Claude Grahame-White

Crossing the Channel by air—Contest of three rivals—Bleriot’s triumph—Latham and the Antoinette—The first flying carnival—Farman’s success with a new machine and motor—The British pioneers.

Up to this time the public, reading of the flights of the first airmen, had not realised what these flights meant. They had not grasped the significance of the aeroplane; its possibilities as a weapon of war; its use as a vehicle for passing from place to place—high in the air, at great speed, and with an ability to soar above land or sea, mountains or woods, hills or valleys. But they were no longer to remain in doubt. The year 1908, as shown, closed in rivalry between several airmen, and with a flight lasting more than two hours. In 1909, the most memorable year in the history of the conquest, these feats sank into insignificance, and the world began to understand what was being done, and what flying would mean in peace and war.

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MACHINE SEEN FROM ABOVE,
showing the wing-spread and the box-kite tail.

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Fig. 42.—The Voisin Biplane.

A. Elevating plane; B. Pilot’s seat; C.C. Main-planes; D. Engine and propeller; E. Landing chassis; F. Balancing tail; G. Rudder.

At the beginning of 1909 there were two types of successful aeroplane—the Wright and the Voisin. Bleriot had flown with his monoplane and flown well; but he was still in the process of evolving a practical machine, and several other inventors were in a similar stage. It was the Wright and the Voisin which had proved their worth; and the Wright, as has been said, was the better of the two. Of the Voisin, as flown in 1909, a reproduction is given in Fig. 42. It was a heavier aeroplane than the Wrights’, owing largely to the weight of its alighting gear (250 lbs.) and of its big balancing tail (more than 100 lbs.); hence the necessity for using a 50-h.p. motor, which drove a two-bladed metal propeller at the rate of 1200 revolutions a minute. The Voisin brothers, and other French makers, did not approve of the two-propeller system of the Wrights: they preferred one screw, revolving at high speed. But there was no doubt—at any rate in this stage of aviation—that the Wright method was more efficient than that of the Frenchmen. It was calculated, indeed, that the Wright biplane, when actually in the air, could be driven at an expenditure of only 15 h.p.; whereas the Voisin, even with its 50-h.p. motor running at full speed, had only just enough power to fly.

There were in 1909 two memorable events, and both impressed the public with the progress of aviation. One was the crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane; the other the flying meeting—the first of its kind in the world—which was held upon the plain of Betheny, near Rheims. To be first to cross the channel by air was the ambition of more than one of the rivals; and the flight was rendered attractive by a prize of £1000, offered by the London Daily Mail. Preparing to attempt the feat, early in the summer of 1909, were three competitors, the names of two of whom are familiar. One was the Comte de Lambert; he, it will be remembered, was Wilbur Wright’s pupil. Now an accomplished airman, he had a Wright biplane at Wissant on the French coast. Another competitor was M. Bleriot, whose early exploits have been chronicled. The monoplane he had now evolved was an ingenious craft, and merits careful description. Its main features may be seen in Fig. 43. The machine was remarkable chiefly for its smallness and lightness. While the Voisin biplane weighed just upon 1000 lbs., the weight of Bleriot’s monoplane was only 484 lbs. The span of its main wings was not more than 28 feet, and they contained only 150 square feet of lifting surface. Driving the machine was a motor of 25 horse-power; and the propeller, being placed at the bow, was what is known as a “tractor.” Instead of pushing the machine, as in the case of the Wright and the Voisin, this propeller drew the monoplane through the air.

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MACHINE SEEN FROM ABOVE,
showing its bird-like shape and the position of the pilot.

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Fig. 43.—The Bleriot Monoplane.

A. Propeller; B. Motor; C. Sustaining-plane; D. Pilot’s seat; E. Landing chassis; F. Combined tail and elevating-planes; G. Rudder.

Sitting within the body of his machine, at a point between the main wings and level with their rear edges, Bleriot controlled his craft by a simple mechanism. His feet rested upon a pivoted bar; this, by a movement of either foot, operated the rudder at the rear of the machine. In front of the pilot was an upright lever, which he grasped with both hands. At the bottom of it, attached to a bell-shaped piece of metal, were four controlling wires, two running to the wings and two towards the tail. Those fixed to the wings caused the rear edges of the planes, which were flexible, to move up and down. A side-to-side action of the lever, which drew upon the wires and caused the wings to warp, prevented the monoplane from rolling while in flight. The Wrights, it may be recalled, adopted a similar method, although their system of leverage was different. A forward or backward movement of this same lever controlled the rising or descending of the monoplane. Its elevating-planes, instead of being at the front of the machine, as in a biplane, formed part of the tail. This tail was one narrow, horizontal plane, with a section at either end working up or down upon a pivoted rod. When the hand-lever was drawn back, the elevating-planes were tilted, and the monoplane rose. A reverse movement was used for descent.

Chief interest, at the early stages of the race to be first across the Channel, was centred in a newcomer—Mr. Hubert Latham. He was a young man of leisure, whose family, formerly an English one, had settled in France. Being fond of sport, and particularly of the shooting of big game, he had been attracted to flying through the medium of some balloon ascents.

At the beginning of 1909 a new monoplane made its appearance in France—a powerful, finely constructed, and very stable machine. It was the Antoinette, designed by a famous engineer, and it was this craft which interested Latham. M. Levavasseur was the designer of it and of a specially lightened motor, first applied to motor-boats, and afterwards to the experimental biplane of M. Santos-Dumont and also to the aeroplane with which Farman first flew. The Antoinette, which M. Levavasseur also fitted with one of his motors, was a large monoplane—far larger than the Bleriot; and built not with the idea of being a fair-weather machine, but to fly in winds. The craft is illustrated in Fig. 44. The span of its wings was 46 feet, and they contained 365 square feet of sustaining surface, while the total weight was 1040 lbs.

The monoplane, in its method of control, differed from other machines. Upon either side of the pilot, as he sat in the tapering, boat-shaped body, was a hand-wheel. One operated the elevating plane; the other controlled the warping of the wings; while to steer from side to side the airman pushed pedals at his feet, and so swung the rudder at the stern.

Driven by its 50-h.p. Antoinette motor, the monoplane showed itself capable of flying well; but it found no successful pilot until Latham took it in hand. He associated himself financially with its constructors, and went to Mourmelon in France to learn to fly the machine, and his skill became evident. On 5th June he flew for 1 hour 7 minutes without alighting, and afterwards made flights in wind and rain. Latham was slight of figure and deft in movement, had a cool, quiet judgment, and was courageous sometimes to the point of being reckless.

After his success at Mourmelon, it was decided to attempt the cross-Channel flight; and the monoplane was transferred to a temporary shed at Sangatte, a few miles from Calais. First on the scene, Latham was ready for flight early in July; but the weather proved unfavourable. There was fog in the Channel and he had to wait. In the meantime—on 13th July—Bleriot made a cross-country flight of 25 miles; then he, too, packed up his monoplane and dispatched it to Calais.

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A. Propeller; B. Motor; C. Sustaining-plane; D. Pilot’s seat and controlling wheel; E.E. Vertical rudders; F. Elevating-plane; G. Landing gear.

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MACHINE SEEN FROM ABOVE,
showing the spread of the planes and tail, and the delicate taper of the long, canoe-shaped body.

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THE CRAFT IN FLIGHT.

Fig. 44.—The Antoinette Monoplane.

On the morning of 19th July, there being little wind and practically no fog, Latham said he would attempt the crossing. Rising from the slope of a hill a little way inland, he passed out over the cliffs and steered for Dover—a torpedo-boat destroyer, placed at his disposal by the French Government, following him across Channel, so as to be ready to pick him up should he make an involuntary descent into the water. It was fortunate this vessel did steam upon his track. When he had reached a point not quite half-way between the French and English coasts, flying 1000 feet high, Latham’s motor began to miss-fire; then, without further warning, it stopped altogether. There was only one thing to do, and the airman did it. Piloting his machine in a slanting glide, he alighted upon the surface of the water. Fortunately there was no high sea, and the monoplane floated with its wings flat upon the water. Tucking up his feet to avoid getting them wet, Latham lit a cigarette and waited for the destroyer, the captain of which had seen his fall and came steaming at full speed. How the machine appeared, as it lay in the water, is shown in the photograph on Plate IV.

So much damage was done to the monoplane in retrieving it from the sea, that it was practically destroyed, and Latham was left without a machine, with his rival Bleriot now upon the scene. But the Antoinette Company, having a craft in reserve at Rheims, decided that this should be hurried to the coast, and Latham given the opportunity of making another attempt. This second machine was telegraphed for, accordingly, and assembled with all speed, and on the morning of 25th July both Latham and Bleriot were ready for flight. Farther down the coast at Wissant was the Comte de Lambert; he had met with an accident, however. In testing his biplane he side-slipped near the ground and the machine was wrecked; this spelt delay while he was procuring and tuning another craft.

On 25th July, a Sunday, there was a stiff breeze soon after it became light, and nobody imagined that flying would take place. Bleriot, however, motored from Calais to the spot where his monoplane was housed, and after a short trial flight, during which his motor ran well, said he should attempt the Channel crossing. Latham had not then left his hotel.

There was a dramatic moment before Bleriot started his engine. Standing up in his machine and peering over the Channel, he asked:

“Where is Dover?”

A friend stretched out an arm, pointing across the water, and the airman nodded and sat back in his machine.

Rising in a half-circle to pass above some telegraph wires, Bleriot sped out across the water—as shown on Plate V—and his machine receded until it was a speck. He flew low and the wind was strong enough to bring white crests to the waves. This wind, furthermore, was seen momentarily to be rising, and anxiety was expressed. In a few minutes, to those watching from the French coast, the monoplane and its pursuing destroyer passed out of sight. And then came a period of waiting, crowds gathering about the wireless telegraph station which, installed temporarily on the cliffs, was in touch with Dover. And while his friends waited thus in suspense, the lonely airman fought a rising wind—poised perilously above the waves, and with no sign of land either before him or behind. Those on the torpedo-destroyer, although she was steaming fast, lost sight of the airman before mid-Channel was reached. He had said that, should he out-distance this vessel, he would circle in the air and wait till she overtook him, so as to have the certainty of being picked up should his engine fail. But when in actual flight, although he saw his escort left far behind, Bleriot did not swing round and wait, but instead bore swiftly on; and his reason for so doing was this: the wind was rising steadily and he reckoned his only hope of reaching the English shore was to fly straight on, and seek to make a landing before the gusts became too violent.

For ten minutes, in this historic flight, Bleriot flew through a sea-fog, seeing nothing above or below him, and with instinct only to guide him upon his course. Had his motor stopped then, causing him to plane into the sea, his position would have been almost hopeless. It is true that in the body of his monoplane had been placed an air-bag, to help it float should he alight upon the water; but even with such buoyancy it is doubtful whether the machine would have withstood the buffetings of the waves for more than a few minutes; and Bleriot himself was handicapped by the fact that, as the result of the igniting of some petrol a week or so before, he had a burned foot which made him limp painfully. But his motor did not falter—although, in this cross-Channel flight, the airman was asking it to run longer than it had done before.

Photo, “Daily Mirror.”

PLATE VI.—BLERIOT REACHES DOVER.

Wind-tossed and exhausted, after his flight from Calais, the airman planed down near Dover Castle; descending so abruptly, owing to the gusts, that he broke his running-gear and propeller. He is seen above in his overalls, a few minutes after landing—a crowd having already gathered on the scene.

Passing from sea-mist into open sky, Bleriot saw the English coast-line; but it was not Dover that lay before him, but a point considerably north-east of it; and he realised that, as he had flown across the water with no landmark to guide his eye, he had been borne off his course by the pressure of a south-westerly wind. Holding on till he came within planing distance of the shore, he turned his craft towards Dover; but the wind, which he was now facing, seemed to gain in strength. The monoplane pitched and swayed and made little headway, and the pilot became anxious as to his landing. It had been arranged that he should alight upon the Shakespeare Cliff; but now, approaching Dover upon the side opposite to this cliff, he decided to land somewhere without a moment’s delay, and not wait until he gained the farther point. So he turned suddenly towards an opening in the cliffs which lay below Dover Castle. Descending in passing above the land, he met the full brunt of the gusts as they played over the cliff. The monoplane was caught and twirled completely round; and the airman straightened it only to be tossed again like a leaf before the wind. A second time he regained control, and once more his machine was flung from its course. But now, being well over the land, and with an open stretch of grass below him, he planed steeply down. The landing was abrupt—in fact, made with desperate haste; and the chassis of the machine was broken by the shock and the propeller splintered. But Bleriot was not concerned at this. He clambered stiffly from his seat, the great flight done; and soon motor-cars came, and he was carried in triumph to the town. The scene upon the cliff, showing the monoplane a few minutes after it had landed, with Bleriot being interviewed by a journalist, is seen on Plate VI. The course the airman flew in crossing the Channel is indicated by Fig. 45.

Meanwhile, on the French shore, the news was received by wireless; and so overjoyed was M. Anzani, the builder of Bleriot’s motor, that he suddenly burst into tears. One of those who stood waiting for a message was Latham; and when the word came that Bleriot had made the flight and won the prize, he took off his cap and cried, “Bravo!” Then he ordered his mechanics to bring out his machine, saying that, although there was nothing to be won, he intended to make the crossing to show what his machine could do. But when he reached the starting-point the wind had risen and was blowing in heavy gusts; whereupon, although he seemed determined to fly, M. Levavasseur and others persuaded him that the idea was hopeless.

In two days’ time, however, his chance came. Upon a fine, perfectly calm evening he started upon a second crossing, and this time flew fast and well. The watchers at Dover saw him approach—saw him reach a point within little more than a mile of the Admiralty pier. And then, just as it had done before, his motor broke down and he had to plane into the sea. But this time, failing to make a smooth contact with the water, he was thrown forward from his seat against a wooden upright, cutting his head badly and sustaining shock. Picked up by a motor-boat he was brought into Dover; then, after a doctor had attended him, he returned to France. Again his monoplane was wrecked in its recovery from the water. The Antoinette Company had fared badly in this contest, losing two machines and having their chief pilot injured. The Comte de Lambert, after hearing of Bleriot’s success, did not attempt a flight.

Henri Farman had played no part in this cross-Channel flying; he was busy with the tests of a biplane of his own construction. In July, at Rheims, there was to be the great flying meeting; and Farman had made up his mind to wait for this. Aided by the experience he had gained with the Voisin machine, he had designed a craft which should be generally more efficient and faster in flight, and more quickly responsive to its controls. The biplane he produced, marking as it did a step forward in construction, is a machine that needs description. The general appearance of the craft is indicated by Fig. 46, while an illustration of this type of machine in flight will be found on Plate VII. A feature of the Voisin that Farman discarded was the vertical panel fitted between the main-planes to give sideway stability. An objection to these planes was that they added to the weight of the machine and checked its speed, tending also to drive it from its course should there be a side wind. But in taking away such fixed balancing-planes, Farman had to substitute another device; and what he did was to work upon the same theory as the Wrights had done, and obtain a similar result in a different way. They, it will be remembered, had warped the rear portions of their main-planes. Farman kept his planes rigid, but fitted to their rear extremities four narrow, hinged planes, or flaps, which could be moved up and down and were called ailerons. Their effect was the same as with the Wright wing-warp. When a gust tilted the machine, the pilot drew down the ailerons upon the side that was inclined downward; whereupon the air-pressure, acting upon the drawn-down surfaces, restored the machine to an even keel.

The control was simple. At the pilot’s right hand there was a lever; this, when moved forward or backward, operated the elevating-plane; and a sideway action controlled the ailerons. At the pilot’s feet was a pivoted rod, and this, as he pressed upon it with one foot or the other, swung the twin rudders at the tail.

Such a system of hand-and-foot control has become general in aeroplanes. The pilot uses as a rule a hand-lever or wheel for governing the ascent or descent of his craft, and for sideway balancing, and employs his feet for operating the rudder. This leaves him a hand free for the manipulation of his engine throttle and switch.

A feature of Farman’s biplane was the landing gear, as shown in Fig. 46. It comprised two long skids, which projected in front of the main-planes beneath the machine, and continued some distance rearward; while mounted upon each of these skids, at a point below the front edge of the lower main-plane, was a short metal axle which bore two small bicycle wheels, fitted with pneumatic tyres. Holding the axle to the skid were thick india-rubber bands, and the working of this apparatus was as follows: when the machine moved across the ground, the bicycle wheels bore its weight, and the skids were prevented from making contact with the surface. But when alighting from a flight, should the biplane strike ground heavily, then the wheels were pushed up by the yielding of the elastic bands, and the skids took the shock of the impact. Light, and with no complications, this form of gear proved remarkably efficient; and by degrees it came to be used, not only in the Farman, but upon other types as well. The necessity in any such device was lightness; when the machine was in the air, and until it landed from its flight, the alighting gear was so much dead weight—and not only this, but the air-pressure on struts and stays acted as a check upon the speed of the machine. Any landing gear to be useful and efficient, therefore, must be light and yet strong, and have few parts which can offer resistance to the air.

Farman planned to win prizes at the Rheims flying meeting, and he succeeded. But the flights he made would hardly have been possible had not he obtained the use of a new motor—one destined to play a vital part in the development of flying. This was the Gnome; and to understand its triumph an explanation is necessary. Before Farman fitted the first of these motors to his biplane, engines in aeroplanes had been troublesome and unreliable. The difficulty was that they must be very light, and yet capable of running at high speeds and under heavy loads. Working, say, at 1000 revolutions a minute or even more, they drove the propeller of an aeroplane at full speed for the whole of the time it was in the air, and enjoyed no occasional rest, or slackening of power, as was the case with motor-car engines on the road. The result was that, being light and experimental—and at the same time so heavily worked—they either broke small but vital parts, such as a valve or connecting-rod, or became over-heated and failed to deliver their power.

To prevent overheating, there were two cooling systems available. In one, known as water-cooling, a stream of water flowed through metal chambers round the cylinders, and tended to reduce their heat. But this implied extra weight, and the carrying also of a radiator, or framework of thin pipes exposed to the air, through which the water was pumped, so as to cool it after it had passed round the heated cylinders. The second system, which obviated the use of water or radiators, was known as air-cooling. In this the tops of the cylinders were ringed with metal flanges, or fins, upon which the air impinged as the machine flew. This method is adopted in most motor-cycle engines, and answers admirably. But with aeroplane motors, in the early days, the high speed at which they worked, and the fact that they obtained no rest in flight, or slackening in the number of their revolutions, made them overheat very often, in spite of their cooling fins. One might liken their work to taking a motor-cycle and running it at top speed up a hill without end.

The difficulty with air-cooling—although it had obvious advantages over water-cooling—was to bring enough air to play upon the surfaces of the cylinders; and it was here that the Gnome won so complete a success. In other engines the cylinders were stationary, and their pistons, moving up and down in the cylinders, turned a crank-shaft to the end of which the propeller was fixed. Therefore the only air the cylinders obtained was what rushed upon them through the speed of the machine in flight. But in the Gnome, instead of the cylinders remaining stationary and the crank-shaft revolving, the cylinders themselves spun round, and the crank-shaft did not move. An illustration of this motor with one end of the crank-chamber removed, so that the piston-rods can be seen, is given in Fig. 47. It will be noted that there are seven cylinders, set in the form of a star, and that the seven piston-rods projecting from them come together upon a single crank-pin, which is attached to the stationary crank-shaft and turns round it. The propeller, instead of being fitted to the crank-shaft, as was the case with other motors, was bolted to a plate upon the engine itself, so that when this turned around its crank-shaft, it carried the propeller with it.

A difficulty in this engine lay in feeding its cylinders with their petrol and air. We showed, in Fig. 32, how this mixture is delivered to an ordinary motor, which has its cylinder stationary. But with the Gnome the mixture could not be supplied from a pipe to the cylinder-head, for the reason that the cylinder was revolving. The problem was solved by making the stationary crank-shaft hollow, and by delivering the mixture through this to the interior in the engine; thence it was sucked into the cylinder-heads through a valve in the pistons. There were other complications, inevitable to this ingenious motor, which led critics to declare it would prove unreliable. But their judgment was wrong, for by making every working part with scrupulous care, and sparing no expense in the quality of the materials used, the builders of the Gnome did render it reliable. They achieved another triumph as well; they eliminated overheating. Revolving more than 1000 times a minute, the cylinders of the Gnome cooled themselves automatically, and the engine proved that it would run for hours without becoming too hot, or the pistons seizing in the cylinders. Furthermore, seeing that the weight of water and of radiators was avoided, the Gnome was remarkably light. The 50-h.p. engine weighed no more than 165 lbs., which meant that it gave one h.p. of energy for each 3.3 lbs. of its weight. A photograph of the Gnome, as fitted to a Farman biplane, is seen on Plate VIII.

The Gnome, when first built, was regarded with scepticism. Farman, however, showed the acuteness of his judgment. He obtained a Gnome and fitted it to the biplane which he flew at Rheims; and the wisdom of this choice was soon made clear. The chief prize at Rheims was for the longest flight, and this Farman won easily, remaining in the air for 3 hrs. 4 mins. and covering a distance of about 112 miles. The flight represented a world’s record; and by this feat alone Farman made his biplane famous, and demonstrated the reliability of the Gnome. Those who watched the flight will not forget it. Farman started rather late in the afternoon and flew low round the great aerodrome, his landing-wheels appearing sometimes to be a few feet only above the grass. He sat leaning forward in his seat and circled close to the wooden towers marking the course, losing no ground and steering his machine with perfect accuracy. So he flew for lap after lap, never rising higher or flying lower, and with the Gnome behind him emitting a booming hum as it whirled the propeller without falter or flag. Only the approach of darkness, in fact, caused the airman to descend.

Of famous aeroplanes at Rheims, five types stood out by themselves—the Farman, the Voisin, the Wright, the Bleriot, and the Antoinette, all of which have been described. But there was one other, which few people had heard of before it appeared here. This was the Curtiss biplane, built by an American named Glenn H. Curtiss, and engined with a motor which also bore his name. Curtiss had experimented with many power-driven machines—motor-cycles, motor-cars, airships, and aeroplanes—and had won a prize in America with a small, light biplane, and it was a craft of this type—as seen in Fig. 48—that he brought with him to Rheims, his idea being to compete for the speed prize. The machine had a front elevator and tail-planes, according to the practice in biplane construction; but an innovation was the setting of the ailerons midway between the main-planes—a position that will be noted in the sketch; another novelty was the way these ailerons operated. At the pilot’s back, as he sat in his driving seat, was an upright rod with two shoulder-pieces—by means of which, should he shift his body, he could swing the rod from side to side. Wires ran from the rod to the ailerons; and if the pilot leaned over, say, to the right, he drew down the ailerons on the left side of the machine. The merit of such a control was that it was instinctive; that is to say, should the biplane tip down on one side, it was natural for the pilot to lean away from the plane-ends that were sinking; and he operated the ailerons automatically, as he did this, and so brought the machine level again. This ingenious system is illustrated in Fig. 49.

Features of the Curtiss biplane were its smallness and lightness. The span of its main-planes was only 28 feet 9 inches—no more than the span of the Bleriot; and it weighed, with its pilot on board, a total of only 710 lbs. Driving the machine was an 8-cylindered 30-h.p. motor; therefore it was expected to be fast in flight. The speed contest, as a matter of fact, became a duel between Curtiss—who flew his machine himself—and Bleriot, who piloted his fastest monoplane; and in the end Curtiss won, attaining a speed of a little more than 47 miles an hour. Bleriot had built for the contest a new racing monoplane, which had a motor of 80 h.p., and in which the pilot sat below the wings. The photograph on Plate IX shows the appearance of this type of craft.

Latham, in his Antoinette, won the height prize at Rheims, rising to an altitude of 500 feet. Others who distinguished themselves were Paulhan and Rougier, on Voisin biplanes—the former to become famous afterwards as the winner of the Daily Mail £10,000 prize for the flight from London to Manchester. But the Voisins, although they flew steadily, seemed slow, clumsy machines in comparison with the Farman. The Wright biplanes, of which there were three in competition, did not distinguish themselves particularly. The pilots who had charge of them, and had been taught to fly by Wilbur Wright, were the Comte de Lambert and M. Tissandier, who have been mentioned already, and M. Lefevre—a pilot who was the first to make trick flights, wheeling, diving, and swinging in circles, and astonishing people who watched him from the stands. Not long after the Rheims meeting, while testing a new machine, this airman met with an accident that proved fatal, his craft diving suddenly and being wrecked.

The Wright machines, to tell the truth, were not regarded favourably in France. Many men were attracted by the speed and simplicity of the monoplane; many others, again, championed the Farman with its Gnome. The chain-drive of the Wright propellers was said to be a source of danger, and their need to start from a rail was, in view of the wheeled under-carriages of the French machines, declared a clumsy makeshift. So, although the machine was the first power-driven craft to fly successfully, and despite the feats of Wilbur in 1908, the Wright biplane did not conquer France. Although they had lagged behind the Wrights in the building of practicable machines, the enthusiasm of French makers soon carried them ahead of their rivals. The Wrights handicapped themselves; they would not, for a long time, discard the starting-rail; they would not adopt the Gnome motor; they were averse from making alterations in the construction of their machine. So their biplane, although its efficiency was always granted, never took the place to which it seemed entitled.

It was after the Rheims meeting that the building of aeroplanes commenced as an industry. Farman established a factory and began to produce biplanes in considerable numbers; Bleriot had received orders for monoplanes after the cross-Channel flight; and the Voisins were building too. There were French firms, also, who had been given permission to manufacture the Wright biplane; and in England, at a factory in the Isle of Sheppey, Messrs. Short Brothers were building Wright machines.

It is necessary now to consider the growth of flying in England. While mighty deeds were done in America and France, there had been pioneers at work here—painstaking and enthusiastic, but handicapped sadly by the public indifference that prevailed. They met with no encouragement—no financial help; they had to build their machines as best they could, and whether they succeeded or failed seemed the concern of none. An experimenter who braved this apathy and won his way until he became a constructor of aircraft, was Mr. A. V. Roe. For some time he was an advocate of the triplane form of machine—a craft, that is to say, with three main-planes fitted one above another. The machine with which he obtained flights, although they were very brief, is seen in Fig. 50. Subsequently, however, Mr. Roe adopted the biplane form. His distinction in the pioneer days was that he managed to make his triplane lift into the air and fly a short distance, with the aid of a motor-cycle engine developing no more than 9 h.p.

Another ardent worker in England, and one destined to become famous, was Mr. S. F. Cody. After developing a system of man-lifting kites which the British War Office acquired, he joined the military aircraft factory that had been established at Farnborough. Here, after tests with dirigible balloons, he began the construction of experimental biplanes—all machines of large size. Early in 1909 he made brief flights—the longest being one of about 250 yards. Then, after alterations to his machine, he managed in July to fly a distance of 4 miles. This he increased afterwards to 8 miles; and then on 1st September flew for 1 hour 3 minutes, rising to a height of 300 feet. Cody’s biplane was a very large machine, having 1000 square feet of lifting surface—twice that of the Farman or Voisin. Driving it was an 80-h.p. engine, which operated two propellers on the system used by the Wrights. With its pilot on board the machine weighed 2170 lbs. It is illustrated in Fig. 51.

In the control of the machine Cody introduced original devices, notably as to sideway balance. Instead of using ailerons or wing-warping, he arranged his two elevating-planes so that they would move up and down independently of each other. In this way, by making one tilt up and the other down, he was able to obtain the same effect as with ailerons. When raised or lowered in unison, these planes acted as elevators. Cody managed also to combine all controlling movements in one lever, and did not use his feet for steering. Before him, as he sat in his driving seat, he had a rod which ended in a hand-wheel. Pushed forward or backward, this rod moved the elevating-planes; swung over from side to side, it altered the angle of one or other of the elevating-planes and so controlled sideway balance; while by turning the wheel at the top of the rod, the pilot could operate the rudder at the rear of the machine. Cody made little progress until he obtained a powerful motor, his machine being too large and heavy for the engines fitted to other craft. Acquiring a motor of 120 h.p. in 1912, he won the War Office competition on Salisbury Plain, his biplane showing its superiority—as a purely military craft—even over those of the famous French builders. It was in the summer of 1913, while flying a new machine, that the airman and a passenger fell to their death—expert evidence showing that the craft collapsed in the air. Two other Englishmen prominent in the early days of aviation were the Hon. C. S. Rolls and Mr. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon. The former, having learned to glide as the Wrights had done, obtained a British-built Wright biplane and made excellent flights at Shellbeach, Isle of Sheppey. During the season of 1912, still piloting a Wright, he took part in several aviation meetings; and it was at Bournemouth, owing to the collapse of a tail-plane, that he fell 90 feet and was almost instantly killed. Towards the end of 1909, Mr. Moore-Brabazon, after buying and learning to pilot a Voisin, ordered a British-built biplane from Messrs. Short Brothers, and with this machine on 30th October 1909 he won a £1000 prize offered by The Daily Mail for the first circular mile flight by a British aviator upon an all-British machine.

Now indeed, once the first obstacles had been overcome, the building of aeroplanes and the training of men progressed astonishingly. New champions appeared almost every day; many aviation meetings were held; and Henri Farman, to complete the triumphs of a wonderful year, flew in November for 4 hours 17 minutes 35 seconds, covering a distance of 150 miles through the air, and breaking all records for duration of flight.