This pusher propeller was built by Professor Samuel P. Langley in 1897, and used in unsuccessful experiments mounted on a special rail hand car to determine the effectiveness of the device. Charles Manley, Langley's colleague, described this experiment in 1911 memoirs. A gasoline engine "said to have furnished over six horse-power on Prony-brake tests, evidently did not furnish anything like this amount of power at this time." Furthermore, the railroad car was very heavy, offering too "strong a tractive resistance," and "the propeller was evidently far too large to permit the engine to run at the speed at which it would develop a reasonable amount of power."

Langley's famous Aerodrome experiments were not successful in developing a piloted aircraft before his death in 1906; however, a later experiment conducted by Glenn Curtiss and sponsored by the Smithsonian, extensively modified the Aerodrome and made a few short flights in it in 1914.