Langley for an airplane, but tests ended with a spectacular dive into the Potomac River on December 8, 1903, nine days before the Wright brothers flew. In 1898, the Signal Corps contracted with Samuel P. Only in 1892, however, did the Signal Corps organize a permanent balloon section, and this unit's service in the war with Spain in 1898 was undistinguished. In the American Civil War, balloons had seen service, and the job of procuring and operating them had duly passed to the Signal Corps. The French revolutionaries had used a balloon at the battle of Fleurus in 1794. Only balloons had proven value of any sort. Outside the realm of science fiction, the role in warfare of airships, gliders, and airplanes was by no means clear. But the Board of Ordnance and Fortifications, which examined the Wrights' proposal, had other facts to consider as well. The fact that many still doubted the claim of Wilbur and Orville Wright to have invented a workable airplane is part of the history of aviation. In January 1905 the War Department took up consideration of an offer it had received from two inventors in Dayton, Ohio, to provide the government with a heavier-than-air flying machine. The USAF had its roots in a turn-of-the century effort at technology assessment. As this action shows, the Air Force can claim lineal antecedents long predating the 1947 act. On September 26, 1947, by order of the Secretary of Defense, personnel of the Army Air Forces (AAF) were transferred from the Department of the Army (formerly the War Department) to the Department of the Air Force and established as the United States Air Force (USAF). The Department of the Air Force, an agency of the Department of Defense, was established on September 18, 1947, pursuant to provisions of the National Security Act of the previous July 26.
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