand you, virtually to say, that they must be ten times as large, in order that the strength of one man be sufficient to work this and elevate himself together with the apparatus, if it were not too heavy. Now, this makes 600,000 square feet. This is rather more than 774 feet square: rather large sized wings. One would suppose that they might lift rather heavy, if they were very light, being 387 by 774 feet each. Now, to me this is entirely incomprehensible, and I should like an explanation, if this calculation is correct, how it is that an eagle which sometimes weighs nearly thirty pounds, can elevate himself, with so much ease, and even carry with him nearly his own weight, using a pair of wings, which if they were five feet long and two feet wide each, would make but twenty feet of surface. Thus, you will see, is no where in proportion to the weight even of the eagle alone, (which we will suppose to weigh twenty pounds,) that the wings bears to the 150 pounds, while on the other hand, it is near in proportion to the surface of the wings of a pidgeon and its weight. Nor can I comprehend why it would require so much power, the eagle though he exerts himself considerable in rising, no doubt, does not seem to use power any where in the proportion that you have thought would be required supposing the wings to be made in the same proportion to the 150 pounds that his wings are to his weight, his beats are not so quick but what they can be very easily counted.
By answering, you will much oblige,
your friend, YANKEE.
In answer to the foregoing, we would remind our correspondent, that in his former communication, he proposed a limited weight of apparatus, and in our answer, it was far from our intention to allow an additional weight on account of the requisite extent of surface. With regard to the philosophy of the flight of the eagle, it must be borne in mind that atmospheric resistance is as the square of the velocity downward and the only way in which the phenomenon of the flight of the eagle can be reconciled with the laws of mechanical science as established by experiment, is by supposing the velocity of the wing downward to be equal to 70 feet per second, whereby a resistance would be encountered equal to 12 pounds per square foot of surface to the wings. It is a fact, however, that kites, and hawks are often seen to continue suspended in the air several minutes without any apparent motion of the wings; but by what law or theory the feat is accomplished, natural philosophy has ventured no other conjecture than that the bird is endowed with the faculty of suspending occasionally its ordinary subjection to the laws of gravity. If any observing theorist will give any more rational conjecture on the subject, we should be glad to have him examine it."
-Scientific American, Vol 2, No 1.
See? A bird can suspend the laws of physics! How are we going to do that with a so-called "aero-plane"?
Updraft, you say? What madness you speak!