constant increase of weight under the exigencies of construction was a feature which could never be altogether eliminated. The machine was made principally of steel, the sustaining surfaces being composed of silk stretched from a steel tube with wooden attachments. The first engines were the oscillating type, but were found deficient in power. This led to the construction of single-acting inverted oscillating engines with high and low pressure cylinders, and with admission and exhaust ports to avoid the complication and weight of eccentric and valves. Boiler and furnace had to be specially designed; an analysis of sustaining surfaces and the settlement of equilibrium while in flight had to be overcome, and then it was possible to set about the construction of the series of model aerodromes and make test of their ‘lift.’
By the time Langley had advanced sufficiently far to consider it possible to conduct experiments in the open air, even with these models, he had got to his fifth aerodrome, and to the year 1894. Certain tests resulted in failure, which in turn resulted in further modifications of design, mainly of the engines. By February of 1895 Langley reported that under favourable conditions a lift of nearly sixty per cent of the flying weight was secured, but although this was much more than was required for flight, it was decided to postpone trials until two machines were ready for the test. May, 1896, came before actual trials were made, when one machine proved successful and another, a later design, failed. The difficulty with these models was that of securing a correct angle for launching; Langley records how, on launching one machine, it rose so rapidly that it attained an angle of sixty degrees and then did a tail slide into the water with its engines working at full speed, after advancing nearly forty feet and remaining in the air for about three seconds. Here, Langley found that he had to obtain greater rigidity in his wings, owing to the distortion of the form of wing under pressure, and how he overcame this difficulty constitutes yet another story too long for the telling here.
Field trials were first attempted in 1893, and Langley blamed his launching apparatus for their total failure. There was a brief, but at the same time practical, success in model flight in 1894, extending to between six and seven seconds, but this only proved the need for strengthening of the wing. In 1895 there was practically no advance toward the solution of the problem, but the flights of May 6th and November 28th, 1896, were notably successful. A diagram given in Langley’s memoir shows the track covered by the aerodrome on these two flights; in the first of them the machine made three complete circles, covering a distance of 3,200 feet; in the second, that of November 28th, the distance covered was 4,200 feet, or about three-quarters of a mile, at a speed of about thirty miles an hour.
These achievements meant a good deal; they proved mechanically propelled flight possible. The difference between them and such experiments as were conducted by Clement Ader, Maxim, and others, lay principally in the fact that these latter either did or did not succeed in rising into the air once, and then, either willingly or by compulsion, gave up the quest, while Langley repeated his experiments and thus attained to actual proof of the possibilities of flight. Like these others, however, he decided in 1896 that he would not undertake the construction of a large man-carrying machine. In addition to a multitude of actual duties, which left him practically no time available for original research, he had as an adverse factor fully ten years of disheartening difficulties in connection with his model machines. It was President McKinley who, by requesting Langley to undertake the construction and test of a machine which might finally lead to the development of a flying machine capable of being used in warfare, egged him on to his final experiment. Langley’s acceptance of the offer to construct such a machine is contained in a letter addressed from the Smithsonian Institution on December 12th, 1898, to the Board of Ordnance and Fortification of the United States War Department; this letter is of such interest as to render it worthy of reproduction:–
‘Gentlemen,–In response to your invitation I repeat what I had the honour to say to the Board–that I am willing, with the consent of the Regents of this Institution, to undertake for the Government the further investigation of the subject of the construction of a flying machine on a scale capable of carrying a man, the investigation to include the construction, development and test of such a machine under conditions left as far as practicable in my discretion, it being understood that my services are given to the Government in such time as may not be occupied by the business of the Institution, and without charge.
‘I have reason to believe that the cost of the construction will come within the sum of $50,000.00, and that not more than one-half of that will be called for in the coming year.
‘I entirely agree with what I understand to be the wish of the Board that privacy be observed with regard to the work, and only when it reaches a successful completion shall I wish to make public the fact of its success.
‘I attach to this a memorandum of my understanding of some points of detail in order to be sure that it is also the understanding of the Board, and I am, gentlemen, with much respect, your obedient servant, S. P. Langley.’
One of the chief problems in connection with the construction of a full-sized apparatus was that of the construction of an engine, for it was realised from the first that a steam power plant for a full-sized machine could only be constructed in such a way as to make it a constant menace to the machine which it was to propel. By this time (1898) the internal combustion engine had so far advanced as to convince Langley that it formed the best power plant available. A contract was made for the delivery of a twelve horse-power engine to weigh not more than a hundred pounds, but this contract was never completed, and it fell to Charles M. Manly to design the five-cylinder radial engine, of which a brief account is included in the section of this work devoted to aero engines, as the power plant for the Langley machine.
The history of the years 1899 to 1903 in the Langley series of experiments contains a multitude of detail far beyond the scope of this present study, and of interest mainly to the designer. There were frames, engines, and propellers, to be considered, worked out, and constructed. We are concerned here mainly with the completed machine and its trials. Of these latter it must be remarked that the only two actual field trials which took place resulted in accidents due to the failure of the launching apparatus, and not due to any inherent defect in the machine. It was intended that these two trials should be the first of a series, but the unfortunate accidents, and the fact that no further funds were forthcoming for continuance of experiments, prevented Langley’s success, which, had he been free to go through as he intended with his work, would have been certain.
The best brief description of the Langley aerodrome in its final form, and of the two attempted trials, is contained in the official report of Major M. M. Macomb of the United States Artillery Corps, which report is here given in full:–
REPORT
Experiments with working models which were concluded August 8 last having proved the principles and calculations on which the design of the Langley aerodrome was based to be correct, the next step was to apply these principles to the construction of a machine of sufficient size and power to permit the carrying of a man, who could control the motive power and guide its flight, thus pointing the way to attaining the final goal of producing a machine capable of such extensive and precise aerial flight, under normal atmospheric conditions, as to prove of military or commercial utility.
Mr C. M. Manly, working under Professor Langley, had, by the summer of 1903, succeeded in completing an engine-driven machine which under favourable atmospheric conditions was expected to carry a man for any time up to half an hour, and to be capable of having its flight directed and controlled by him.
The supporting surface of the wings was ample, and experiment showed the engine capable of supplying more than the necessary motive power.
Owing to the necessity of lightness, the weight of the various elements had to be kept at a minimum, and the factor of safety in construction was therefore exceedingly small, so that the machine as a whole was delicate and frail and incapable of sustaining any unusual strain. This defect was to be corrected in later models by utilising data gathered in future experiments under varied conditions.
One of the most remarkable results attained was the production of a gasoline engine furnishing over fifty continuous horse-power for a weight of 120 lbs.
The aerodrome, as completed and prepared for test, is briefly described by Professor Langley as ‘built of steel, weighing complete about 730 lbs., supported by 1,040 feet of sustaining surface, having two propellers driven by a gas engine developing continuously over fifty brake horse-power.’
The appearance of the machine prepared for flight was exceedingly light and graceful, giving an impression to all observers of being capable of successful flight.
On October 7 last everything was in readiness, and I witnessed the attempted trial on that day at Widewater, Va. On the Potomac. The engine worked well and the machine was launched at about 12.15 p.m. The trial was unsuccessful because the front guy-post caught in its support on the launching car and was not released in time to give free flight, as was intended, but, on the contrary, caused the front of the machine to be dragged downward, bending the guy-post and making the machine plunge into the water about fifty yards in front of the house-boat. The machine was subsequently recovered and brought back to the house-boat. The engine was uninjured and the frame only slightly damaged, but the four wings and rudder were practically destroyed by the first plunge and subsequent towing back to the house-boat.
This accident necessitated the removal of the house-boat to Washington for the more convenient repair of damages.
On December 8 last, between 4 and 5 p.m., another attempt at a trial was made, this time at the junction of the Anacostia with the Potomac, just below Washington Barracks.
On this occasion General Randolph and myself represented the Board of Ordnance and Fortification. The launching car was released at 4.45 p.m. being pointed up the Anacostia towards the Navy Yard. My position was on the tug Bartholdi, about 150 feet from and at right angles to the direction of proposed flight. The car was set in motion and the propellers revolved rapidly, the engine working perfectly, but there was something wrong with the launching. The rear guy-post seemed to drag, bringing the rudder down on the launching ways, and a crashing, rending sound, followed by the collapse of the rear wings, showed that the machine had been wrecked in the launching, just how, it was impossible for me to see. The fact remains that the rear wings and rudder were wrecked before the machine was free of the ways. Their collapse deprived the machine of its support in the rear, and it consequently reared up in front under the action of the motor, assumed a vertical position, and then toppled over to the rear, falling into the water a few feet in front of the boat.
Mr Manly was pulled out of the wreck uninjured and the wrecked machine–was subsequently placed upon the house-boat, and the whole brought back to Washington.
From what has been said it will be seen that these unfortunate accidents have prevented any test of the apparatus in free flight, and the claim that an engine-driven, man-carrying aerodrome has been constructed lacks the proof which actual flight alone can give.
Having reached the present stage of advancement in its development, it would seem highly desirable, before laying down the investigation, to obtain conclusive proof of the possibility of free flight, not only because there are excellent reasons to hope for success, but because it marks the end of a definite step toward the attainment of the final goal.
Just what further procedure is necessary to secure successful flight with the large aerodrome has not yet been decided upon. Professor Langley is understood to have this subject under advisement, and will doubtless inform the Board of his final conclusions as soon as practicable.
In the meantime, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, it should be stated that even after a successful test of the present great aerodrome, designed to carry a man, we are still far from the ultimate goal, and it would seem as if years of constant work and study by experts, together with the expenditure of thousands of dollars, would still be necessary before we can hope to produce an apparatus of practical utility on these lines.–Washington, January 6, 1904.
A subsequent report of the Board of ordnance and Fortification to the Secretary of War embodied the principal points in Major Macomb’s report, but as early as March 3rd, 1904, the Board came to a similar conclusion to that of the French Ministry of War in respect of Clement Ader’s work, stating that it was not ‘prepared to make an additional allotment at this time for continuing the work.’ This decision was in no small measure due to hostile newspaper criticisms. Langley, in a letter to the press explaining his attitude, stated that he did not wish to make public the results of his work till these were certain, in consequence of which he refused admittance to newspaper representatives, and this attitude produced a hostility which had effect on the United States Congress. An offer was made to commercialise the invention, but Langley steadfastly refused it. Concerning this, Manly remarks that Langley had ‘given his time and his best labours to the world without hope of remuneration, and he could not bring himself, at his stage of life, to consent to capitalise his scientific work.’
The final trial of the Langley aerodrome was made on December 8th, 1903; nine days later, on December 17th, the Wright Brothers made their first flight in a power-propelled machine, and the conquest of the air was thus achieved. But for the two accidents that spoilt his trials, the honour which fell to the Wright Brothers would, beyond doubt, have been secured by Samuel Pierpoint Langley.
XI. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
Such information as is given here concerning the Wright Brothers is derived from the two best sources available, namely, the writings of Wilbur Wright himself, and a lecture given by Dr Griffith Brewer to members of the Royal Aeronautical Society. There is no doubt that so far as actual work in connection with aviation accomplished by the two brothers is concerned, Wilbur Wright’s own statements are the clearest and best available. Apparently Wilbur was, from the beginning, the historian of the pair, though he himself would have been the last to attempt to detract in any way from the fame that his brother’s work also deserves. Throughout all their experiments the two were inseparable, and their work is one indivisible whole; in fact, in every department of that work, it is impossible to say where Orville leaves off and where Wilbur begins.
It is a great story, this of the Wright Brothers, and one worth all the detail that can be spared it. It begins on the 16th April, 1867, when Wilbur Wright was born within eight miles of Newcastle, Indiana. Before Orville’s birth on the 19th August, 1871, the Wright family had moved to Dayton, Ohio, and settled on what is known as the ‘West Side’ of the town. Here the brothers grew up, and, when Orville was still a boy in his teens, he started a printing business, which, as Griffith Brewer remarks, was only limited by the smallness of his machine and small quantity of type at his disposal. This machine was in such a state that pieces of string and wood were incorporated in it by way of repair, but on it Orville managed to print a boys’ paper which gained considerable popularity in Dayton ‘West Side.’ Later, at the age of seventeen, he obtained a more efficient outfit, with which he launched a weekly newspaper, four pages in size, entitled The West Side News. After three months’ running the paper was increased in size and Wilbur came into the enterprise as editor, Orville remaining publisher. In 1894 the two brothers began the publication of a weekly magazine, Snap-Shots, to which Wilbur contributed a series of articles on local affairs that gave evidence of the incisive and often sarcastic manner in which he was able to express himself throughout his life. Dr Griffith Brewer describes him as a fearless critic, who wrote on matters of local interest in a kindly but vigorous manner, which did much to maintain the healthy public municipal life of Dayton.
Editorial and publishing enterprise was succeeded by the formation, just across the road from the printing works, of the Wright Cycle Company, where the two brothers launched out as cycle manufacturers with the ‘Van Cleve’ bicycle, a machine of great local repute for excellence of construction, and one which won for itself a reputation that lasted long after it had ceased to be manufactured. The name of the machine was that of an ancestor of the brothers, Catherine Van Cleve, who was one of the first settlers at Dayton, landing there from the River Miami on April 1st, 1796, when the country was virgin forest.
It was not until 1896 that the mechanical genius which characterised the two brothers was turned to the consideration of aeronautics. In that year they took up the problem thoroughly, studying all the aeronautical information then in print. Lilienthal’s writings formed one basis for their studies, and the work of Langley assisted in establishing in them a confidence in the possibility of a solution to the problems of mechanical flight. In 1909, at the banquet given by the Royal Aero Club to the Wright Brothers on their return to America, after the series of demonstration flights carried out by Wilbur Wright on the Continent, Wilbur paid tribute to the great pioneer work of Stringfellow, whose studies and achievements influenced his own and Orville’s early work. He pointed out how Stringfellow devised an aeroplane having two propellers and vertical and horizontal steering, and gave due place to this early pioneer of mechanical flight.
Neither of the brothers was content with mere study of the work of others. They collected all the theory available in the books published up to that time, and then built man-carrying gliders with which to test the data of Lilienthal and such other authorities as they had consulted. For two years they conducted outdoor experiments in order to test the truth or otherwise of what were enunciated as the principles of flight; after this they turned to laboratory experiments, constructing a wind tunnel in which they made thousands of tests with models of various forms of curved planes. From their experiments they tabulated thousands of readings, which Griffith Brewer remarks as giving results equally efficient with those of the elaborate tables prepared by learned institutions.
Wilbur Wright has set down the beginnings of the practical experiments made by the two brothers very clearly. ‘The difficulties,’ he says, ‘which obstruct the pathway to success in flying machine construction are of three general classes: (1) Those which relate to the construction of the sustaining wings; (2) those which relate to the generation and application of the power required to drive the machine through the air; (3) those relating to the balancing and steering of the machine after it is actually in flight. Of these difficulties two are already to a certain extent solved. Men already know how to construct wings, or aeroplanes, which, when driven through the air at sufficient speed, will not only sustain the weight of the wings themselves, but also that of the engine and the engineer as well. Men also know how to build engines and’ screws of sufficient lightness and power to drive these planes at sustaining speed. Inability to balance and steer still confronts students of the flying problem, although nearly ten years have passed (since Lilienthal’s success). When this one feature has been worked out, the age of flying machines will have arrived, for all other difficulties are of minor importance.
‘The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact, this is a very small part of its mental labour. Even to mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the air would take a considerable time. If I take a piece of paper and, after placing it parallel with the ground, quickly let it fall, it will not settle steadily down as a staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognised rule of decorum, turning over and darting hither and thither in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. Yet this is the style of steed that men must learn to manage before flying can become an everyday sport. The bird has learned this art of equilibrium, and learned it so thoroughly that its skill is not apparent to our sight. We only learn to appreciate it when we can imitate it.
‘Now, there are only two ways of learning to ride a fractious horse: one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system is the safer, but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger proportion of good riders. It is very much the same in learning to ride a flying machine; if you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds, but if you really wish to learn you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial. The balancing of a gliding or flying machine is very simple in theory. It merely consists in causing the centre of pressure to coincide with the centre of gravity.’
These comments are taken from a lecture delivered by Wilbur Wright before the Western Society of Engineers in September of 1901, under the presidency of Octave Chanute. In that lecture Wilbur detailed the way in which he and his brother came to interest themselves in aeronautical problems and constructed their first glider. He speaks of his own notice of the death of Lilienthal in 1896, and of the way in which this fatality roused him to an active interest in aeronautical problems, which was stimulated by reading Professor Marey’s Animal Mechanism, not for the first time. ‘From this I was led to read more modern works, and as my brother soon became equally interested with myself, we soon passed from the reading to the thinking, and finally to the working stage. It seemed to us that the main reason why the problem had remained so long unsolved was that no one had been able to obtain any adequate practice. We figured that Lilienthal in five years of time had spent only about five hours in actual gliding through the air. The wonder was not that he had done so little, but that he had accomplished so much. It would not be considered at all safe for a bicycle rider to attempt to ride through a crowded city street after only five hours’ practice, spread out in bits of ten seconds each over a period of five years; yet Lilienthal with this brief practice was remarkably successful in meeting the fluctuations and eddies of wind-gusts. We thought that if some method could be found by which it would be possible to practice by the hour instead of by the second there would be hope of advancing the solution of a very difficult problem. It seemed feasible to do this by building a machine which would be sustained at a speed of eighteen miles per hour, and then finding a locality where winds of this velocity were common. With these conditions a rope attached to the machine to keep it from floating backward would answer very nearly the same purpose as a propeller driven by a motor, and it would be possible to practice by the hour, and without any serious danger, as it would not be necessary to rise far from the ground, and the machine would not have any forward motion at all. We found, according to the accepted tables of air pressure on curved surfaces, that a machine spreading 200 square feet of wing surface would be sufficient for our purpose, and that places would easily be found along the Atlantic coast where winds of sixteen to twenty-five miles were not at all uncommon. When the winds were low it was our plan to glide from the tops of sandhills, and when they were sufficiently strong to use a rope for our motor and fly over one spot. Our next work was to draw up the plans for a suitable machine. After much study we finally concluded that tails were a source of trouble rather than of assistance, and therefore we decided to dispense with them altogether. It seemed reasonable that if the body of the operator could be placed in a horizontal position instead of the upright, as in the machines of Lilienthal, Pilcher, and Chanute, the wind resistance could be very materially reduced, since only one square foot instead of five would be exposed. As a full half horse-power would be saved by this change, we arranged to try at least the horizontal position. Then the method of control used by Lilienthal, which consisted in shifting the body, did not seem quite as quick or effective as the case required; so, after long study, we contrived a system consisting of two large surfaces on the Chanute double-deck plan, and a smaller surface placed a short distance in front of the main surfaces in such a position that the action of the wind upon it would counterbalance the effect of the travel of the centre of pressure on the main surfaces. Thus changes in the direction and velocity of the wind would have little disturbing effect, and the operator would be required to attend only to the steering of the machine, which was to be effected by curving the forward surface up or down. The lateral equilibrium and the steering to right or left was to be attained by a peculiar torsion of the main surfaces which was equivalent to presenting one end of the wings at a greater angle than the other. In the main frame a few changes were also made in the details of construction and trussing employed by Mr Chanute. The most important of these were: (1) The moving of the forward main crosspiece of the frame to the extreme front edge; (2) the encasing in the cloth of all crosspieces and ribs of the surfaces; (3) a rearrangement of the wires used in trussing the two surfaces together, which rendered it possible to tighten all the wires by simply shortening two of them.’
The brothers intended originally to get 200 square feet of supporting surface for their glider, but the impossibility of obtaining suitable material compelled them to reduce the area to 165 square feet, which, by the Lilienthal tables, admitted of support in a wind of about twenty-one miles an hour at an angle of three degrees. With this glider they went in the summer of I 1900 to the little settlement of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, situated on the strip of land dividing Albemarle Sound from the Atlantic. Here they reckoned on obtaining steady wind, and here, on the day that they completed the machine, they took it out for trial as a kite with the wind blowing at between twenty-five and thirty miles an hour. They found that in order to support a man on it the glider required an angle nearer twenty degrees than three, and even with the wind at thirty miles an hour they could not get down to the planned angle of three degrees. ‘Later, when the wind was too light to support the machine with a man on it, they tested it as a kite, working the rudders by cords. Although they obtained satisfactory results in this way they realised fully that actual gliding experience was necessary before the tests could be considered practical.
A series of actual measurements of lift and drift of the machine gave astonishing results. ‘It appeared that the total horizontal pull of the machine, while sustaining a weight of 52 lbs., was only 8.5 lbs., which was less than had been previously estimated for head resistance of the framing alone. Making allowance for the weight carried, it appeared that the head resistance of the framing was but little more than fifty per cent of the amount which Mr Chanute had estimated as the head resistance of the framing of his machine. On the other hand, it appeared sadly deficient in lifting power as compared with the calculated lift of curved surfaces of its size… we decided to arrange our machine for the following year so that the depth of curvature of its surfaces could be varied at will, and its covering air-proofed.’
After these experiments the brothers decided to turn to practical gliding, for which they moved four miles to the south, to the Kill Devil sandhills, the principal of which is slightly over a hundred feet in height, with an inclination of nearly ten degrees on its main north-western slope. On the day after their arrival they made about a dozen glides, in which, although the landings were made at a speed of more than twenty miles an hour, no injury was sustained either by the machine or by the operator.
‘The slope of the hill was 9.5 degrees, or a drop of one foot in six. We found that after attaining a speed of about twenty-five to thirty miles with reference to the wind, or ten to fifteen miles over the ground, the machine not only glided parallel to the slope of the hill, but greatly increased its speed, thus indicating its ability to glide on a somewhat less angle than 9.5 degrees, when we should feel it safe to rise higher from the surface. The control of the machine proved even better than we had dared to expect, responding quickly to the slightest motion of the rudder. With these glides our experiments for the year 1900 closed. Although the hours and hours of practice we had hoped to obtain finally dwindled down to about two minutes, we were very much pleased with the general results of the trip, for, setting out as we did with almost revolutionary theories on many points and an entirely untried form of machine, we considered it quite a point to be able to return without having our pet theories completely knocked on the head by the hard logic of experience, and our own brains dashed out in the bargain. Everything seemed to us to confirm the correctness of our original opinions: (1) That practice is the key to the secret of flying; (2) that it is practicable to assume the horizontal position; (3) that a smaller surface set at a negative angle in front of the main bearing surfaces, or wings, will largely counteract the effect of the fore and aft travel of the centre of pressure; (4) that steering up and down can be attained with a rudder without moving the position of the operator’s body; (5) that twisting the wings so as to present their ends to the wind at different angles is a more prompt and efficient way of maintaining lateral equilibrium than shifting the body of the operator.’
For the gliding experiments of 1901 it was decided to retain the form of the 1900 glider, but to increase the area to 308 square feet, which, the brothers calculated, would support itself and its operator in a wind of seventeen miles an hour with an angle of incidence of three degrees. Camp was formed at Kitty Hawk in the middle of July, and on July 27th the machine was completed and tried for the first time in a wind of about fourteen miles an hour. The first attempt resulted in landing after a glide of only a few yards, indicating that the centre of gravity was too far in front of the centre of pressure. By shifting his position farther and farther back the operator finally achieved an undulating flight of a little over 300 feet, but to obtain this success he had to use full power of the rudder to prevent both stalling and nose-diving. With the 1900 machine one-fourth of the rudder action had been necessary for far better control.
Practically all glides gave the same result, and in one the machine rose higher and higher until it lost all headway. ‘This was the position from which Lilienthal had always found difficulty in extricating himself, as his machine then, in spite of his greatest exertions, manifested a tendency to dive downward almost vertically and strike the ground head on with frightful velocity. In this case a warning cry from the ground caused the operator to turn the rudder to its full extent and also to move his body slightly forward. The machine then settled slowly to the ground, maintaining its horizontal position almost perfectly, and landed without any injury at all. This was very encouraging, as it showed that one of the very greatest dangers in machines with horizontal tails had been overcome by the use of the front rudder. Several glides later the same experience was repeated with the same result. In the latter case the machine had even commenced to move backward, but was nevertheless brought safely to the ground in a horizontal position. On the whole this day’s experiments were encouraging, for while the action of the rudder did not seem at all like that of our 1900 machine, yet we had escaped without difficulty from positions which had proved very dangerous to preceding experimenters, and after less than one minute’s actual practice had made a glide of more than 300 feet, at an angle of descent of ten degrees, and with a machine nearly twice as large as had previously been considered safe. The trouble with its control, which has been mentioned, we believed could be corrected when we should have located its cause.’
It was finally ascertained that the defect could be remedied by trussing down the ribs of the whole machine so as to reduce the depth of curvature. When this had been done gliding was resumed, and after a few trials glides of 366 and 389 feet were made with prompt response on the part of the machine, even to small movements of the rudder. The rest of the story of the gliding experiments of 1901 cannot be better told than in Wilbur Wright’s own words, as uttered by him in the lecture from which the foregoing excerpts have been made.
‘The machine, with its new curvature, never failed to respond promptly to even small movements of the rudder. The operator could cause it to almost skim the ground, following the undulations of its surface, or he could cause it to sail out almost on a level with the starting point, and, passing high above the foot of the hill, gradually settle down to the ground. The wind on this day was blowing eleven to fourteen miles per hour. The next day, the conditions being favourable, the machine was again taken out for trial. This time the velocity of the wind was eighteen to twenty-two miles per hour. At first we felt some doubt as to the safety of attempting free flight in so strong a wind, with a machine of over 300 square feet and a practice of less than five minutes spent in actual flight. But after several preliminary experiments we decided to try a glide. The control of the machine seemed so good that we then felt no apprehension in sailing boldly forth. And thereafter we made glide after glide, sometimes following the ground closely and sometimes sailing high in the air. Mr Chanute had his camera with him and took pictures of some of these glides, several of which are among those shown.
‘We made glides on subsequent days, whenever the conditions were favourable. The highest wind thus experimented in was a little over twelve metres per second–nearly twenty-seven miles per hour.
It had been our intention when building the machine to do the larger part of the experimenting in the following manner:–When the wind blew seventeen miles an hour, or more, we would attach a rope to the machine and let it rise as a kite with the operator upon it. When it should reach a proper height the operator would cast off the rope and glide down to the ground just as from the top of a hill. In this way we would be saved the trouble of carrying the machine uphill after each glide, and could make at least ten glides in the time required for one in the other way. But when we came to try it, we found that a wind of seventeen miles, as measured by Richards’ anemometer, instead of sustaining the machine with its operator, a total weight of 240 lbs., at an angle of incidence of three degrees, in reality would not sustain the machine alone–100 lbs.–at this angle. Its lifting capacity seemed scarcely one third of the calculated amount. In order to make sure that this was not due to the porosity of the cloth, we constructed two small experimental surfaces of equal size, one of which was air-proofed and the other left in its natural state; but we could detect no difference in their lifting powers. For a time we were led to suspect that the lift of curved surfaces very little exceeded that of planes of the same size, but further investigation and experiment led to the opinion that (1) the anemometer used by us over-recorded the true velocity of the wind by nearly 15 per cent; (2) that the well-known Smeaton co-efficient of .005 V squared for the wind pressure at 90 degrees is probably too great by at least 20 per cent; (3) that Lilienthal’s estimate that the pressure on a curved surface having an angle of incidence of 3 degrees equals .545 of the pressure at go degrees is too large, being nearly 50 per cent greater than very recent experiments of our own with a pressure testing-machine indicate; (4) that the superposition of the surfaces somewhat reduced the lift per square foot, as compared with a single surface of equal area.
‘In gliding experiments, however, the amount of lift is of less relative importance than the ratio of lift to drift, as this alone decides the angle of gliding descent. In a plane the pressure is always perpendicular to the surface, and the ratio of lift to drift is therefore the same as that of the cosine to the sine of the angle of incidence. But in curved surfaces a very remarkable situation is found. The pressure, instead of being uniformly normal to the chord of the arc, is usually inclined considerably in front of the perpendicular. The result is that the lift is greater and the drift less than if the pressure were normal. Lilienthal was the first to discover this exceedingly important fact, which is fully set forth in his book, Bird Flight the Basis of the Flying Art, but owing to some errors in the methods he used in making measurements, question was raised by other investigators not only as to the accuracy of his figures, but even as to the existence of any tangential force at all. Our experiments confirm the existence of this force, though our measurements differ considerably from those of Lilienthal. While at Kitty Hawk we spent much time in measuring the horizontal pressure on our unloaded machine at various angles of incidence. We found that at 13 degrees the horizontal pressure was about 23 lbs. This included not only the drift proper, or horizontal component of the pressure on the side of the surface, but also the head resistance of the framing as well. The weight of the machine at the time of this test was about 108 lbs. Now, if the pressure had been normal to the chord of the surface, the drift proper would have been to the lift (108 lbs.) as the sine of 13 degrees is to the cosine of 13 degrees, or .22 X 108/.97 = 24+ lbs.; but this slightly exceeds the total pull of 23 pounds on our scales. Therefore it is evident that the average pressure on the surface, instead of being normal to the chord, was so far inclined toward the front that all the head resistance of framing and wires used in the construction was more than overcome. In a wind of fourteen miles per hour resistance is by no means a negligible factor, so that tangential is evidently a force of considerable value. In a higher wind, which sustained the machine at an angle of 10 degrees the pull on the scales was 18 lbs. With the pressure normal to the chord the drift proper would have been 17 X 98/.98. The travel of the centre of pressure made it necessary to put sand on the front rudder to bring the centres of gravity and pressure into coincidence, consequently the weight of the machine varied from 98 lbs. to 108 lbs. in the different tests)= 17 lbs., so that, although the higher wind velocity must have caused an increase in the head resistance, the tangential force still came within 1 lb. of overcoming it. After our return from Kitty Hawk we began a series of experiments to accurately determine the amount and direction of the pressure produced on curved surfaces when acted upon by winds at the various angles from zero to 90 degrees. These experiments are not yet concluded, but in general they support Lilienthal in the claim that the curves give pressures more favourable in amount and direction than planes; but we find marked differences in the exact values, especially at angles below 10 degrees. We were unable to obtain direct measurements of the horizontal pressures of the machine with the operator on board, but by comparing the distance travelled with the vertical fall, it was easily calculated that at a speed of 24 miles per hour the total horizontal resistances of our machine, when bearing the operator, amounted to 40 lbs., which is equivalent to about 2 1/3 horse-power. It must not be supposed, however, that a motor developing this power would be sufficient to drive a man-bearing machine. The extra weight of the motor would require either a larger machine, higher speed, or a greater angle of incidence in order to support it, and therefore more power. It is probable, however, that an engine of 6 horse-power, weighing 100 lbs. would answer the purpose. Such an engine is entirely practicable. Indeed, working motors of one-half this weight per horse-power (9 lbs. per horse-power) have been constructed by several different builders. Increasing the speed of our machine from 24 to 33 miles per hour reduced the total horizontal pressure from 40 to about 35 lbs. This was quite an advantage in gliding, as it made it possible to sail about 15 per cent farther with a given drop. However, it would be of little or no advantage in reducing the size of the motor in a power-driven machine, because the lessened thrust would be counterbalanced by the increased speed per minute. Some years ago Professor Langley called attention to the great economy of thrust which might be obtained by using very high speeds, and from this many were led to suppose that high speed was essential to success in a motor-driven machine. But the economy to which Professor Langley called attention was in foot pounds per mile of travel, not in foot pounds per minute. It is the foot pounds per minute that fixes the size of the motor. The probability is that the first flying machines will have a relatively low speed, perhaps not much exceeding 20 miles per hour, but the problem of increasing the speed will be much simpler in some respects than that of increasing the speed of a steamboat; for, whereas in the latter case the size of the engine must increase as the cube of the speed, in the flying machine, until extremely high speeds are reached, the capacity of the motor increases in less than simple ratio; and there is even a decrease in the fuel per mile of travel. In other words, to double the speed of a steamship (and the same is true of the balloon type of airship) eight times the engine and boiler capacity would be required, and four times the fuel consumption per mile of travel: while a flying machine would require engines of less than double the size, and there would be an actual decrease in the fuel consumption per mile of travel. But looking at the matter conversely, the great disadvantage of the flying machine is apparent; for in the latter no flight at all is possible unless the proportion of horse-power to flying capacity is very high; but on the other hand a steamship is a mechanical success if its ratio of horse-power to tonnage is insignificant. A flying machine that would fly at a speed of 50 miles per hour with engines of 1,000 horse-power would not be upheld by its wings at all at a speed of less than 25 miles an hour, and nothing less than 500 horse-power could drive it at this speed. But a boat which could make 40 miles an hour with engines of 1,000 horse-power would still move 4 miles an hour even if the engines were reduced to 1 horse-power. The problems of land and water travel were solved in the nineteenth century, because it was possible to begin with small achievements, and gradually work up to our present success. The flying problem was left over to the twentieth century, because in this case the art must be highly developed before any flight of any considerable duration at all can be obtained.
‘However, there is another way of flying which requires no artificial motor, and many workers believe that success will come first by this road. I refer to the soaring flight, by which the machine is permanently sustained in the air by the same means that are employed by soaring birds. They spread their wings to the wind, and sail by the hour, with no perceptible exertion beyond that required to balance and steer themselves. What sustains them is not definitely known, though it is almost certain that it is a rising current of air. But whether it be a rising current or something else, it is as well able to support a flying machine as a bird, if man once learns the art of utilising it. In gliding experiments it has long been known that the rate of vertical descent is very much retarded, and the duration of the flight greatly prolonged, if a strong wind blows UP the face of the hill parallel to its surface. Our machine, when gliding in still air, has a rate of vertical descent of nearly 6 feet per second, while in a wind blowing 26 miles per hour up a steep hill we made glides in which the rate of descent was less than 2 feet per second. And during the larger part of this time, while the machine remained exactly in the rising current, THERE WAS NO DESCENT AT ALL, BUT EVEN A SLIGHT RISE. If the operator had had sufficient skill to keep himself from passing beyond the rising current he would have been sustained indefinitely at a higher point than that from which he started. The illustration shows one of these very slow glides at a time when the machine was practically at a standstill. The failure to advance more rapidly caused the photographer some trouble in aiming, as you will perceive. In looking at this picture you will readily understand that the excitement of gliding experiments does not entirely cease with the breaking up of camp. In the photographic dark-room at home we pass moments of as thrilling interest as any in the field, when the image begins to appear on the plate and it is yet an open question whether we have a picture of a flying machine or merely a patch of open sky. These slow glides in rising current probably hold out greater hope of extensive practice than any other method within man’s reach, but they have the disadvantage of requiring rather strong winds or very large supporting surfaces. However, when gliding operators have attained greater skill, they can with comparative safety maintain themselves in the air for hours at a time in this way, and thus by constant practice so increase their knowledge and skill that they can rise into the higher air and search out the currents which enable the soaring birds to transport themselves to any desired point by first rising in a circle and then sailing off at a descending angle. This illustration shows the machine, alone, flying in a wind of 35 miles per hour on the face of a steep hill, 100 feet high. It will be seen that the machine not only pulls upward, but also pulls forward in the direction from which the wind blows, thus overcoming both gravity and the speed of the wind. We tried the same experiment with a man on it, but found danger that the forward pull would become so strong, that the men holding the ropes would be dragged from their insecure foothold on the slope of the hill. So this form of experimenting was discontinued after four or five minutes’ trial.
‘In looking over our experiments of the past two years, with models and full-size machines, the following points stand out with clearness:–
‘1. That the lifting power of a large machine, held stationary in a wind at a small distance from the earth, is much less than the Lilienthal table and our own laboratory experiments would lead us to expect. When the machine is moved through the air, as in gliding, the discrepancy seems much less marked.
‘2. That the ratio of drift to lift in well-shaped surfaces is less at angles of incidence of 5 degrees to 12 degrees than at an angle of 3 degrees.
‘3. That in arched surfaces the centre of pressure at 90 degrees is near the centre of the surface, but moves slowly forward as the angle becomes less, till a critical angle varying with the shape and depth of the curve is reached, after which it moves rapidly toward the rear till the angle of no lift is found.
‘4. That with similar conditions large surfaces may be controlled with not much greater difficulty than small ones, if the control is effected by manipulation of the surfaces themselves, rather than by a movement of the body of the operator.
‘5. That the head resistances of the framing can be brought to a point much below that usually estimated as necessary.
‘6. That tails, both vertical and horizontal, may with safety be eliminated in gliding and other flying experiments.
‘7. That a horizontal position of the operator’s body may be assumed without excessive danger, and thus the head resistance reduced to about one-fifth that of the upright position.
‘8. That a pair of superposed, or tandem surfaces, has less lift in proportion to drift than either surface separately, even after making allowance for weight and head resistance of the connections.’
Thus, to the end of the 1901 experiments, Wilbur Wright provided a fairly full account of what was accomplished; the record shows an amount of patient and painstaking work almost beyond belief–it was no question of making a plane and launching it, but a business of trial and error, investigation and tabulation of detail, and the rejection time after time of previously accepted theories, till the brothers must have felt the the solid earth was no longer secure, at times. Though it was Wilbur who set down this and other records of the work done, yet the actual work was so much Orville’s as his brother’s that no analysis could separate any set of experiments and say that Orville did this and Wilbur that–the two were inseparable. On this point Griffith Brewer remarked that ‘in the arguments, if one brother took one view, the other brother took the opposite view as a matter of course, and the subject was thrashed to pieces until a mutually acceptable result remained. I have often been asked since these pioneer days, “Tell me, Brewer, who was really the originator of those two?” In reply, I used first to say, “I think it was mostly Wilbur,” and later, when I came to know Orville better, I said, “The thing could not have been without Orville.” Now, when asked, I have to say, ” I don’t know,” and I feel the more I think of it that it was only the wonderful combination of these two brothers, who devoted their lives together or this common object, that made the discovery of the art of flying possible.’
Beyond the 1901 experiments in gliding, the record grows more scrappy, less detailed. It appears that once power-driven flight had been achieved, the brothers were not so willing to talk as before; considering the amount of work that they put in, there could have been little time for verbal description of that work–as already remarked, their tables still stand for the designer and experimenter. The end of the 1901 experiments left both brothers somewhat discouraged, though they had accomplished more than any others. ‘Having set out with absolute faith in the existing scientific data, we ere driven to doubt one thing after another, finally, after two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely on our own investigations. Truth and error were everywhere so in,timately mixed as to be indistinguishable…. We had taken up aeronautics as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it.’
Yet, driven thus to the more serious aspect of the work, they found in the step its own reward, for the work of itself drew them on and on, to the construction of measuring machines for the avoidance of error, and to the making of series after series of measurements, concerning which Wilbur wrote in 1908 (in the Century Magazine) that ‘after making preliminary measurements on a great number of different shaped surfaces, to secure a general understanding of the subject, we began systematic measurements of standard surfaces, so varied in design as to bring out the underlying causes of differences noted in their pressures. Measurements were tabulated on nearly fifty of these at all angles from zero to 45 degrees, at intervals of 2 1/2 degrees. Measurements were also secured showing the effects on each other when surfaces are superposed, or when they follow one another.
‘Some strange results were obtained. One surface, with a heavy roll at the front edge, showed the same lift for all angles from 7 1/2 to 45 degrees. This seemed so anomalous that we were almost ready to doubt our own measurements, when a simple test was suggested. A weather vane, with two planes attached to the pointer at an angle of 80 degrees with each other, was made. According to our table, such a vane would be in unstable equilibrium when pointing directly into the wind, for if by chance the wind should happen to strike one plane at 39 degrees and the other at 41 degrees, the plane with the smaller angle would have the greater pressure and the pointer would be turned still farther out of the course of the wind until the two vanes again secured equal pressures, which would be at approximately 30 and 50 degrees. But the vane performed in this very manner. Further corroboration of the tables was obtained in experiments with the new glider at Kill Devil Hill the next season.
‘In September and October, 1902 nearly 1,000 gliding flights were made, several of which covered distances of over 600 feet. Some, made against a wind of 36 miles an hour, gave proof of the effectiveness of the devices for control. With this machine, in the autumn of 1903, we made a number of flights in which we remained in the air for over a minute, often soaring for a considerable time in one spot, without any descent at all. Little wonder that our unscientific assistant should think the only thing needed to keep it indefinitely in the air would be a coat of feathers to make it light! ‘
It was at the conclusion of these experiments of 1903 that the brothers concluded they had obtained sufficient data from their thousands of glides and multitude of calculations to permit of their constructing and making trial of a power-driven machine. The first designs got out provided for a total weight of 600 lbs., which was to include the weight of the motor and the pilot; but on completion it was found that there was a surplus of power from the motor, and thus they had 150 lbs. weight to allow for strengthening wings and other parts.
They came up against the problem to which Riach has since devoted so much attention, that of propeller design. ‘We had thought of getting the theory of the screw-propeller from the marine engineers, and then, by applying our table of air-pressures to their formulae, of designing air-propellers suitable for our uses. But, so far as we could learn, the marine engineers possessed only empirical formulae, and the exact action of the screw propeller, after a century of use, was still very obscure. As we were not in a position to undertake a long series of practical experiments to discover a propeller suitable for our machine, it seemed necessary to obtain such a thorough understanding of the theory of its reactions as would enable us to design them from calculation alone. What at first seemed a simple problem became more complex the longer we studied it. With the machine moving forward, the air flying backward, the propellers turning sidewise, and nothing standing still, it seemed impossible to find a starting point from which to trace the various simultaneous reactions. Contemplation of it was confusing. After long arguments we often found ourselves in the ludicrous position of each having been converted to the other’s side, with no more agreement than when the discussion began.
‘It was not till several months had passed, and every phase of the problem had been thrashed over and over, that the various reactions began to untangle themselves. When once a clear understanding had been obtained there was no difficulty in designing a suitable propeller, with proper diameter, pitch, and area of blade, to meet the requirements of the flier. High efficiency in a screw-propeller is not dependent upon any particular or peculiar shape, and there is no such thing as a “best” screw. A propeller giving a high dynamic efficiency when used upon one machine may be almost worthless when used upon another. The propeller should in every case be designed to meet the particular conditions of the machine to which it is to be applied. Our first propellers, built entirely from calculation, gave in useful work 66 per cent of the power expended. This was about one-third more than had been secured by Maxim or Langley.’
Langley had made his last attempt with the ‘aerodrome,’ and his splendid failure but a few days before the brothers made their first attempt at power-driven aeroplane flight. On December 17th, 1903, the machine was taken out; in addition to Wilbur and Orville Wright, there were present five spectators: Mr A. D. Etheridge, of the Kil1 Devil life-saving station; Mr W. S.Dough, Mr W. C. Brinkley, of Manteo; Mr John Ward, of Naghead, and Mr John T. Daniels.[*] A general invitation had been given to practically all the residents in the vicinity, but the Kill Devil district is a cold area in December, and history had recorded so many experiments in which machines had failed to leave the ground that between temperature and scepticism only these five risked a waste of their time.
[*] This list is as given by Wilbur Wright himself.
And these five were in at the greatest conquest man had made since James Watt evolved the steam engine –perhaps even a greater conquest than that of Watt. Four flights in all were made; the first lasted only twelve seconds, ‘the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself into the air by its own power in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked,’ said Wilbur Wright concerning the achievement.[*] The next two flights were slightly longer, and the fourth and last of the day was one second short of the complete minute; it was made into the teeth of a 20 mile an hour wind, and the distance travelled was 852 feet.
[*] Century Magazine, September, 1908.
This bald statement of the day’s doings is as Wilbur Wright himself has given it, and there is in truth nothing more to say; no amount of statement could add to the importance of the achievement, and no more than the bare record is necessary. The faith that had inspired the long roll of pioneers, from da Vinci onward, was justified at last.
Having made their conquest, the brothers took the machine back to camp, and, as they thought, placed it in safety. Talking with the little group of spectators about the flights, they forgot about the machine, and then a sudden gust of wind struck it. Seeing that it was being overturned, all made a rush toward it to save it, and Mr Daniels, a man of large proportions, was in some way lifted off his feet, falling between the planes. The machine overturned fully, and Daniels was shaken like a die in a cup as the wind rolled the machine over and over–he came out at the end of his experience with a series of bad bruises, and no more, but the damage done to the machine by the accident was sufficient to render it useless for further experiment that season.
A new machine, stronger and heavier, was constructed by the brothers, and in the spring of 1904 they began experiments again at Sims Station, eight miles to the east of Dayton, their home town. Press representatives were invited for the first trial, and about a dozen came–the whole gathering did not number more than fifty people. ‘When preparations had been concluded,’ Wilbur Wright wrote of this trial, ‘a wind of only three or four miles an hour was blowing–insufficient for starting on so short a track –but since many had come a long way to see the machine in action, an attempt was made. To add to the other difficulty, the engine refused to work properly. The machine, after running the length of the track, slid off the end without rising into the air at all. Several of the newspaper men returned next day but were again disappointed. The engine performed badly, and after a glide of only sixty feet the machine again came to the ground. Further trial was postponed till the motor could be put in better running condition. The reporters had now, no doubt, lost confidence in the machine, though their reports, in kindness, concealed it. Later, when they heard that we were making flights of several minutes’ duration, knowing that longer flights had been made with airships, and not knowing any essential difference between airships and flying machines, they were but little interested.
‘We had not been flying long in 1904 before we found that the problem of equilibrium had not as yet been entirely solved. Sometimes, in making a circle, the machine would turn over sidewise despite anything the operator could do, although, under the same conditions in ordinary straight flight it could have been righted in an instant. In one flight, in 1905, while circling round a honey locust-tree at a height of about 50 feet, the machine suddenly began to turn up on one wing, and took a course toward the tree. The operator, not relishing the idea of landing in a thorn tree, attempted to reach the ground. The left wing, however, struck the tree at a height of 10 or 12 feet from the ground and carried away several branches; but the flight, which had already covered a distance of six miles, was continued to the starting point.
‘The causes of these troubles–too technical for explanation here–were not entirely overcome till the end of September, 1905. The flights then rapidly increased in length, till experiments were discontinued after October 5 on account of the number of people attracted to the field. Although made on a ground open on every side, and bordered on two sides by much-travelled thoroughfares, with electric cars passing every hour, and seen by all the people living in the neighbourhood for miles around, and by several hundred others, yet these flights have been made by some newspapers the subject of a great “mystery.” ‘
Viewing their work from the financial side, the two brothers incurred but little expense in the earlier gliding experiments, and, indeed, viewed these only as recreation, limiting their expenditure to that which two men might spend on any hobby. When they had once achieved successful power-driven flight, they saw the possibilities of their work, and abandoned such other business as had engaged their energies, sinking all their capital in the development of a practical flying machine. Having, in 1905, improved their designs to such an extent that they could consider their machine a practical aeroplane, they devoted the years 1906 and 1907 to business negotiations and to the construction of new machines, resuming flying experiments in May of 1908 in order to test the ability of their machine to meet the requirements of a contract they had made with the United States Government, which required an aeroplane capable of carrying two men, together with sufficient fuel supplies for a flight of 125 miles at 40 miles per hour. Practically similar to the machine used in the experiments of 1905, the contract aeroplane was fitted with a larger motor, and provision was made for seating a passenger and also for allowing of the operator assuming a sitting position, instead of lying prone.
Before leaving the work of the brothers to consider contemporary events, it may be noted that they claimed–with justice–that they were first to construct wings adjustable to different angles of incidence on the right and left side in order to control the balance of an aeroplane; the first to attain lateral balance by adjusting wing-tips to respectively different angles of incidence on the right and left sides, and the first to use a vertical vane in combination with wing-tips, adjustable to respectively different angles of incidence, in balancing and steering an aeroplane. They were first, too, to use a movable vertical tail, in combination with wings adjustable to different angles of incidence, in controlling the balance and direction of an aeroplane.[*]
[*]Aeronautical Journal, No. 79.
A certain Henry M. Weaver, who went to see the work of the brothers, writing in a letter which was subsequently read before the Aero Club de France records that he had a talk in 1905 with the farmer who rented the field in which the Wrights made their flights.’ On October 5th (1905) he was cutting corn in the next field east, which is higher ground. When he noticed the aeroplane had started on its flight he remarked to his helper: “Well, the boys are at it again,” and kept on cutting corn, at the same time keeping an eye on the great white form rushing about its course. “I just kept on shocking corn,” he continued, “until I got down to the fence, and the durned thing was still going round. I thought it would never stop.” ‘
He was right. The brothers started it, and it will never stop.
Mr Weaver also notes briefly the construction of the 1905 Wright flier. ‘The frame was made of larch wood-from tip to tip of the wings the dimension was 40 feet. The gasoline motor–a special construction made by them–much the same, though, as the motor on the Pope-Toledo automobile–was of from 12 to 15 horse-power. The motor weighed 240 lbs. The frame was covered with ordinary muslin of good quality. No attempt was made to lighten the machine; they simply built it strong enough to stand the shocks. The structure stood on skids or runners, like a sleigh. These held the frame high enough from the ground in alighting to protect the blades of the propeller. Complete with motor, the machine weighed 925 lbs.
XII. THE FIRST YEARS OF CONQUEST
It is no derogation of the work accomplished by the Wright Brothers to say that they won the honour of the first power-propelled flights in a heavier-than-air machine only by a short period. In Europe, and especially in France, independent experiment was being conducted by Ferber, by Santos-Dumont, and others, while in England Cody was not far behind the other giants of those days. The history of the early years of controlled power flights is a tangle of half-records; there were no chroniclers, only workers, and much of what was done goes unrecorded perforce, since it was not set down at the time.
Before passing to survey of those early years, let it be set down that in 1907, when the Wright Brothers had proved the practicability of their machines, negotiations were entered into between the brothers and the British War office. On April 12th 1907, the apostle of military stagnation, Haldane, then War Minister, put an end to the negotiations by declaring that ‘the War office is not disposed to enter into relations at present with any manufacturer of aeroplanes’ The state of the British air service in 1914 at the outbreak of hostilities, is eloquent regarding the pursuance of the policy which Haldane initiated.
‘If I talked a lot,’ said Wilbur Wright once, ‘I should be like the parrot, which is the bird that speaks most and flies least.’ That attitude is emblematic of the majority of the early fliers, and because of it the record of their achievements is incomplete to-day. Ferber, for instance, has left little from which to state what he did, and that little is scattered through various periodicals, scrappily enough. A French army officer, Captain Ferber was experimenting with monoplane and biplane gliders at the beginning of the century-his work was contemporary with that of the Wrights. He corresponded both with Chanute and with the Wrights, and in the end he was commissioned by the French Ministry of War to undertake the journey to America in order to negotiate with the Wright Brothers concerning French rights in the patents they had acquired, and to study their work at first hand.
Ferber’s experiments in gliding began in 1899 at the Military School at Fountainebleau, with a canvas glider of some 80 square feet supporting surface, and weighing 65 lbs. Two years later he constructed a larger and more satisfactory machine, with which he made numerous excellent glides. Later, he constructed an apparatus which suspended a plane from a long arm which swung on a tower, in order that experiments might be carried out without risk to the experimenter, and it was not until 1905 that he attempted power-driven free flight. He took up the Voisin design of biplane for his power-driven flights, and virtually devoted all his energies to the study of aeronautics. His book, Aviation, its Dawn and Development, is a work of scientific value–unlike many of his contemporaries, Ferber brought to the study of the problems of flight a trained mind, and he was concerned equally with the theoretical problems of aeronautics and the practical aspects of the subject.
After Bleriot’s successful cross-Channel flight, it was proposed to offer a prize of L1,000 for the feat which C. S. Rolls subsequently accomplished (starting from the English side of the Channel), a flight from Boulogne to Dover and back; in place of this, however, an aviation week at Boulogne was organised, but, although numerous aviators were invited to compete, the condition of the flying grounds was such that no competitions took place. Ferber was virtually the only one to do any flying at Boulogne, and at the outset he had his first accident; after what was for those days a good flight, he made a series of circles with his machine, when it suddenly struck the ground, being partially wrecked. Repairs were carried out, and Ferber resumed his exhibition flights, carrying on up to Wednesday, September 22nd, 1909. On that day he remained in the air for half an hour, and, as he was about to land, the machine struck a mound of earth and overturned, pinning Ferber under the weight of the motor. After being extricated, Ferber seemed to show little concern at the accident, but in a few minutes he complained of great pain, when he was conveyed to the ambulance shed on the ground.
‘I was foolish,’ he told those who were with him there. ‘I was flying too low. It was my own fault and it will be a severe lesson to me. I wanted to turn round, and was only five metres from the ground.’ A little after this, he got up from the couch on which he had been placed, and almost immediately collapsed, dying five minutes later.
Ferber’s chief contemporaries in France were Santos-Dumont, of airship fame, Henri and Maurice Farman, Hubert Latham, Ernest Archdeacon, and Delagrange. These are names that come at once to mind, as does that of Bleriot, who accomplished the second great feat of power-driven flight, but as a matter of fact the years 1903-10 are filled with a little host of investigators and experimenters, many of whom, although their names do not survive to any extent, are but a very little way behind those mentioned here in enthusiasm and devotion. Archdeacon and Gabriel Voisin, the former of whom took to heart the success achieved by the Wright Brothers, co-operated in experiments in gliding. Archdeacon constructed a glider in box-kite fashion, and Voisin experimented with it on the Seine, the glider being towed by a motorboat to attain the necessary speed. It was Archdeacon who offered a cup for the first straight flight of 200 metres, which was won by Santos-Dumont, and he also combined with Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe in giving the prize for the first circular flight of a mile, which was won by Henry Farman on January 13th, 1908.
A history of the development of aviation in France in these, the strenuous years, would fill volumes in itself. Bleriot was carrying out experiments with a biplane glider on the Seine, and Robert Esnault-Pelterie was working on the lines of the Wright Brothers, bringing American practice to France. In America others besides the Wrights had wakened to the possibilities of heavier-than-air flight; Glenn Curtiss, in company with Dr Alexander Graham Bell, with J. A. D. McCurdy, and with F. W. Baldwin, a Canadian engineer, formed the Aerial Experiment Company, which built a number of aeroplanes, most famous of which were the ‘June Bug,’ the ‘Red Wing,’ and the ‘White Wing.’ In 1908 the ‘June Bug ‘won a cup presented by the Scientific American–it was the first prize offered in America in connection with aeroplane flight.
Among the little group of French experimenters in these first years of practical flight, Santos-Dumont takes high rank. He built his ‘No. 14 bis’ aeroplane in biplane form, with two superposed main plane surfaces, and fitted it with an eight-cylinder Antoinette motor driving a two-bladed aluminium propeller, of which the blades were 6 feet only from tip to tip. The total lift surface of 860 square feet was given with a wing-span of a little under 40 feet, and the weight of the complete machine was 353 lbs., of which the engine weighed 158 lbs. In July of 1906 Santos-Dumont flew a distance of a few yards in this machine, but damaged it in striking the ground; on October 23rd of the same year he made a flight of nearly 200 feet–which might have been longer, but that he feared a crowd in front of the aeroplane and cut off his ignition. This may be regarded as the first effective flight in Europe, and by it Santos-Dumont takes his place as one of the chief–if not the chief–of the pioneers of the first years of practical flight, so far as Europe is concerned.
Meanwhile, the Voisin Brothers, who in 1904 made cellular kites for Archdeacon to test by towing on the Seine from a motor launch, obtained data for the construction of the aeroplane which Delagrange and Henry Farman were to use later. The Voisin was a biplane, constructed with due regard to the designs of Langley, Lilienthal, and other earlier experimenters–both the Voisins and M. Colliex, their engineer, studied Lilienthal pretty exhaustively in getting out their design, though their own researches were very thorough as well. The weight of this Voisin biplane was about 1,450 lbs., and its maximum speed was some 38 to 40 miles per hour, the total supporting surface being about 535 square feet. It differed from the Wright design in the possession of a tail-piece, a characteristic which marked all the French school of early design as in opposition to the American. The Wright machine got its longitudinal stability by means of the main planes and the elevating planes, while the Voisin type added a third factor of stability in its sailplanes. Further, the Voisins fitted their biplane with a wheeled undercarriage, while the Wright machine, being fitted only with runners, demanded a launching rail for starting. Whether a machine should be tailless or tailed was for some long time matter for acute controversy, which in the end was settled by the fitting of a tail to the Wright machines-France won the dispute by the concession.
Henry Farman, who began his flying career with a Voisin machine, evolved from it the aeroplane which bore his name, following the main lines of the Voisin type fairly closely, but making alterations in the controls, and in the design of the undercarriage, which was somewhat elaborated, even to the inclusion of shock absorbers. The seven-cylinder 50 horse-power Gnome rotary engine was fitted to the Farman machine–the Voisins had fitted an eight-cylinder Antoinette, giving 50 horse-power at 1,100 revolutions per minute, with direct drive to the propeller. Farman reduced the weight of the machine from the 1,450 lbs. of the Voisins to some 1,010 lbs. or thereabouts, and the supporting area to 450 square feet. This machine won its chief fame with Paulhan as pilot in the famous London to Manchester flight–it is to be remarked, too, that Farman himself was the first man in Europe to accomplish a flight of a mile.
Other notable designs of these early days were the ‘R.E.P.’, Esnault Pelterie’s machine, and the Curtiss-Herring biplane. Of these Esnault Pelterie’s was a monoplane, designed in that form since Esnault Pelterie had found by experiment that the wire used in bracing offers far more resistance to the air than its dimensions would seem to warrant. He built the wings of sufficient strength to stand the strain of flight without bracing wires, and dependent only for their support on the points of attachment to the body of the machine; for the rest, it carried its propeller in front of the planes, and both horizontal and vertical rudders at the stern–a distinct departure from the Wright and similar types. One wheel only was fixed under the body where the undercarriage exists on a normal design, but light wheels were fixed, one at the extremity of each wing, and there was also a wheel under the tail portion of the machine. A single lever actuated all the controls for steering. With a supporting surface of 150 square feet the machine weighed 946 lbs., about 6.4 lbs. per square foot of lifting surface.
The Curtiss biplane, as flown by Glenn Curtiss at the Rheims meeting, was built with a bamboo framework, stayed by means of very fine steel-stranded cables. A–then–novel feature of the machine was the moving of the ailerons by the pilot leaning to one side or the other in his seat, a light, tubular arm-rest being pressed by his body when he leaned to one side or the other, and thus operating the movement of the ailerons employed for tilting the plane when turning. A steering-wheel fitted immediately in front of the pilot’s seat served to operate a rear steering-rudder when the wheel was turned in either direction, while pulling back the wheel altered the inclination of the front elevating planes, and so gave lifting or depressing control of the plane.
This machine ran on three wheels before leaving the ground, a central undercarriage wheel being fitted in front, with two more in line with a right angle line drawn through the centre of the engine crank at the rear end of the crank-case. The engine was a 35 horsepower Vee design, water cooled, with overhead inlet and exhaust valves, and Bosch high-tension magneto ignition. The total weight of the plane in flying order was about 700 lbs.
As great a figure in the early days as either Ferber or Santos-Dumont was Louis Bleriot, who, as early as 1900 built a flapping-wing model, this before ever he came to experimenting with the Voisin biplane type of glider on the Seine. Up to 1906 he had built four biplanes of his own design, and in March of 1907 he built his first monoplane, to wreck it only a few days after completion in an accident from which he had a fortunate escape. His next machine was a double monoplane, designed after Langley’s precept, to a certain extent, and this was totally wrecked in September of 1907. His seventh machine, a monoplane, was built within a month of this accident, and with this he had a number of mishaps, also achieving some good flights, including one in which he made a turn. It was wrecked in December of 1907, whereupon he built another monoplane on which, on July 6th, 1908, Bleriot made a flight lasting eight and a half minutes. In October of that year he flew the machine from Toury to Artenay and returned on it–this was just a day after Farman’s first cross-country flight–but, trying to repeat the success five days later, Bleriot collided with a tree in a fog and wrecked the machine past repair. Thereupon he set about building his eleventh machine, with which he was to achieve the first flight across the English channel.
Henry Farman, to whom reference has already been made, was engaged with his two brothers, Maurice and Richard, in the motor-car business, and turned to active interest in flying in 1907, when the Voisin firm built his first biplane on the box-kite principle. In July of 1908 he won a prize of L400 for a flight of thirteen miles, previously having completed the first kilometre flown in Europe with a passenger, the said passenger being Ernest Archdeaon. In September of 1908 Farman put up a speed record of forty miles an hour in a flight lasting forty minutes.
Santos-Dumont produced the famous ‘Demoiselle’ monoplane early in 1909, a tiny machine in which the pilot had his seat in a sort of miniature cage under the main plane. It was a very fast, light little machine but was difficult to fly, and owing to its small wingspread was unable to glide at a reasonably safe angle. There has probably never been a cheaper flying machine to build than the ‘Demoiselle,’ which could be so upset as to seem completely wrecked, and then repaired ready for further flight by a couple of hours’ work. Santos-Dumont retained no patent in the design, but gave it out freely to any one who chose to build ‘Demoiselles’; the vogue of the pattern was brief, owing to the difficulty of piloting the machine.
These were the years of records, broken almost as soon as made. There was Farman’s mile, there was the flight of the Comte de Lambert over the Eiffel Tower, Latham’s flight at Blackpool in a high wind, the Rheims records, and then Henry Farman’s flight of four hours later in 1909, Orville Wright’s height record of 1,640 feet, and Delagrange’s speed record of 49.9 miles per hour. The coming to fame of the Gnome rotary engine helped in the making of these records to a very great extent, for in this engine was a prime mover which gave the reliability that aeroplane builders and pilots had been searching for, but vainly. The Wrights and Glenn Curtiss, of course, had their own designs of engine, but the Gnome, in spite of its lack of economy in fuel and oil, and its high cost, soon came to be regarded as the best power plant for flight.
Delagrange, one of the very good pilots of the early days, provided a curious insight to the way in which flying was regarded, at the opening of the Juvisy aero aerodrome in May of 1909. A huge crowd had gathered for the first day’s flying, and nine machines were announced to appear, but only three were brought out. Delagrange made what was considered an indifferent little flight, and another pilot, one De Bischoff, attempted to rise, but could not get his machine off the ground. Thereupon the crowd of 30,000 people lost their tempers, broke down the barriers surrounding the flying course, and hissed the officials, who were quite unable to maintain order. Delagrange, however, saved the situation by making a circuit of the course at a height of thirty feet from the ground, which won him rounds of cheering and restored the crowd to good humour. Possibly the smash achieved by Rougier, the famous racing motorist, who crashed his Voisin biplane after Delagrange had made his circuit, completed the enjoyment of the spectators. Delagrange, flying at Argentan in June of 1909, made a flight of four kilometres at a height of sixty feet; for those days this was a noteworthy performance. Contemporary with this was Hubert Latham’s flight of an hour and seven minutes on an Antoinette monoplane; this won the adjective ‘magnificent’ from contemporary recorders of aviation.
Viewing the work of the little group of French experimenters, it is, at this length of time from their exploits, difficult to see why they carried the art as far as they did. There was in it little of satisfaction, a certain measure of fame, and practically no profit–the giants of those days got very little for their pains. Delagrange’s experience at the opening of the Juvisy ground was symptomatic of the way in which flight was regarded by the great mass of people–it was a sport, and nothing more, but a sport without the dividends attaching to professional football or horse-racing. For a brief period, after the Rheims meeting, there was a golden harvest to be reaped by the best of the pilots. Henry Farman asked L2,000 for a week’s exhibition flying in England, and Paulhan asked half that sum, but a rapid increase in the number of capable pilots, together with the fact that most flying meetings were financial failures, owing to great expense in organisation and the doubtful factor of the weather, killed this goose before many golden eggs had been gathered in by the star aviators. Besides, as height and distance records were broken one after another, it became less and less necessary to pay for entrance to an aerodrome in order to see a flight–the thing grew too big for a mere sports ground.
Long before Rheims and the meeting there, aviation had grown too big for the chronicling of every individual effort. In that period of the first days of conquest of the air, so much was done by so many whose names are now half-forgotten that it is possible only to pick out the great figures and make brief reference to their achievements and the machines with which they accomplished so much, pausing to note such epoch-making events as the London-Manchester flight, Bleriot’s Channel crossing, and the Rheims meeting itself, and then passing on beyond the days of individual records to the time when the machine began to dominate the man. This latter because, in the early days, it was heroism to trust life to the planes that were turned out –the ‘Demoiselle’ and the Antoinette machine that Latham used in his attempt to fly the Channel are good examples of the flimsiness of early types–while in the later period, that of the war and subsequently, the heroism turned itself in a different–and nobler-direction. Design became standardised, though not perfected. The domination of the machine may best be expressed by contrasting the way in which machines came to be regarded as compared with the men who flew them: up to 1909, flying enthusiasts talked of Farman, of Bleriot, of Paulhan, Curtiss, and of other men; later, they began to talk of the Voisin, the Deperdussin, and even to the Fokker, the Avro, and the Bristol type. With the standardising of the machine, the days of the giants came to an end.
XIII. FIRST FLIERS IN ENGLAND
Certain experiments made in England by Mr Phillips seem to have come near robbing the Wright Brothers of the honour of the first flight; notes made by Colonel J. D. Fullerton on the Phillips flying machine show that in 1893 the first machine was built with a length of 25 feet, breadth of 22 feet, and height of 11 feet, the total weight, including a 72 lb. load, being 420 lbs. The machine was fitted with some fifty wood slats, in place of the single supporting surface of the monoplane or two superposed surfaces of the biplane, these slats being fixed in a steel frame so that the whole machine rather resembled a Venetian blind. A steam engine giving about 9 horse-power provided the motive power for the six-foot diameter propeller which drove the machine. As it was not possible to put a passenger in control as pilot, the machine was attached to a central post by wire guys and run round a circle 100 feet in diameter, the track consisting of wooden planking 4 feet wide. Pressure of air under the slats caused the machine to rise some two or three feet above the track when sufficient velocity had been attained, and the best trials were made on June 19th 1893, when at a speed of 40 miles an hour, with a total load of 385 lbs., all the wheels were off the ground for a distance of 2,000 feet.
In 1904 a full-sized machine was constructed by Mr Phillips, with a total weight, including that of the pilot, of 600 lbs. The machine was designed to lift when it had attained a velocity of 50 feet per second, the motor fitted giving 22 horse-power. On trial, however, the longitudinal equilibrium was found to be defective, and a further design was got out, the third machine being completed in 1907. In this the wood slats were held in four parallel container frames, the weight of the machine, excluding the pilot, being 500 lbs. A motor similar to that used in the 1904 machine was fitted, and the machine was designed to lift at a velocity of about 30 miles an hour, a seven-foot propeller doing the driving. Mr Phillips tried out this machine in a field about 400 yards across. ‘The machine was started close to the hedge, and rose from the ground when about 200 yards had been covered. When the machine touched the ground again, about which there could be no doubt, owing to the terrific jolting, it did not run many yards. When it came to rest I was about ten yards from the boundary. Of course, I stopped the engine before I commenced to descend.'[*]
[*] Aeronautical Journal, July, 1908.
S. F. Cody, an American by birth, aroused the attention not only of the British public, but of the War office and Admiralty as well, as early as 1905 with his man-lifting kites. In that year a height of 1,600 feet was reached by one of these box-kites, carrying a man, and later in the same year one Sapper Moreton, of the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers (the parent of the Royal Flying Corps) remained for an hour at an altitude of 2,600 feet. Following on the success of these kites, Cody constructed an aeroplane which he designated a ‘power kite,’ which was in reality a biplane that made the first flight in Great Britain. Speaking before the Aeronautical Society in 1908, Cody said that ‘I have accomplished one thing that I hoped for very much, that is, to be the first man to fly in Great Britain…. I made a machine that left the ground the first time out; not high, possibly five or six inches only. I might have gone higher if I wished. I made some five flights in all, and the last flight came to grief…. On the morning of the accident I went out after adjusting my propellers at 8 feet pitch running at 600 (revolutions per minute). I think that I flew at about twenty-eight miles per hour. I had 50 horsepower motor power in the engine. A bunch of trees, a flat common above these trees, and from this flat there is a slope goes down… to another clump of trees. Now, these clumps of trees are a quarter of a mile apart or thereabouts…. I was accused of doing nothing but jumping with my machine, so I got a bit agitated and went to fly.
I went out this morning with an easterly wind, and left the ground at the bottom of the hill and struck the ground at the top, a distance of 74 yards. That proved beyond a doubt that the machine would fly–it flew uphill. That was the most talented flight the machine did, in my opinion. Now, I turned round at the top and started the machine and left the ground–remember, a ten mile wind was blowing at the time. Then, 60 yards from where the men let go, the machine went off in this direction (demonstrating)–I make a line now where I hoped to land–to cut these trees off at that side and land right off in here. I got here somewhat excited, and started down and saw these trees right in front of me. I did not want to smash my head rudder to pieces, so I raised it again and went up. I got one wing direct over that clump of trees, the right wing over the trees, the left wing free; the wind, blowing with me, had to lift over these trees. So I consequently got a false lift on the right side and no lift on the left side. Being only about 8 feet from the tree tops, that turned my machine up like that (demonstrating). This end struck the ground shortly after I had passed the trees. I pulled the steering handle over as far as I could. Then I faced another bunch of trees right in front of me. Trying to avoid this second bunch of trees I turned the rudder, and turned it rather sharp. That side of the machine struck, and it crumpled up like so much tissue paper, and the machine spun round and struck the ground that way on, and the framework was considerably wrecked. Now, I want to advise all aviators not to try to fly with the wind and to cross over any big clump of earth or any obstacle of any description unless they go square over the top of it, because the lift is enormous crossing over anything like that, and in coming the other way against the wind it would be the same thing when you arrive at the windward side of the obstacle. That is a point I did not think of, and had I thought of it I would have been more cautious.’
This Cody machine was a biplane with about 40 foot span, the wings being about 7 feet in depth with about 8 feet between upper and lower wing surfaces. ‘Attached to the extremities of the lower planes are two small horizontal planes or rudders, while a third small vertical plane is fixed over the centre of the upper plane.’ The tail-piece and principal rudder were fitted behind the main body of the machine, and a horizontal rudder plane was rigged out in front, on two supporting arms extending from the centre of the machine. The small end-planes and the vertical plane were used in conjunction with the main rudder when turning to right or left, the inner plane being depressed on the turn, and the outer one correspondingly raised, while the vertical plane, working in conjunction, assisted in preserving stability. Two two-bladed propellers were driven by an eight-cylinder 50 horse-power Antoinette motor. With this machine Cody made his first flights over Laffan’s plain, being then definitely attached to the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers as military aviation specialist.
There were many months of experiment and trial, after the accident which Cody detailed in the statement given above, and then, on May 14th, 1909, Cody took the air and made a flight of 1,200 yards with entire success. Meanwhile A. V. Roe was experimenting at Lea Marshes with a triplane of rather curious design the pilot having his seat between two sets of three superposed planes, of which the front planes could be tilted and twisted while the machine was in motion. He comes but a little way after Cody in the chronology of early British experimenters, but Cody, a born inventor, must be regarded as the pioneer of the present century so far as Britain is concerned. He was neither engineer nor trained mathematician, but he was a good rule-of-thumb mechanic and a man of pluck and perseverance; he never strove to fly on an imperfect machine, but made alteration after alteration in order to find out what was improvement and what was not, in consequence of which it was said of him that he was ‘always satisfied with his alterations.’
By July of 1909 he had fitted an 80 horse-power motor to his biplane, and with this he made a flight of over four miles over Laffan’s Plain on July 21st. By August he was carrying passengers, the first being Colonel Capper of the R.E. Balloon Section, who flew with Cody for over two miles, and on September 8th, 1909, he made a world’s record cross-country flight of over forty miles in sixty-six minutes, taking a course from Laffan’s Plain over Farnborough, Rushmoor, and Fleet, and back to Laffan’s Plain. He was one of the competitors in the 1909 Doncaster Aviation Meeting, and in 1910 he competed at Wolverhampton, Bournemouth, and Lanark. It was on June 7th, 1910, that he qualified for his brevet, No. 9, on the Cody biplane.
He built a machine which embodied all the improvements for which he had gained experience, in 1911, a biplane with a length of 35 feet and span of 43 feet, known as the ‘Cody cathedral’ on account of its rather cumbrous appearance. With this, in 1911, he won the two Michelin trophies presented in England, completed the Daily Mail circuit of Britain, won the Michelin cross-country prize in 1912 and altogether, by the end of 1912, had covered more than 7,000 miles with the machine. It was fitted with a 120 horse-power Austro-Daimler engine, and was characterised by an exceptionally wide range of speed–the great wingspread gave a slow landing speed.
A few of his records may be given: in 1910, flying at Laffan’s Plain in his biplane, fitted with a 50-60 horsepower Green engine, on December 31st, he broke the records for distance and time by flying 185 miles, 787 yards, in 4 hours 37 minutes. On October 31st, 1911, he beat this record by flying for 5 hours 15 minutes, in which period he covered 261 miles 810 yards with a 60 horse-power Green engine fitted to his biplane. In 1912, competing in the British War office tests of military aeroplanes, he won the L5,000 offered by the War Office. This was in competition with no less than twenty-five other machines, among which were the since-famous Deperdussin, Bristol, Flanders, and Avro types, as well as the Maurice Farman and Bleriot makes of machine. Cody’s remarkable speed range was demonstrated in these trials, the speeds of his machine varying between 72.4 and 48.5 miles per hour. The machine was the only one delivered for the trials by air, and during the three hours’ test imposed on all competitors a maximum height of 5,000 feet was reached, the first thousand feet being achieved in three and a half minutes.
During the summer of 1913 Cody put his energies into the production of a large hydro-biplane, with which he intended to win the L5,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail to the first aviator to fly round Britain on a waterplane. This machine was fitted with landing gear for its tests, and, while flying it over Laffan’s Plain on August 7th, 1913, with Mr W. H. B. Evans as passenger, Cody met with the accident that cost both him and his passenger their lives. Aviation lost a great figure by his death, for his plodding, experimenting, and dogged courage not only won him the fame that came to a few of the pilots of those days, but also advanced the cause of flying very considerably and contributed not a little to the sum of knowledge in regard to design and construction.
Another figure of the early days was A. V. Roe, who came from marine engineering to the motor industry and aviation in 1905. In 1906 he went out to Colorado, getting out drawings for the Davidson helicopter, and in 1907 having returned to England, he obtained highest award out of 200 entries in a model aeroplane flying competition. From the design of this model he built a full-sized machine, and made a first flight on it, fitted with a 24 horse-power Antoinette engine, in June of 1908 Later, he fitted a 9 horsepower motor-cycle engine to a triplane of his own design, and with this made a number of short flights; he got his flying brevet on a triplane with a motor of 35 horse-power, which, together with a second triplane, was entered for the Blackpool aviation meeting of 1910 but was burnt in transport to the meeting. He was responsible for the building of the first seaplane to rise from English waters, and may be counted the pioneer of the tractor type of biplane. In 1913 he built a two-seater tractor biplane with 80 horse-power engine, a machine which for some considerable time ranked as a leader of design. Together with E. V. Roe and H. V. Roe, ‘A. V.’ controlled the Avro works, which produced some of the most famous training machines of the war period in a modification of the original 80 horse-power tractor. The first of the series of Avro tractors to be adopted by the military authorities was the 1912 biplane, a two-seater fitted with 50 horsepower engine. It was the first tractor biplane with a closed fuselage to be used for military work, and became standard for the type. The Avro seaplane, of I 100 horse-power (a fourteen-cylinder Gnome engine was used) was taken up by the British Admiralty in 1913. It had a length of 34 feet and a wing-span of 50 feet, and was of the twin-float type.
Geoffrey de Havilland, though of later rank, counts high among designers of British machines. He qualified for his brevet as late as February, 1911, on a biplane of his own construction, and became responsible for the design of the BE2, the first successful British Government biplane. On this he made a British height record of 10,500 feet over Salisbury Plain, in August of 1912, when he took up Major Sykes as passenger. In the war period he was one of the principal designers of fighting and reconnaissance machines.
F. Handley Page, who started in business as an aeroplane builder in 1908, having works at Barking, was one of the principal exponents of the inherently stable machine, to which he devoted practically all his experimental work up to the outbreak of war. The experiments were made with various machines, both of monoplane and biplane type, and of these one of the best was a two-seater monoplane built in 1911, while a second was a larger machine, a biplane, built in 1913 and fitted with a 110 horse-power Anzani engine. The war period brought out the giant biplane with which the name of Handley Page is most associated, the twin-engined night-bomber being a familiar feature of the later days of the war; the four-engined bomber had hardly had a chance of proving itself under service conditions when the war came to an end.
Another notable figure of the early period was ‘Tommy’ Sopwith, who took his flying brevet at Brooklands in November of 1910, and within four days made the British duration record of 108 miles in 3 hours 12 minutes. On December 18th, 1910, he won the Baron de Forrest prize of L4,000 for the longest flight from England to the Continent, flying from Eastchurch to Tirlemont, Belgium, in three hours, a distance of 161 miles. After two years of touring in America, he returned to England and established a flying school. In 1912 he won the first aerial Derby, and in 1913 a machine of his design, a tractor biplane, raised the British height record to 13,000 feet (June 16th, at Brooklands). First as aviator, and then as designer, Sopwith has done much useful work in aviation.
These are but a few, out of a host who contributed to the development of flying in this country, for, although France may be said to have set the pace as regards development, Britain was not far behind. French experimenters received far more Government aid than did the early British aviators and designers–in the early days the two were practically synonymous, and there are many stories of the very early days at Brooklands, where, when funds ran low, the ardent spirits patched their trousers with aeroplane fabric and went on with their work with Bohemian cheeriness. Cody, altering and experimenting on Laffan’s Plain, is the greatest figure of them all, but others rank, too, as giants of the early days, before the war brought full recognition of the aeroplane’s potentialities.
one of the first men actually to fly in England, Mr J. C. T. Moore-Brabazon, was a famous figure in the days of exhibition flying, and won his reputation mainly through being first to fly a circular mile on a machine designed and built in Great Britain and piloted by a British subject. Moore-Brabazon’s earliest flights were made in France on a Voisin biplane in 1908, and he brought this machine over to England, to the Aero Club grounds at Shellness, but soon decided that he would pilot a British machine instead. An order was placed for a Short machine, and this, fitted with a 50-60 horse-power Green engine, was used for the circular mile, which won a prize of L1,000 offered by the Daily Mail, the feat being accomplished on October 30th, 1909. Five days later, Moore-Brabazon achieved the longest flight up to that time accomplished on a British-built machine, covering three and a half miles. In connection with early flying in England, it is claimed that A. V. Roe, flying ‘Avro B,’,’ on June 8th, 1908, was actually the first man to leave the ground, this being at Brooklands, but in point of fact Cody antedated him.
No record of early British fliers could be made without the name of C. S. Rolls, a son of Lord Llangattock, on June 2nd, 1910, he flew across the English Channel to France, until he was duly observed over French territory, when he returned to England without alighting. The trip was made on a Wright biplane, and was the third Channel crossing by air, Bleriot having made the first, and Jacques de Lesseps the second. Rolls was first to make the return journey in one trip. He was eventually killed through the breaking of the tail-plane of his machine in descending at a flying meeting at Bournemouth. The machine was a Wright biplane, but the design of the tail-plane–which, by the way, was an addition to the machine, and was not even sanctioned by the Wrights–appears to have been carelessly executed, and the plane itself was faulty in construction. The breakage caused the machine to overturn, killing Rolls, who was piloting it.
XIV. RHEIMS, AND AFTER
The foregoing brief–and necessarily incomplete–survey of the early British group of fliers has taken us far beyond some of the great events of the early days of successful flight, and it is necessary to go back to certain landmarks in the history of aviation, first of which is the great meeting at Rheims in 1909. Wilbur Wright had come to Europe, and, flying at Le Mans and Pau–it was on August 8th, 1908, that Wilbur Wright made the first of his ascents in Europe–had stimulated public interest in flying in France to a very great degree. Meanwhile, Orville Wright, flying at Fort Meyer, U.S.A., with Lieutenant Selfridge as a passenger, sustained an accident which very nearly cost him his life through the transmission gear of the motor breaking. Selfridge was killed and Orville Wright was severely injured–it was the first fatal accident with a Wright machine.
Orville Wright made a flight of over an hour on September 9th, 1908, and on December 31st of that year Wilbur flew for 2 hours 19 minutes. Thus, when the Rheims meeting was organised–more notable because it was the first of its kind, there were already records waiting to be broken. The great week opened on August 22nd, there being thirty entrants, including all the most famous men among the early fliers in France. Bleriot, fresh from his Channel conquest, was there, together with Henry Farman, Paulhan, Curtiss, Latham, and the Comte de Lambert, first pupil of the Wright machine in Europe to achieve a reputation as an aviator.
‘To say that this week marks an epoch in the history of the world is to state a platitude. Nevertheless, it is worth stating, and for us who are lucky enough to be at Rheims during this week there is a solid satisfaction in the idea that we are present at the making of history. In perhaps only a few years to come the competitions of this week may look pathetically small and the distances and speeds may appear paltry. Nevertheless, they are the first of their kind, and that is sufficient.’
So wrote a newspaper correspondent who was present at the famous meeting, and his words may stand, being more than mere journalism; for the great flying week which opened on August 22nd, 1909, ranks as one of the great landmarks in the history of heavier-than-air flight. The day before the opening of the meeting a downpour of rain spoilt the flying ground; Sunday opened with a fairly high wind, and in a lull M. Guffroy turned out on a crimson R.E.P. monoplane, but the wheels of his undercarriage stuck in the mud and prevented him from rising in the quarter of an hour allowed to competitors to get off the ground. Bleriot, following, succeeded in covering one side of the triangular course, but then came down through grit in the carburettor. Latham, following him with thirteen as the number of his machine, experienced his usual bad luck and came to earth through engine trouble after a very short flight. Captain Ferber, who, owing to military regulations, always flew under the name of De Rue, came out next with his Voisin biplane, but failed to get off the ground; he was followed by Lefebvre on a Wright biplane, who achieved the success of the morning by rounding the course–a distance of six and a quarter miles–in nine minutes with a twenty mile an hour wind blowing. His flight finished the morning.
Wind and rain kept competitors out of the air until the evening, when Latham went up, to be followed almost immediately by the Comte de Lambert. Sommer, Cockburn (the only English competitor), Delagrange, Fournier, Lefebvre, Bleriot, Bunau-Varilla, Tissandier, Paulhan, and Ferber turned out after the first two, and the excitement of the spectators at seeing so many machines in the air at one time provoked wild cheering. The only accident of the day came when Bleriot damaged his propeller in colliding with a haycock.
The main results of the day were that the Comte de Lambert flew 30 kilometres in 29 minutes 2 seconds; Lefebvre made the ten-kilometre circle of the track in just a second under 9 minutes, while Tissandier did it in 9 1/4 minutes, and Paulhan reached a height of 230 feet. Small as these results seem to us now, and ridiculous as may seem enthusiasm at the sight of a few machines in the air at the same time, the Rheims Meeting remains a great event, since it proved definitely to the whole world that the conquest of the air had been achieved.
Throughout the week record after record was made and broken. Thus on the Monday, Lefebvre put up a record for rounding the course and Bleriot beat it, to be beaten in turn by Glenn Curtiss on his Curtiss-Herring biplane. On that day, too, Paulhan covered 34 3/4 miles in 1 hour 6 minutes. On the next day, Paulhan on his Voisin biplane took the air with Latham, and Fournier followed, only to smash up his machine by striking an eddy of wind which turned him over several times. On the Thursday, one of the chief events was Latham’s 43 miles accomplished in 1 hour 2 minutes in the morning and his 96.5 miles in 2 hours 13 minutes in the afternoon, the latter flight only terminated by running out of petrol. On the Friday, the Colonel Renard French airship, which had flown over the ground under the pilotage of M. Kapfarer, paid Rheims a second visit; Latham manoeuvred round the airship on his Antoinette and finally left it far behind. Henry Farman won the Grand Prix de Champagne on this day, covering 112 miles in 3 hours, 4 minutes, 56 seconds, Latham being second with his 96.5 miles flight, and Paulhan third.