Samuel Pierpont Langley (1843-1906) was an American astronomer and physicist. With only a high school education, Langley was virtually self-taught.
Langley invented several important instruments to measure solar radiation and recorded a number of solar eclipses. He was professor of physics at Western (Pennsylvania) University and, later, was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He became interested in the possibilities of human flight, and he designed, constructed, and flew small-scale models of self-propelled, heavier-than-air machines, one of which flew a distance of over 4,000 feet in 1896.
He was ahead of the Wright Brothers in his aeronautical research, but his full-scale, heavier-than-air powered airplane failed in its flight tests in 1903. Just days later the Wright Brothers succeeded in the first human-piloted, heavier-than-air, powered flight. Langley’s human-piloted machine was successfully flown shortly after, but the Wrights had been first.