  From time immemorial man has admired the aËrial evolutions of wing-gifted creatures, and aspired to imitate them. But which evolutions should he attempt first? Which if any are practicable for the ponderous lord of creation? The question is still pertinent. Nature in her bounty bewilders us with wondrous models. All about and overhead, with exquisite art, they challenge us to float or fly. Before the flower-bell drifts the ruby-throat, his long bill in the honey-hearted bloom; now bulletlike he leaps through boundless space. Why not adopt that style of locomotion? Call your rainbow equipage to the door, and take the family forth in purple state, to the music of melodious wheels. If the humming bird will not serve, look above you. There rides the dark-winged master of aËrial motion, throned like a god on the impetuous wind. Mark his majestic sweep as all day long, with unbeating pinion, he scours the wide plain and rugged regions of the hills, unwearied, reposeful, deliberate; now skimming the fragrant forest, or meadow; now scaling the precipice, or swinging above the abyss; now soaring cloudward beyond the range of human vision. There is a model for the ambitious and the brave! Or turn to mid ocean when the hurricane, shearing the tops of the arched billows, scatters them in Of all the charming modes of flight now possible to us it is certain that our ancestors could copy but one with any hope of success. Minus motive power they could not imitate the direct flight of the homing pigeon, much less the mid-air pause of the bumblebee floating round a daisy. Hence there remained to them only passive flight on nonvibrant wings. The gliding of vultures, of gulls, and of certain quadrupeds and fishes, they could imitate with profit; but when they essayed power flight they invariably and egregiously failed. The art of aviation presents two main groups of fliers. The first comprises the various man kites, parachutes, gliding machines, soaring machines. These may be called passive flyers, because they carry no motive power, but ride passively on the air by the force of gravity or a towline. The second group comprises the bird-like flap-wing machines, called orthopters by technical people; the screw-lift flyers, called helicopters; the aËroplanes, also called monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, according to the number of superposed main lifting surfaces; and lastly the gyroplanes, whose sustaining surfaces may turn over and over, like a falling lath, or whirl round and round, like a boomerang. These all may be called dynamic, or power, Disregarding the crude essays at human flight, recorded in the early literature and history of many peoples, we may notice first the well authenticated sketches of Leonardo da Vinci. His fertile mind conceived three distinct devices for carrying a man in the air. But he and his successors for nearly four centuries could do little more than invent. For lack of motive power they could not navigate dynamic flyers, however ingeniously contrived. Fig. 26.—Da Vinci’s Helicopter. Da Vinci’s first design, as shown in Fig. 26, provides the operator with two wings to be actuated by the power of both arms and legs, through the agency of very ingenious harness. With this device an acrobat could fly forward and downward, to the delectation of a multitude; but he would have to be caught on something soft to escape injury. Since Leonardo’s day the experiment has been tried occasionally, Fig. 27.—Da Vinci’s Parachute. Da Vinci’s second flyer was a helicopter, as shown in Fig. 26. An aËrial screw 96 feet in diameter was to be turned by a strong and nimble artist who might, by prodigious effort, lift himself for a short time. Though various small paper screws were made to ascend in the air, the larger enterprise was never seriously undertaken. Many subsequent inventors developed the same project; but the fellow turning the screw always found it dreadful toil and a hopelessly futile task. Of late the man-driven helicopter has been abandoned, but the motor-driven one is very much cultivated. Scores of inventors in recent years, aided by light motors, have been trying to screw boldly skyward, and some have succeeded in rising on a helicopter carrying one man. Da Vinci’s third scheme for human flight, as shown in Fig. 27, was a framed sail on which a man could ride downward, if not upward. This device never fails to navigate with its confiding sailor. Sometimes he lands in one posture, again in another; but voyage he must, with the certainty of gravitation. Leonardo is, therefore, the father of the parachute. This, in turn, has had a varied offspring. The foregoing sketches by the great artist were made toward the year 1500, and there the science stood for nearly three centuries. Much speculation followed, but no substantial progress. Mathematicians proved by figures the inadequacy of the human muscle to achieve human flight. Dreamers demonstrated the same by launching themselves from high places, and breaking their bones on the unfeeling earth, before unpitying crowds. Finally came the balloon, giving a new impetus to an embryo art. The earliest of Da Vinci’s aËronautic ideas to be practically realized was the parachute. The exact date of its first employment is not exactly known. In the year 1617 Fauste Veranzio published in Venice a good technical description of the construction and operation of the parachute, accompanied by a clear illustration, as shown in Fig. 28. But the first authentic account of a parachute descent of a human being is that given by Sebastien Lenormand. This dauntless inventor, on December 26, 1783, descended from the tower of the Montpelier Observatory, holding in either hand an umbrella sixty inches in diameter. A few days later he sent to the Academy of Lyons the following description of his improved parachute, illustrated in Fig. 29:
Fig. 28.—Veranzio’s Parachute. Previous to Lenormand’s experiments, Blanchard, the aËronaut, had dropped small parachutes from his balloon, sometimes carrying animals, but never a human being. For unaccountable reasons Fig. 29.—Lenormand’s Parachute, 1784. After this experiment, parachute descents became popular the world over, and have been repeated up to the present time substantially without change. A slight improvement in the construction was made by cutting away the top of the canvas, thus allowing the air to escape sufficiently to check the oscillations; but no radical change in the design has come into general use. It would seem easy to have transformed the craft into a traveling parachute gliding down the sky like a great bird on out-stretched wings. Such a device would enable the aËronaut to sail some miles and direct his course in Curiously enough, Nature has furnished a traveling parachute which seems never to have been imitated by man, though not difficult to copy. It is a large two-winged seed, which when dropped in any poise, immediately rights itself, and glides gracefully through the air. The seeds grow on a tree in India, bearing the name Zanonia Macrocarpa, and when shaken from its branches look like so many sparrows sailing earthward in wide curves. Artificial gliders of this type are easy to construct, and would make interesting toys. However, if man has not copied such natural models, he has done much better, by making his gliders concave below instead of concave upward, as are the beautiful Indian seeds. An interesting model of a traveling parachute, quite as efficient as the gauzy-winged seed, is shown in the accompanying figure. It is a sheet of paper twenty inches long by four inches wide, having a quarter inch strip of tin folded in its forward margin, and having its rear margin turned upward slightly, to steer the little craft from a too steep descent. In order to improve the stability of the paper plane, its sides may be bent upward. The model when dropped in any attitude quickly rights itself, and sails down a gently sloping course, the rear margin functioning as a rudder or tail. Fig. 30.—Paper Traveling Parachute. One of the earliest trustworthy and scientific accounts of experimentation with an aËrial glider was given by Sir George Cayley in Nicholson’s Journal, in 1809 and 1810. After a careful study of the principles of stability, he, in 1808, constructed a glider spreading 300 square feet of surface and weighing with its load 140 pounds. It had wing surfaces slightly inclined to each other, and a tail inclined enough to determine a gentle downward course. “When any persons,” says Cayley, “ran forward in it with his full speed, taking advantage of a gentle breeze in front, it would bear him up so strongly as scarcely to allow him to touch the ground, and would frequently lift him up and carry him several yards together. It was beautiful to see this noble white bird sail majestically from a hill to any given point of the plain below it, with perfect steadiness and safety, according to the set of the rudder, merely by its own weight, descending in an angle of about 18° with the horizon.” Sir George Cayley made a brave start in the science of dynamic flight, marshaling to it all the mechanical resources of his day. He applied the most reliable data of fluid resistance then available. He formulated the laws of equilibrium and control of a flying machine quite as well as any of his successors for two generations. He estimated the The next great advancement in the devices and principles of aviation was made by another Englishman, and a worthy successor to Sir George Cayley. In 1842 Mr. Henson patented the aËrial equipage shown in the accompanying illustration. It was what in present-day parlance is called a monoplane, being in fact the first commercially planned aËroplane known to history. As seen at a glance it consisted of a large sustaining surface rigidly trussed and driven through the air by two propellers actuated by a steam engine. It was to be guided up and down by means of a horizontal rudder, and guided to the right and left by means of a vertical rudder, seconded by a keel cloth; both rudders being at the rear of the large plane. The machine was designed to be launched by running down an inclined plane or track. Fuller details of this first patent aËroplane are given in the following official description in the South Kensington Museum of a model aËroplane constructed by Henson and Stringfellow:
PLATE XII. HENSON’S AËROPLANE. ADER’S AËROPLANE. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. The creation of Henson’s flying machine at that early period is one of the most original and fruitful achievements in the century-long development of the modern aËroplane. Barring the torsional wing-tips So much for Henson’s contrivance as an abstract invention. The concrete, full scale machine was to spread 6,000 square feet of surface, weigh 3,000 pounds, and be propelled by a high pressure steam engine of 25 or 30 horse power. The machine was not completed on a large scale, and wisely so; for it was inadequately powered, and, moreover, required many refinements of detail to make it entirely practical. These improvements had to be left to succeeding inventors with accumulated experience and resources. In 1844 Mr. Henson began the construction of a steam-driven model, in partnership with his friend, Mr. Stringfellow, who designed the motor for it. They experimented together for some weeks with only meager success, but gaining valuable experience. In 1846 Stringfellow built a steam model aËroplane about the size of a large soaring bird, and weighing all together, with fuel and water, 6½ pounds. A special feature of this model was that its main surfaces were sloped like the wings of a bird, slightly concave below and feathered toward the back; thus making it more efficient and stable in flight. With a good head of steam, and propellers whirling, the model ran down a stretched wire, leaped into the air “and darted off in as fair a flight as it was possible to make, to a distance of about 40 yards.” Thus the first power-driven aËroplane to fly successfully was the little steam model constructed by Stringfellow in 1846. Fig. 31.—Wenham’s AËroplane, 1866. In 1866, two decades after the flight of Stringfellow’s monoplane, Mr. F. H. Wenham, another Englishman illustrious in the annals of aËronautics, patented the multiplane; that is, an aËroplane comprising two or more superposed surfaces. This Wenham’s aËroplane is illustrated in Fig. 31. The rider lies underneath the multiple wings, so as to diminish the resistance to progression through the air. The apparatus could thus be used as an aËrial toboggan for coasting down the atmosphere. To prolong the flights two flappers actuated by a treadle were to be employed, their ends being hinged at a point above the operator’s back. Though the device was patented, no very serious efforts were made to operate it practically. Once, indeed, the inventor took his glider to a meadow and mounted it, during a lull in the evening wind, but soon a gust caught him up, carried him some distance from the ground and toppled him over sidewise, breaking some of the surfaces. The machine disclosed some good working principles; but it was inadequately ruddered, and too feebly constructed, to weather the buffets of the prevailing ground currents. PLATE XIII. STRINGFELLOW’S AËROPLANE (FRONT). (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.) STRINGFELLOW’S AËROPLANE (SIDE). (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.) Adopting the scheme of superposed surfaces then recently devised by Wenham, Mr. Stringfellow in 1868 constructed the interesting steam-driven model Fig. 32.—Penaud’s AËroplane Toy, 1871. In 1871 M. A. Penaud produced the interesting toy aËroplane shown in Fig. 32. The model is propelled horizontally forward by a single screw, actuated by twisted rubber, and is fastened, as shown, to the middle of a long stick or backbone. The center of mass of the machine is well to the front, tending to plunge the model earthward like a heavy-headed arrow; but this down-diving is promptly checked by the tiny rudder which is so inclined as to counteract the diving proclivity. That is to say the rudder dips so as to receive the aËrial impact on its upper surface; which impact increases with the speed of flight and causes the bow to rise, until the weight before the wings just balances the impact on the rudder at the rear. The equilibrium is thus automatic, on the principle expounded by Sir George Cayley sixty years earlier. This quaint little bird when liberated in the Garden of the Tuileries flew a distance of 131 feet in eleven seconds, much to the delight of some members of the French Society for AËrial Navigation. It may be added that Penaud, who was a most promising and clever aËronautical inventor, contemplated a twin-screw monoplane large enough to carry Fig. 33.—Tatin’s AËroplane Model, 1879. In 1879 M. Victor Tatin made some very promising tests with the model shown in Fig. 33, so promising, in fact, as to convince many that human flight was even then practicable. This little flyer was a twin-screw monoplane mounted on wheels, and actuated by an oscillating compressed air engine, the whole machine weighing 3.85 pounds, and supported by a silk plane measuring 16 by 75 inches. The central body of the aËroplane was a thin steel tube three feet long by four inches in diameter containing the compressed air, and weighing only one pound and a half, though strong enough to endure a pressure of twenty atmospheres. When the model was allowed to run round a board walk 46 feet in diameter, tethered to a stake at the center, it quickly acquired a speed of 18 miles an hour, rose in the air, and flew a distance of fifty feet. A remarkable deduction from the very careful measurements made with this machine was that it carried at the rate of 110 pounds per tow line horse power, when flying at an angle of 8 to 10 degrees. Mr. Tatin concluded: “These experiments seem to demonstrate that there is no impracticability in the construction of a large apparatus for aviation, and that perhaps even now such machines could be practically used in aËrial navigation. Such practical experiments being necessarily very costly, I must to my great regret, forego their undertaking, and I shall be satisfied if my own labors shall induce others to take up such an enterprise.” Tatin’s faith in the practicability of a large aËroplane was later voiced by Mr. Chanute in his valuable book, Progress in Flying Machines, published in 1894, but now unfortunately out of print. Recalling that Maxim had recently produced a large motor Fig. 34.—Hargrave’s Model Screw Monoplane, 1891. In 1891, twelve years after Tatin’s experiment, Lawrence Hargrave, of Sydney, Australia, made a similar compressed air monoplane, with a single-screw propeller, but without wheels for launching and lighting. The model, which is shown in Fig. 34, had a wing-spread of 20 square feet, weighed about three pounds, and flew 128 feet in eight seconds. The weight carried was at the rate of 90 pounds per horse power, a very encouraging result. Two years later he described a small steam engine which he had developed, weighing 10.7 pounds per horse power, and capable of driving the model about two miles, though he did not use it for that purpose, being engrossed with other researches. One interesting outcome of his numerous experiments was the Hargrave Kite, now more familiarly Fig. 35.—Hargrave’s Kite. A very novel and interesting type of aËroplane model was tested by Mr. Horatio Phillips in 1893. After careful preliminary experiments with various forms of curved “sustainers,” or lifting surfaces, tested in a wind tunnel, to determine which were most suitable wing forms, he finally constructed the flying apparatus shown in Plate XIV. This consisted of a compound aËroplane composed of many superposed narrow curved slats, the whole resembling an open Venetian blind. These curved blades, or sustainers, measured 12 feet long, 1.5 inches wide, 2 inches apart, and were held in a frame sharpened to cleave the air with slight resistance. The entire aËroplane spread 136 square feet of lifting surface, and was mounted on a truck as shown, carrying a steam engine and boiler, to actuate a two blade propeller 6 feet in diameter. The whole apparatus weighed 330 pounds, to which a dead load was usually added, and ran around a circular wooden track 628 feet in circumference, being tethered at the center, as in Tatin’s experiment. The apparatus readily lifted itself, when running at a speed of 28 miles an hour, Phillips’s aËroplane shows a distinct advance over its predecessors, even Wenham’s multiplane, because of the careful curving of the sustainers. Tatin’s flat wing machine had, indeed, shown a greater efficiency as a whole, but that was likely due to less proportionate body resistance. To Phillips we owe the introduction of superposed arched surfaces, now so commonly used in mechanical flight. Whether he was wise in using so many narrow wings, instead of a few broad ones, was a question to be answered by precise measurement. Prof. S. P. Langley, like Mr. Hargrave, made numerous flying models, trying, in turn, the power of twisted rubber, compressed air and steam. He constructed scores of gauzy winged contrivances which flitted about like huge butterflies or birds, till their mission was accomplished—that of illustrating a scientific principle to his inquiring mind. One by one they came into existence, enjoyed an ephemeral life, and then were consigned to the aËronautical attic of the Smithsonian Institution, a storehouse of quaint flying creatures. It was a most interesting PLATE XIV. PHILLIPS’ TETHERED AËROPLANE. PHILLIPS’ AËROPLANE. On May 6, 1896, Dr. Langley launched the picturesque steam model, which, to his mind, first proved conclusively the practicability of mechanical flight. It was the crowning success, and, as he thought then, probably the termination of his aËronautic labors. “I have brought to a close,” says he, “the portion of the work which seemed to be peculiarly mine—the demonstration of the practicability of mechanical flight—and for the next stage, which is the commercial and practical development of the idea, it is probable that the world may look to others. The world, indeed, will be supine if it does not realize that a new possibility has come to it, and that the great universal highway overhead is now soon to be opened.” As shown in Plate XV, Langley’s first successful steam flying machine is a tandem monoplane[21] with twin screws amidships. It measures nearly 13 feet from tip to tip of its wings, about 16 feet along its entire length, and weighs with motor and propellers 30 pounds. The boiler weighs 5 pounds, the engine 26 ounces, and the power developed was between 1 and 1.5 horse power. The model is therefore somewhat larger than a large condor, and very much more powerful. Being too small to carry a pilot, it was launched
PLATE XV. LANGLEY’S STEAM MODEL. (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.) LANGLEY’S GASOLENE MODEL. (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.) LANGLEY’S TWO SURFACE GASOLENE MODEL. (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.)
In passing it may be added that in 1899 this model was again flown successfully, having superposed surfaces; for its inventor all along recognized the structural advantage of the bridge trussing in biplanes. If he preferred the monoplane, or single-tier arrangement, it was because the best flights were obtained with such models. Many persons now thought that Langley would do well to rest on his laurels, leaving to others the “commercial and practical development” of his ideas. But he had caught the aËronautic fever. Like many another poor son of fancy, he was haunted by magnificent dreams. Now, perhaps, was stirring in his mind that vision of his childhood when he lay on his back in the New England pasture and “watched a hawk soaring far up in the blue, and sailing for a long time without any motion of its wings, as though it needed no work to sustain it, but was kept up there by some miracle.” Mr. Andrew D. White declares that Professor Langley was a poet by nature. Whatever the dominant impulse, he followed his “aËrodrome” like one possessed. It was the all engrossing pursuit of the latter years of his life, entailing how much vexation, toil and unjust censure! In 1898 the Board of Ordinance and Fortification, after carefully studying the flights of 1896, appropriated $50,000 to enable Professor Langley to build a one-man flyer. He first tested a gasoline driven aËroplane having one fourth the linear dimensions of the man-carrying one. In external appearance this model resembled the steam “aËrodrome,” described above, but was considerably larger. It spread 66 square feet of surface, weighed 58 pounds, and developed 2½ to 3 horse power. When ready for the test, August 8, 1903, this beautiful white-winged creature was taken to the middle of the Potomac, 40 miles below Washington, mounted on the launching ways, swiveled into the eye of the wind and shot forth like a stone from a catapult, her engine and propellers humming merrily. The flight must have been very graceful and dignified, for it elicited commendation even from the squad of reporters present, men who customarily We have now traced the growth of the aËroplane from its earliest conception to the present time, as exemplified by working models. First came the parachute of da Vinci and others, whose sole function was to carry a weight softly to earth, with no provision for steadiness of motion, or control of direction. Then, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, arrived the gliders adjusted for steadiness, equilibrium and a predetermined slanting course in the air; beautiful passive birds, actuated by gravity, but riderless and awaiting the advent of artificial motive power. Then suddenly appeared Mr. Henson’s wonderful project; a large man-carrying aËroplane, provided with a motor, propellers, rudders, wheels for launching and landing—an impossible scheme for that day, but destined to be realized in the course of two generations. Henson’s idea was doubtless the most prolific in the history of aviation. After this followed the numerous instructive models, actuated by twisted rubber, steam, gasoline, compressed air—economic Fig. 36.—Launoy and Bienvenu’s Helicopter, 1784. In this brief outline, the two other main types of flyers, the orthopters and helicopters, have been omitted. The orthopters, or wing flapping machines, have been very numerous, but have not yet approached practical success in use. Though a man-carrying orthopter has not yet been produced, an elegant pigeon-like model operated by rubber has been made by Pichancourt, which flies and balances nicely. The helicopters, or direct-lifting screws, have more than once raised their weight and that of the helicoptrist, or navigator. These latter, therefore, seem to be of sufficient interest to merit a short historical review. Leonardo da Vinci, the fertile pioneer in aviation, missed one novel device worthy even of his genius. He constructed aËrial screws of paper, but he did not endow them with motive force. Such an achievement was in his power, and would have ranked him with Archytas of Tarentum, who 400 b. c. invented the kite, and an artificial dove said to have flown, no one knows how. Having escaped da Vinci’s ingenuity, the power helicopter failed to materialize for three centuries, but finally appeared in France. In 1784 Launoy and Bienvenu, the first a naturalist, the second a mechanician, exhibited before the French Academy the interesting toy shown in Fig. 36. This was the first power-driven helicopter, and is said to have lifted itself in the air quite readily. As may be observed it consists of two coaxial screws rotating in opposite directions actuated by the power of an elastic stick, like a bow. The screws were each about one foot in diameter and made of four feathers; one screw being fastened to the top of the rotating shaft, the other fastened to the bow, which rotated in the contrary direction. The little model excited much interest, particularly as its inventors expected to build a man-carrying helicopter on the same plan. The larger project was obviously without merit; for no combination of springs can maintain flight for more than a few seconds even on the most favorable scale. A more powerful toy helicopter was produced by Mr. Horatio Phillips in England in 1842. This was a single aËrial screw emitting jets of steam which compelled it to spin, on the principle of a lawn sprinkler, or a Hero engine. The whole apparatus weighed two pounds, and had screw blades inclined 20° to the horizon. The steam was generated by the combustion of charcoal, niter and gypsum, as in the fire extinguisher previously invented by the same ingenious man. The performance of this curious helicopter, is thus described by Mr. Phillips: “All being arranged, the steam was up in a few seconds, then the whole apparatus spun around like a top, and mounted into the air faster than any bird; to what height it ascended I have no means of ascertaining. The distance traveled was across two fields, where, after a long search, I found the machine minus the wings, which had been torn off from contact with the ground.” “The distance traveled was across two fields.” For vagueness this surpasses the poet’s measure—“as far as oxen draw the plow in a day.” It would be most interesting to have an exact description of this classical experiment, when for the first time a flying machine rose in the air propelled by a heat motor. It would be desirable also to know the possibilities of such a helicopter, particularly since Prof. Cleveland Abbe has proposed to employ a like agent to carry meteorological instruments into the higher atmosphere.[23] A still more ambitious helicopter was that shown in Fig. 37 invented by Professor Forlanini, an Italian Civil Engineer, and launched in 1878. The lower screw was fastened to the frame of a steam engine, the upper screw was attached to the crank shaft. Steam was supplied from the globe shown beneath, which was two thirds filled with water, and well heated over a separate fire just before an ascension. As the globe was merely a reservoir of hot water and steam, carrying neither fuel nor furnace, its power waned rapidly. The best flight lasted about twenty Many other helicopter models have been tried from time to time, with various sources of power, without, however, yielding any important results beyond those already given. But these were sufficiently encouraging. If a large machine could be made to lift as many pounds per horse power, it would be easy to build one competent to carry a man. That, indeed, has been done on several occasions. Of the various inventors who have built man-lifting helicopters M. Cornu and M. BrÉguet, in France, seem to have been first to attain a measure of success. While their machines have raised a passenger directly from the ground, they have not yet maneuvered in horizontal flight with sufficient speed to be of practical service. However, a few helicoptrists in various countries are still industriously at work, and hope eventually to rival the aËroplanists in the mastery of flight. There will doubtless be room in the sky for both. Perhaps also there will be occupation and a mission for both. Having traced the growth of winged models from their earliest beginning to the time when they proved the possibility of mechanical flight, we may now study the evolution of larger machines, designed to carry human beings. Considering first the aËroplane, we may follow the two general methods advocated by various inventors for launching a man safely in the air, both of which led to success. The first of these may be called Henson’s method, the second Lilienthal’s, coupling them with the names of their distinguished pioneer exponents. Henson in 1842 proposed that the pilot should mount a full-power machine, run along a smooth course, and glide into the air without previous experience in the art of navigating. Lilienthal recommended careful preliminary training on a glider, by which the novice should acquire sufficient skill in parrying the wind to qualify him to manage a dynamic machine, under its more complex conditions of control. Others, more cautious still, contended that automatic equilibrium should be secured before a rider risked his bones on the aËrial bronco; while still others thought the uncertain beast should be tethered to some point in the sky, say a balloon or taut wire, or the end of a pole; so that however he bucked, or reared, he should not fall over on his rider. We have noticed in the first chapter some picturesque man-flights, usually deplorable or tragic; A French novelist and aËronautic writer, G. de la Landelle, relates an amazing adventure in the art of soaring, which may have some foundation in fact, though savoring strongly of fiction. An experienced sailor, Captain Le Bris, having observed the albatross soaring without wing-beat, determined to imitate the fascinating flight of that limber-winged spirit of the sea. To such end he built the bird shown in Fig. 38, a ninety-pound albatross, with arched wings fifty feet across and articulated to the boat-like body. In this the brave aviator would stand upright, turn the wings and tail to maintain his balance, and steer grandly through the sky. Placing this long-winged creature across a cart driven by a peasant, he stood erect and headed against a breeze; the wings set low to prevent lifting Fig. 38.—Le Bris’ AËroplane, 1855. Having repaired the great bird’s wing, Captain Le Bris next made a launching from the arm of a derrick, 30 feet above the ground, overlooking a quarry 70 feet deep. The attendant swains stood open-mouthed, wondering whether this madman would overleap the clouds, or promptly butt out his brains on a jagged rock. When the wind blowing from the quarry seemed to float him in perfect poise, he tripped the suspension hook, and headed for the precipice on even keel. He was now happily Some twelve or thirteen years later, in 1867, Le Bris, aided by a public subscription at Brest, built a second albatross, with which he made a number of small flights, sometimes riding it himself, and sometimes replacing his weight by ballast. On one occasion the loaded bird, held by a light line, rose 150 feet and advanced against the wind. Suddenly the sailors holding the line observed it slacken, and saw with amazement the long-winged creature soar forward 600 feet, as stately and serene as its living prototype. Presently encountering a sheltered and quiet region of air before some rising ground, it settled softly to earth in perfect equipoise. But on a subsequent launching from the same favorable ground, the dumb creature pitched forward and plunged to the earth where it lay shattered and torn in a hopeless tangle. Le Bris looked on the wreck in despair, surveying sadly the remains of his once cherished bird; then sat upon the dÉbris a long time, his head between his hands, his heart broken, his mind tortured with anguish. Impoverished, chagrined, derided, he now must abandon the albatross business. Five years later this intrepid sailor of sea and air was killed by some ruffians, in 1872, while a constable in his native place, and after a period of The story is more romantic than instructive, for want of exact data. To give the experiments their proper value to others, fuller details of the mechanism should be furnished, and adequate measurements of the speed and direction of the aËrial currents. At one time the sailing was even, at another, rough, though outwardly the conditions appeared the same. Apparently the successful flights occurred when the bird was launched to windward from rising ground, that is, when the current had an upward slant, to exert a propulsive effort. This species of soaring has been observed frequently in nature, and has been imitated both with models and with man-carrying gliders. Nevertheless Le Bris’ experiments were very remarkable for the time, and, if adequately reported, might have proved to be of much interest and value to aËronautical science. Another Frenchman alert to the glory of aËrial motion was L. P. Mouillard, the poet-farmer of Algeria. From boyhood he studied the birds with unabated interest and pleasure. He would journey miles to attend the “morning prayer” of the starlings in the forest of Baba-Ali; noting, just before sunrise, how their melodies suddenly hushed, and the forest seemed to bound upward, and heaven filled with the music of innumerable wings. He would time the shadow of the high bird of passage riding the hurricane from continent to continent. He saw the tyrant eagle fold his wings in mid air and plunge a thousand feet in ferocious swoop after the swift-fleeing duck or rabbit. He loved to watch the great tawny vulture on the mountain top shake the dew from his vast plumes, straddle the morning wind, and all day long, with never a beat of those grand pinions, soar godlike through immensity, the marvel For thirty years he continued these studies. He would bring home the birds, lay them on their backs and mark their contour on paper, measure their projected area, weigh and compare them. He formulated curious conclusions about sailors and rowers, the functions of tail and quill feathers, weight and wing-spread, bulk, agglomeration of mass, resistance and velocity. He notes that only massive birds soar well, the broad-winged ones requiring a moderate wind, the narrow-winged ones requiring a gale, and sailing with perfect ease in a tempest; and he concludes that man may imitate both types. His book[24] is replete with charming anecdotes, observations and quaint theories, interesting alike to ornithology and aviation. But Mouillard did more than theorize; he built soaring machines and soared a little. His third and best glider, illustrated in Fig. 39, was a tailless monoplane made of curved agave sticks screwed to boards, and covered with muslin. The aviator, standing in the open space C, harnessed the plane on with straps looped round his legs and shoulders, and fastened to the points D D. His forearms, passing under straps, rested on the board, enabling Fig. 39.—Mouillard’s AËroplane. He now sent the home folks away from the farm, buckled on his wings and walked along the prairie road waiting for a breeze. The road was raised five feet above the plain and bordered by ditches ten feet wide. His wings felt light; he ran forward to test their lift, and he thought to amuse himself by jumping the ditch. The result is thus expressed in his own words:[25]
He repaired his wing and repeated the test a few days later. A violent wind gust came; picked him up from the earth, and whelmed him over. In his alarm he allowed his “wish-bone” to spread, and the wings to fold up like those of a butterfly at rest, pinching him between them like a nut in a nutcracker. One wonders whether the overwheeling vultures witnessed this gentleman’s flight with any sense of humor. After mature reflection, Mouillard concluded that he should give his aËroplane a rudder, and flex the wings, in order to insure adequate control. But here he halted, being a poor man unskilled in the art of construction. He had reached the limit of his endowments. He had observed faithfully and described charmingly the wonderful flights of various birds; but he must leave to his technical successors the pleasure of imitating or excelling those extraordinary maneuvers—leave them the pleasure, the sacrifice, the long years of toil and danger, accompanied perhaps by indiscriminate applause or derision. In the meantime another distinguished disciple of the birds was energetically at work in Germany. After careful research for the most efficient form of alar surface, Lilienthal resolved to imitate the birds. First he would build a pair of arched wings, and learn to coast down the atmosphere, balancing and steering like a stork in the gusty and treacherous current. He would thus acquire the pilot’s skill, and ascertain the towline power required to sustain a given weight. Then he would add a suitable propelling mechanism, test it cautiously, In the year 1891 Lilienthal made his first series of trials in sailing flight. His glider was the bird-shaped apparatus shown in Plate XVI, made of willow wood covered with waxed sheeting. It weighed about 40 pounds, and spread 107 square feet of surface. Taking this in his arms he first ran 24 feet along a raised board and jumped off, gliding through still air. Then, elevating the board to a height of six feet, he repeated the run, jump and glide, always landing very softly. Thus he became “king of the air in calm weather,” a title still creditably sustained by his numerous successors of the present day; for as yet no one “mounts the whirlwind and directs the storm.” Next he went to some little mounds in a field beyond Werder, and jumped from these, gradually lengthening his flights till he attained a range of nearly 80 feet. As he was now gliding in light Encouraged by this experience Lilienthal explored the country about Berlin for sailing ground where he could make long glides, whatever the direction of the wind. Such a region he found near Rathenow, where the Rhinow hills, covered with grass and heather, slope gently upward from the flat plowland to a height of over 200 feet. This he thought an ideal coasting ground; for he felt the aËrial currents very smooth, and he could always select clear land sloping ten to twenty degrees toward the wind. Here in the summer of 1893, with a new and improved glider, he made many flights, finally ranging from 200 to 300 yards, steering up and down, or to right and left at will; sometimes pausing in mid air, and several times returning to the starting point. This was more than coasting; for a mere coaster never maintains, nor returns to, his original level. It was a fair start at true soaring, the ideal locomotion. A glorious sport it was, sailing like an eagle high over the landscape and over the heads of the astonished spectators. The new machine resembled its predecessors in form and maneuver; but differed in dimensions. It was a birdlike craft with parabolically arched wings and a double tail. It measured 7 meters across, spread 14 square meters of surface, weighed with the rider 200 pounds, and in calm air could sail down a slope of 9°, at a speed of 9 meters per second. This was very efficient sailing, the work of PLATE XVI. LILIENTHAL’S MONOPLANE GLIDER. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) LILIENTHAL’S BIPLANE GLIDER. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) PILCHER’S MONOPLANE GLIDER. The craft was thought also to possess stability; and this it had, in a measure, about those two axes corresponding to the two rudders; but the control about the third axis, effected by dangling the legs to right or left, was extremely crude and primitive. It was in keeping with his adage: “to contrive is nothing; to construct is something; to operate is everything.” If he had contrived more intelligently, he would have operated more easily, and avoided those wild and dangerous dancings in space. A more scientific adage would read: “To design effectually is everything, to construct is routine, to operate is play.” The marvel is that Lilienthal, the observant, the technically trained, the practically skilled, should operate for three years, then patent, an aËrial glider having two rudders, but lacking the third rudder, or torsional wing, now so commonly used throughout the world. But doubtless he contemplated a device for preserving the lateral balance without shifting his weight; for he acknowledged the economic advantage of lying prone on the machine, and stated that this might be done after some important improvements in the apparatus had been made. Having executed nearly two thousand flights with his monoplane, Lilienthal in 1895 built a two-surface glider. He found this still easier to control, and now thought he had sufficiently acquired the art of sailing to justify his undertaking the next and more difficult art of imitating the rowing flight of birds. He had constructed a ninety-pound engine, of two and a half horse power, to actuate the wings of his glider; but, before applying this motor, he went to the Rhinow Hills for a little further experience On the 9th of August, 1896, he made a long glide to prove the effectiveness of the horizontal rudder, and then wished to undertake a second flight of the greatest duration feasible. No intimation had he that this sail would prove disastrous. Giving the timepiece to his assistant, he set forth on a level course, but suddenly dipped forward and plunged headlong to earth through a height of fifty feet. He was dragged out from the dÉbris with a broken spine, from which he died the following day. The machine on which the father of aËrial gliding made his last flight is shown in Plate XVI. Of the hazardous nature of its construction Mr. Chanute thus writes: “The two surfaces were kept apart by two struts, or vertical posts, with a few guy wires, but the connecting joints were weak, and there was nothing like trussing. This eventually cost his most useful life. Two weeks before that distressing loss to science, Herr Wilhelm Kress, the distinguished and veteran aviator of Vienna, witnessed a number of glides by Lilienthal with his double-decked apparatus. He noticed that it was much wracked and wabbly, and wrote to me after the accident: ‘The connection of the wings and the steering arrangement were very bad and unreliable. I warned Herr Lilienthal very seriously. He promised me that he would soon put it in order, but I fear that he did not attend to it immediately.’” It will be observed that Lilienthal gave fair attention to the merits of both the monoplane and the biplane, the two familiar types in lively competition at the present hour. The first he found in Nature; the second he could have found in England, as the developments principally of Wenham and of Phillips. In April, 1896, he wrote:[27] “I am now engaged in constructing an apparatus in which the position of the wings can be changed during flight in such a way that the balancing is not effected by changing the position of the center of gravity of the body. In my opinion this means considerable progress, as it will increase the safety. This will probably cause me to give up again the double sailing surfaces, as it will do away with the necessity which led me to adopt them.” He thus seems to have studied the two types impartially, and to have invented a means for balancing the machine without shifting the center of mass. Lilienthal had given a powerful and permanent impulse to aviation, both by his writings and by his practical experience in the air. He first showed quantitatively the advantage of arched wings, by carefully derived tables of wind pressure; then he mounted the wings himself and taught the world, by bold and frequent flight, the art of aËrial gravity sailing. The two remaining achievements, dynamic and soaring flight, he was to undertake as promptly as possible. If his life had been spared, no doubt he would have contributed much to the advancement of these arts, both by example and by direct effort; for he was in the prime of life, full of energy and daring, highly equipped, and ardently devoted to his favorite science. He began his studies in aviation at the age of thirteen and died at the age of forty-eight years. Among the admirable traits of the father of sailing Before his death Lilienthal had the pleasure of knowing that competent disciples were emulating him in doctrine and practice. One of the earliest and cleverest of these was Percy S. Pilcher, Assistant Lecturer in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Glasgow. In the summer of 1895 he built the glider shown in Plate XVI. This, like Lilienthal’s, was a double-tailed monoplane arched fore and aft; but, better than his for manual control, it was straight from tip to tip, like the designs of Henson, Penaud, and other predecessors. This improvement was introduced to prevent side gusts from rocking the craft so readily as they do the V-shaped gliders. His best sailer, the Hawk, shown in the figure, had wings curved one in twenty, about one third from their front edge.[28] Sometimes Having acquired some skill in sailing, Mr. Pilcher began work on a power machine. This was to be propelled by a screw actuated by an oil engine, and was to be mounted on wheels backed by stiff springs. Having observed his speed of descent in gliding, he computed that two tow-line horse power would float him and his machine, weighing together 220 pounds. A like result was obtained when he was flown as a kite. He was, therefore, on the straight road to achieving human flight on a screw-propelled, wheel-mounted monoplane. If he had been more cautious he might have been the first person to achieve human flight in a practicable type of dynamic machine; for he seems to have equaled, if not excelled, his German master in aËroplane design. But like the master he provided inadequately for the structural strength of his glider, and braved too far the dangers of gusty weather. One stormy day, September 30, 1899, wishing to please several persons who had come a long distance to see him, he made two trial flights in a gentleman’s park near Rugby. The second of these proved fatal. The spectators heard a cracking noise, saw the tail break, and the whole craft plunge headlong to the ground. Poor Pilcher was mortally hurt and died thirty-four hours later, without ever regaining consciousness. He was then in his thirty-third year. Had this talented young Briton and his German tutor both lived, there would doubtless have been a pleasant race and rivalry between them; for the pupil was forming opinions and plans sufficiently divergent from those of his master and friend. He did not approve Lilienthal’s high wings and low center of gravity, nor his V-shape for lateral equilibrium, nor his flapping wing tips for propulsion, nor his method of launching the dynamic machine. Fortunately both published their ideas and experiments, leaving to their successors the task of judging the merits of their designs, and of adding any improvements that might still be required in order to achieve final success. Contemporary with Pilcher, Mr. Octave Chanute and Mr. A. M. Herring, in America, were emulating the work of Lilienthal. Mr. Chanute was an experienced civil engineer, who had previously written a history of aviation, and experimented with numerous flying models; Mr. Herring, his employee for the time, was a mechanical engineer who had assisted in Langley’s experiments, and previously had flown a Lilienthal glider, and had made researches in the science of mechanical flight. On June 22, 1896, accompanied by two assistants, they went into camp among the sand dunes, on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, to study the art of navigating an aËroplane without artificial motive power. Mr. Chanute thought that the maintenance of equilibrium under all circumstances was at that time the most important problem of aviation; and that until automatic stability was secured, it would be premature and dangerous to apply a motor. He wished to evade, for he did not relish, Lilienthal’s way of balancing by shifting the body and kicking wildly at the stars. His main purpose, therefore, was to acquire the pilot’s science; but secondarily he would PLATE XVII. CHANUTE’S FIVE DECK GLIDER. HERRING IN CHANUTE BIPLANE. HERRING’S COMPRESSED-AIR BIPLANE. (Courtesy Carl Dientsbach.) They made some flights with a Lilienthal monoplane; but, finding this unsafe and treacherous, they discarded it in favor of a multiple-wing glider designed by Chanute, which after many empirical modifications in the placement of the sustaining surfaces, assumed the form shown in Plate XVII. This glider resembled the Lilienthal biplane in having the surfaces vertically superposed, the rider below them, and the rudder in the rear; but it was a five-decker whose wings, on either side, could swerve fore and aft, so as to bring the center of lift always over the center of gravity, in order to prevent excessive rearing or plunging. This glider was found very tractable in a twenty-mile wind, and in a thirteen-mile breeze would sail down a slope of one in four. After further study, the five-decker was replaced by a three-decker; which presently was deprived of its obtrusive and unessential lower surface, thus assuming the familiar form shown in Plate XVII. As will be observed, this was a radically new and elegant design, consisting of two superposed arched surfaces held together by vertical posts and diagonal wires, like a Pratt truss. It was, in fact, the renowned “Chanute glider” which has been copied by so many succeeding designers of biplanes. The Chanute glider weighed 23 pounds, spread 135 square feet, and readily carried a total weight of 178 pounds at 23 miles an hour. It was provided, as shown, with side planes and a double rudder, and this latter was elastically connected to the main body to insure steadiness of flight, on the principle of the elastic wing margins used by D. S. Brown in 1874. This craft was found easy to manipulate Summer passed before Mr. Chanute could perfect the invention for automatic stability by means of swerving wings; but otherwise the gliding experiments were very satisfactory. The strong and simple biplane evolved during those few weeks of fruitful study, though not an original creation, having been foreshadowed theoretically and experimentally, in the work of Wenham,[30] Stringfellow, Lilienthal, Phillips, and Hargrave, was nevertheless an important contribution to the science of aviation, by reason of its strength and simplicity of design, its efficiency, its stability, and, best of all for that day, its record for good flights and safety. All who could appreciate it understood that the addition of a light motor would transform it to a dynamic flyer, navigable at least in mild weather. The most eager, perhaps, was Mr. Herring; for he had not only mastered this glider, but some years previously had flown successfully rubber-driven models very much resembling it in design. These two aviators, therefore, came to a parting of the ways, Chanute still pursuing automatic stability, After some further development of the aËrial glider to adapt it to power flight, Mr. Herring began the construction of a dynamic aËroplane. He had previously built very light steam and gasoline engines,[31] and deemed the latter best for a perfected flyer, though preferring steam or compressed air in a first experimental test. When seen by the present writer in October, 1898, at St. Joseph, Mich., Mr. Herring was about to launch himself in the compressed-air driven biplane shown in Plate XVII. It was essentially a powered Chanute-Herring glider, steadied by a double tail, and controlled by shift of the pilot’s weight, the tail being elastically attached. The writer then suggested that both a glider and a dynamic aËroplane should be controlled entirely by steering and balancing surfaces, on the principle set forth in his paper of 1893; and, in particular, indicated that the lateral balance should be controlled by changing the inclination of the wings on either side, while the double tail should be used to steer and steady the aËroplane sidewise and vertically; in other words, that a torque about each of the three rectangular axes of the machine should be secured from impactual pressure, thus obviating the need for shifting the pilot’s weight. Mr. Herring, while making no objection to this proposal, intimated that he had a device for insuring control without shifting the pilot’s weight, but believed the most important ef The successful accomplishment of such a flight covering an overland distance of seventy-three feet in eight or ten seconds, against a wind of thirty miles an hour, was reported in the Chicago Evening News, of November 17th of that year; but the present writer has not been able to ascertain the reporter’s name, or that of any other witness to the event, which, if true, is well worthy of verification and detailed record. In following the votaries of passive flight, as represented by Lilienthal and his school, we have overlooked the great man-carrying bird of ClÉment Ader, one of the most prominent and successful aviators of that active period. If the reports be true, Ader may justly claim to be the first person to navigate the air in a dynamic flying machine. However, it must be observed that his achievements did not at first arouse in France a great pitch of exultation and enthusiasm. There seemed at the time to be some skepticism as to the practicability of his device. But later cordial reparation was made by placing it on the Stand of Honor at the AËronautical Salon, held in the Grand Palais, at Paris, in December, 1908. ClÉment Ader set out in life with the fixed determination to make a fortune, then to build a practical flying machine. Adopting the profession of electrical engineer, he quickly accumulated enough capital, as he thought, to realize his early ambition. He After several years of study of the anatomy and flight of birds, Ader began, at the age of forty-two years, to construct an aËroplane. His first machine was a birdlike monoplane mounted on skids, or wheels, and driven by a 40-horse-power steam engine actuating a screw, placed forward. The total weight was 1,100 pounds, the spread 46 feet, the length 21 feet. The Eole, as he called it, received its first open-air test on the morning of October 9, 1890, in the grounds surrounding the Chateau d’Armainvilliers, near Gretz, a portion of the course being so prepared that the trace of the wheels would be visible. When everything was ready for the trial, Ader mounted the machine, in presence of a few friends, ran quickly over the ground, urged by the propeller thrust, then rose into the air and sailed 150 feet. Such is the report of the witnesses to what is claimed as the first flight of a human being in a power-driven flying machine. Subsequently this bold inventor built Eole No. 2, which, by special permission of the War Department, he tested on a prepared track, 2,400 feet long, on the Satory Camp. Over this course he ran his machine several times, and on one occasion flew 300 feet; but on alighting broke one of the wings. Ader, now having spent one and a half million francs on his experiments, placed the Eole on exhibition in order to raise money for their continuation.
The last aËroplane, or Avion, weighed 1,100 pounds, spread 270 square feet, and was driven by a 40-horse-power steam engine actuating twin screws projecting before the bird-shaped flyer. The engine weighed but 7 pounds per horse power—quite a remarkable achievement for that day. In following the votaries of passive flight, as represented by Lilienthal and his school, we have overlooked the great dynamic aËroplane of Mr. Maxim, one of the most prominent aËroplane builders of that active period. Having in 1889 made elaborate experiments on the atmospheric resistance of sustaining surfaces, and on the thrust of screw propellers, he proceeded to build the gigantic aËroplane shown in Plate XVIII, the greatest flyer thus far known to history. It was a twin-screw multiplane Many runs along the track were made to test the working of this great apparatus before trusting it to launch forth in free flight. Dynamometers gave independently the thrust of the screws, and the lift of the wings on the front and rear axles. The ascensional planes for controlling the fore and aft equilibrium were tested during the run, as also the practical operation of the propelling plant. During Compared with the work of his contemporaries this achievement of Mr. Maxim was herculean, both in construction and expenditure, the cost being reported as nearly one hundred thousand dollars. It raised high hopes for aviation. It proved conclusively not only that a flying machine could be made to lift a pilot, but that it could carry hundreds of pounds additional weight. It still holds the world’s record for magnitude of machine and cargo. But it had two great defects; it was improperly balanced and it was inadequately powered; for, as Mr. Maxim says, “the quantity of water consumed was so large that the machine could not have remained in the air but a few minutes, even if I had had room to maneuver and learned the knack of balancing in the air.”[32] These defects, however, would soon be remedied by the work of others, and particularly by the costly experiments of the automobilists, who were rapidly developing a light gasoline motor suitable for aviation. The inventors thus far noticed had developed most of the important features of the present-day
The succeeding paragraph disclosed a specific contrivance embodying the principle just given. This showed two levers rotating drum shafts for actuating wires adapted to change the impact angles of the wing surfaces. Accordingly this much of the mechanism of control, together with the broad device of the torsion wings, has been the common property of inventors since the publication of that paper. Furthermore, the combination of torsional wings and a double rudder, either fixed or movable, has been public property since that date.[35] Little was said about the manner of manipulating the double rudder and torsional wings; for the rules of manipulation would vary in different machines, depending upon structural design and external conditions. For example, if the proposed fin and vertical rudder were ample and suitably placed, the lateral balance could be controlled by merely The principle of control expressed in italics had been set forth also in a preceding paragraph. Having proposed means for securing both stability and steadiness about each of the three axes of an aËroplane, the text continued:
At that date, 1893, an inventor doubtless could have secured a broad claim on a mechanism embodying the torsion-wing-and-double-rudder mechanism of control. But in those days aviation was pursued largely as a liberal study by scientific men who wished to hasten the advent of practical flight, by presenting important physical measurements and principles which could be freely employed by all. Accordingly the three-rudder system of control The static principle of the torsion wing is a familiar one in elementary mechanics. It is this: a torque of given magnitude and direction has the same effect on a rigid body whatever its point of application. The longitudinal torque, or moment, may therefore be exerted by the wings, by suitable rudders, by forward planes, by any auxiliary planes, or fins, however placed or moved for the purpose. Accordingly there seems to be an unlimited variety of concrete patentable devices available to the inventor for securing impactual torque about the longitudinal axis, or either of the other two axes. But in planning such devices it is well to remember that the moment of a couple increases with its arm, so that in a wide aËroplane the wing tips may best furnish the torque; while in a high short-winged machine, vertical planes, fins, or rudders may give the desired longitudinal moment. Obviously such vertical guiding or controlling surfaces may be so placed as to tilt the machine toward the center of curvature of its path, at the same time opposing the centrifugal force, and exerting a torque about the vertical axis tending to steer the flyer along its path.[38] The principle of projectile stability is another consideration of some importance in aviation, or more generally in all submerged navigation, whether of air or water. A submerged body has projectile stability if its nose tends always to forerun its centroid, and follow a steady course. A dart is a good example; a fish, a torpedo. Thus if a torpedo-shaped homogeneous solid be hurled in any manner through a fluid, obliquely or even tail foremost, it promptly turns its nose to the front and proceeds steadily along an even course; but if the body has not true dynamical balance, it may oscillate or gyrate, or flit about in the most erratic manner. Projectile stability in a flyer, as in an arrow, may be attained by playing the centroid in or near the line of forward resistance, and well ahead of the side resistance. The reasons for this are manifest. If, however, this arrangement be neglected, a special damping, or controlling, device is required to preserve headlong and steady motion. In particular, the objections to placing the centroid too low were emphasized in the above quoted paper as follows:
Of the various flyers and models thus far studied, some manifest fairly good, others very imperfect projectile stability. Many inventors have been more Tractional balance also is a property of some importance in fluid navigation. This requires that the line of propulsive thrust coincide with the line of fluid resistance. It is a property, however, that inventors readily apprehend, and usually provide for. In general a flyer is subject to four forces: weight, thrust, air pressure and inertia. When these balance about any axis the craft has equilibrium about that axis; when they balance about the three axes the craft is completely balanced, and preserves its orientation in flight. Devices for preserving this complete balance have already been described; as also provision for propulsion and sustentation, launching and landing safely. Thus at the close of the nineteenth century all the essential principles and contrivances of pioneer flight were worked out, except one—a suitable motor. This was the real problem of the ages. The rest was easy by comparison. A light enduring motor, if available to the old time inventors, would have brought dynamic flight centuries ago. That only could have baffled Da Vinci, Cayley, Henson, Wenham and the long line of pioneer aviators. Eventually, of course, steam engines had come, endowed with ample power; but costly to build and wasteful to operate. The light automobile engine appeared in the latter nineties; promptly thereafter followed the dynamic flyer, the snow-winged herald of the twentieth century. The dawn of the twentieth century found several votaries contriving aËroplanes for one or more passengers. The epoch of models had virtually closed, bequeathing a rich heritage. The essential elements of aviation, barring the motor, had been clearly worked out. The age of practical flight was at hand. No further need to prove feasible the heavier than air; for that had been done repeatedly. Scientific design and patient trial, not invention and physical research, were now the chief demand. Further research would improve the aËroplane, but not bring it into practical operation. Capital, constructive skill, judgment in adapting principles and devices already known, energy, persistence, caution, imperturbability in danger and derision; these were requisites. Science had led the way, with uplifted torch; let the craftsmen follow her with kit and apron. The aËroplane was sufficiently invented; it now wanted, not fastidious novelty, but concrete and skillful design, careful construction, exercise in the open field. Of the group of aËroplanists in the beginning of the nineteenth century Mr. Hugo Mattullath, of New York, was one of the most original, daring and resourceful. He had been a successful inventor, manufacturer and business man, accustomed to large enterprises. In the latter nineties, deeming the time opportune for practical aviation, he determined to Mattullath’s aim was aËrial transportation, not exhibition at county fairs and crowded carnivals. Regular interurban routes were projected, terminating in ample landing floors. Broad-winged aËroplanes, huge catamarans with shining hulls, sumptuously furnished in gold and crimson, should convey happy crews, in all seasons, from metropolis to metropolis. Six great engines and propellers to drive the ship, with abundant reserve power. Melodious strains of music rising incessantly, to soften the thunder of motors and the demoniacal howl of the wind. Then transcontinental voyages, outsailing the nimbus, how lovely to the anointed of fortune! Jocund savannas nestling by the sea, or in the bosom of orchid-crested hills, should welcome to earth the silken sojourners of the north migrating, gay-plumed and potent, to their winter homes in tropic paradise. All the isles of ocean, all the merry mountains, earth, sea and air, one shining empire, blissful and secure as Olympus. Chimborazo, girt With alabaster domes and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace high Uplifted; here serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed; their towers begirt With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars—illumination of all gems! Such were his holiday fancies, seldom revealed, even to his associates. The public had no intimate part in his project. A few trusted engineers, eminent in their profession, and a few financiers, formed his advisory board. For two years he worked on the structural elements of the great sails, propellers, and framing of his ship. But unhappily when he was preparing to present his final plans to his council of engineers, before building the large vessel, he was brought suddenly to the close of his career.[39] Mattullath’s proposed air ship consisted of two parallel torpedo-shaped hulls sustained by superposed plane or slightly arched surfaces, and propelled by feathering-paddle disk wheels embedded in the planes; the engines, cargo and passengers to be placed within the hulls.[40] This arrangement would enhance the comfort of the passengers at high speeds, eliminate resistance, distribute the load on the framing, and increase the moment of inertia of the vessel, thereby rendering it less sensitive to side gusts. To improve the projectile stability and steadiness, the centroid was placed as high as practicable. Large steering planes were used fore and aft on both sides of the vessel, whose inclination could be changed independently, to turn the ship about its longitudinal or transverse axis. A vertical rear rudder steered While one may easily point out certain questionable features in Mattullath’s project, as for example, its odd propellers, one can not so easily estimate its true merits. The torsion wing device for lateral control and steering, which he claimed in his patent application, abandoned after his death, now constitutes a very important feature of every flying machine. His planes for fore and aft control, introduced by Maxim, are also in general use to-day. The principle of load distribution, which he greatly prized for diminishing stress and adding stability, has still to be evaluated by practical test in larger craft than any now in operation. The closed hull, for comfort and economy at high speed, is at present popular with many designers. One tentative assumption of Mattullath’s, made on the authority of Maxim and Langley, was that the friction of the air is a negligible part of the entire resistance encountered by the hull, framing and sail surfaces. Accepting their experimental conclusion, he designed a flyer so sharp and smooth in all its parts as practically to eliminate the pressural, or head resistance. With no skin friction, with scant hull and frame resistance, he could afford[41] to fly at The first dynamic aËroplane of adequate stability and power to carry a man in prolonged flight, was that of Professor Langley. This machine was nearly a duplicate, on a four-fold scale, of the gasoline model previously described, which had flown many times with good inherent equilibrium. There was accordingly every reason to expect that, weighted and launched like the model, it would fly with the same poise and swiftness, even if left to govern itself. Having in addition a living pilot, provided with rudders for steering and balancing, together with adequate fuel for a long journey, it seemed to promise still better results than the model. But an unfortunate accident in the launching so crippled this carefully designed craft that it fell down helpless, without a chance to exhibit its powers of sustentation and balance, even for a moment, in normal flight. The first trial occurred on September 7, 1903, in the middle of the Potomac River at Widewater, Va. The aËroplane was placed on the same catapult, above the boat, that had previously started the models on their smooth and rapid maneuvers. The pilot took his seat, and started the 50-horse-power engine which ran the propellers without appreciable vibration. Tugs and launches were placed along the course where they might be of service. Photographers, on the water and along shore, were ready to furnish important pictorial records of the experiment. The aËroplane was released and sped along the track attaining sufficient headway for normal flight; but at the end of the rails it was jerked violently down at the front, and plunged headlong into the river, sinking beneath the waves. Buoyed up by its floats, it quickly rose to the surface, with its intrepid pilot uninjured, and with little damage to the structure. As revealed by an examination of the catapult and photographs, the guy post that strengthened the front pair of wings had caught in the launching ways, and bent so much that those wings lost all support. The aËroplane, therefore, had not been set free in the air, but had been wrenched and jerked downward. Thus the launching proved nothing of the propulsive or sailing powers of the machine. Those who understand the principles of aviation can judge the merit of Langley’s “aËrodrome”[43] from its mechanical description. As shown in Plate XVIII, it was a tandem monoplane driven by twin screws amidships. The pilot seated in the little boat could control the poise and course by several devices; he could shift his weight longitudinally 4.5 feet, lat If the projectile and steering qualities of Langley’s machine surpassed those of its predecessors, the propelling mechanism was a still greater advance in the art of aviation. The gasoline engine was a marvel of lightness, power, endurance and smoothness of running. It weighed, without accessories, 125 pounds, and developed 52.4 horse power in actual test at a speed of 930 revolutions a minute. With all accessories, including radiator, cooling water, pump, tanks, carburetor, spark coil and batteries, it weighed 200 pounds, or scarcely five pounds per horse power—a great achievement for that time. It could run many hours continuously under full load, consuming about one pound of gasoline per horse power per hour. Its five cylinders, arranged radially round a single crank shaft, were made of steel lined with cast iron, and measured 5 inches in diameter by 5.5 inches in stroke. Its running balance was excellent. By means of bevel gears it drove the twin screws at 700 revolutions per minute, giving The whole machine weighed 830 pounds, including the pilot; spread 1,040 square feet of wing surface; measured 48 feet from tip to tip, and 52 feet from the point of its bowsprit to the end of its tail; soared at a speed of about 33 feet a second and a ten-degree angle of flight, the wings arching one in eighteen at one fourth the distance from their front edge. The double rudder, at the extreme rear, measured 95 square feet in each of its component surfaces. It is evident from these figures, very kindly furnished by Mr. Manly, the mechanical engineer in charge of the experiments, that such an aËroplane had every equipment needed for a steady flight of many hours in fair weather. A thrust of 490 pounds on well-designed surfaces should easily carry 500 pounds of gasoline in addition to the 830 pounds regular weight of ship and pilot. This would enable the machine to fly practically all day without renewal of supplies. It appears, therefore, that Professor Langley had, in 1903, a dynamic aËroplane quite the peer, in many respects, of the best that were developed during the first decade of aviation, and that a mere accident, which should be expected in such complex experimentation, deprived him of the credit of the first man-flight on an adequately controlled and powered machine. Quite true, he lacked launching wheels; but how easy to add these, since they were proposed many times. He omitted the front steering plane, but had a rear one serving the same purpose. The worst that can be said is that he needed the equivalent of torsion wings for lateral control; but in moderate weather he could have flown successfully without them, as Farman, Delagrange, Paulhan[44] A second launching was attempted on the Potomac River near Washington, on December 8, 1903. This time the rear guy post was injured, crippling the rear wings, so that the aËroplane pitched up in front and plunged over backward into the water. After some repairs it was stowed away in the Smithsonian Institution, where its frame and engine are still intact, its wings having been injured in the wreck and discarded. The experiments were now abandoned for want of funds to continue them. Notwithstanding that Professor Langley had contributed much to the science of aËrodynamics, by his elaborate researches, and had really developed a machine capable of sustained flight, if properly launched, he was subjected to unmitigated censure and ridicule; for he had incurred the enmity of various journalists and wiseacres, partly by his official secrecy, and partly by that natural reticence which avoids premature publicity in important scientific enterprises. This irresponsible criticism, combined with the cessation of work which should have brought success, profoundly grieved him, and doubtless hastened his death. He had, however, the satisfaction of knowing that a few competent specialists appreciated his labors, and would continue them to abundant fruition. A few days before his death he had the gratification of receiving, from the newly formed AËro Club of America, the following communication acknowledging the value of his efforts to promote aËrial travel. Resolutions of the AËro Club of AmericaAdopted January 20, 1906.
Professor Langley’s progress with the “aËrodrome” was due largely to the skill, energy and devotion of his designer and superintendent of construction, Mr. Charles M. Manly. This talented young graduate in mechanical engineering, of Cornell University, in 1898, went directly from the class room to assume the chief burden of Langley’s researches in aËrodynamics, and his practical experiments in mechanical flight, remaining till their termination in 1904. He was the confidential secretary and adviser to his chief in that whole enterprise. When in 1900 Dr. Langley stood baffled before the greatest obstacle in aviation, unable to find any manufacturer, in America or Europe, who could furnish a practical engine of the desired power, lightness and durability, Manly came to his rescue with a design which guaranteed success and which resulted in the wonderful gasoline motor built in the Smithsonian shops. Finally when the aËroplane was ready to be launched, it was Manly who bore the long weeks of trial in the malarial region of Widewater, harassed by accidents and foul weather, not to mention the merry agents of the press; and it was he who twice rode the ponderous aËrodrome, shot forth in mid air at the imminent risk of his life. While Langley was building his great tandem monoplane, Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, were developing a biplane which was an improvement on the aËrial glider of Chanute and Herring. This was to be their preliminary effort toward achieving continuous flight. Their first product, tried at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the summer of 1900, is shown in Plate XIX. The chief points of departure from Chanute and Herring’s glider were (1) to place the rider prone on the lower surface, as first proposed and tried by Wenham, forty years’ previously; (2) to discard the vertical rudder; (3) to With this glider they made a number of satisfactory flights. The front rudder and the torsional wings proved adequate to control the craft in sailing straight ahead down the Kill Devil sand hills, near Kitty Hawk, N. C. In this, as in all their machines to the present date, sled runners, fixed under the machine, as proposed by Ader and others, were used for launching and landing. With a surface of 165 square feet, they could glide down a slope of 9.5° at a speed of 25 to 30 miles an hour. This showed only a moderate efficiency, but it was a beginning. The glider used in the summer of 1901 was modeled after that of the previous year, but larger. It was 22 feet wide, 14 feet long, 6 feet high, spread 308 square feet, and weighed 108 pounds. With this a number of glides were made, of various lengths up to 400 feet. At a speed of 24 miles an hour gravity exerted on the aËrial coaster 2½ tow line horse power, showing an efficiency nearly equal to that of Pilcher’s glider of 1897. In camp with the Wright brothers in 1901 was Mr. Chanute, the leading aËronautic expert in Amer PLATE XIX. FIRST WRIGHT GLIDER. SECOND WRIGHT GLIDER. The 1902 machine, shown in Plate XIX, had two main surfaces, measuring each 32 by 15 feet, and a front rudder measuring 15 square feet. The whole weight was 116 pounds. It will be noted that a vertical rudder was now employed. This was a reversion to the design of Chanute and Herring, but after some experience, the rudder was made adjustable, as in Henson’s aËroplane of 1842. Its surface was 12 square feet, but later reduced to six. With this machine they obtained between 700 and 1,000 glides during the season. It showed greater efficiency than its predecessors, its normal angle of descent being estimated at seven degrees or less. This was some improvement over the efficiency of the Chanute-Herring glider, partly due, of course, to placing the rider flat, instead of allowing him the more comfortable erect posture adopted later. Whatever improvements of efficiency and strength had been made, these were of secondary importance compared with the provisions for projectile stability and manual control. Here at last, after ten years’ groping, was an actual glider with sufficiently high centroid to minimize the pendulum effect, and with In 1903 a 16-horse-power engine and twin-screw propellers were applied to the navigable glider at Kitty Hawk, as shown in Plate XX. The power machine weighed 750 pounds, and was usually started by aid of a tow line and falling weight which helped the craft to acquire headway. After many trials and modifications, the first successful launchings, four in number, were made on December 17th. The PLATE XX. FIRST WRIGHT AËROPLANE (REAR). FIRST WRIGHT AËROPLANE (SIDE). The experiments were continued during the next two years with increasing success. During the season of 1904, on a field near Dayton, one hundred and five flights were made, some short, others covering the entire circuit of the field no fewer than four times, the two largest measuring each nearly three miles, each accomplished in about five minutes. Various improvements were made in the propelling and steering mechanism, and increased skill in maneuvering was gradually acquired. In 1905 the flights were resumed with a new machine embodying some changes dictated by experience, particularly in the method of control. Forty-nine landings were made involving seven breakages, but no personal injury. On September 26th a flight of eleven miles was achieved. This was followed, within the next nine days, by flights of twelve, fifteen, twenty-one and twenty-four miles, at a usual speed of 38 miles an hour. After this the field practice ceased for more than two years, and the machine was dismantled to preserve secret its mode of construction till the patents could be disposed of. As these performances and those preceding are of unusual interest, a fuller account is given in Appendix IV. The Wright brothers now had to assume in aviation the rÔle of cautious business men. The gliding experiments had been a scientific recreation, and had been fairly well reported to engineers, except in those details to be covered by patent claims; but the details of the power machine were withheld, or sparingly disclosed. The brothers had sacrificed time and money. They were making aviation a profession. They must, therefore, be repaid. But if they exhibited too promptly their machine and aËrodynamic data, they might jeopardize their financial interests by assisting or stimulating rival aviators. On the other hand, by procrastination and concealment they might, in various ways, forfeit priority and scientific credit. Chanute’s glider was already familiar in Europe, and it was estimated to have ample efficiency for successful flight with existent motors. Their own published experiments were being studied and repeated. They might, therefore, expect that, at any time, some rash or cunning fellow would bolt into the air and proclaim to all the world that their unpublished devices, if they possessed any novelty, were by no means necessary, as they fancied, to usher in actual dynamic flight. The aËroplane would thus appear to be the sudden outgrowth of fertile and mature conditions, rather than the product of uncommon originality. Scores of aviators would immediately spring into being—chauffeurs, mechanics, sporting gentlemen of every dye. Light motors being now available, any intelligent artisan could power a Hargrave kite, or Chanute glider, and soar aloft. Every odd craft, not too absurdly designed, would navigate, with some showing. Publicity and prize money would develop and perfect the various types with feverish haste. But in 1905 the Wright brothers apprehended no portentous or imminent invasion of the sky. The foreign bogie was The same year, 1905, which crowned with most success the private flights of the Wright brothers, brought into unusual prominence the quarter century long experiments of Prof. J. J. Montgomery of Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, Cal. He had given much attention to the science of aviation, particularly to passive flight, and had constructed several successful gliders operated by himself or his friends. The most remarkable of these machines was a glider resembling in general appearance Langley’s tandem monoplane, but having means for changing the wing curvature during flight, thus varying the lift on such wing, and thereby enabling the operator to control the equilibrium and direction during his glides in the air. On April 29, 1905, a forty-five pound glider of this pattern bearing an intrepid parachute jumper, Daniel Maloney, was lifted from the college grounds by a hot-air balloon to an elevation of 4,000 feet, then cut loose. “In the course of the descent,” writes one of his pupils, “the most extraordinary and complex maneuvers were accomplished—spiral and circling turns being executed with an ease and grace almost beyond description, level travel accomplished
PLATE XXI. MONTGOMERY’S AËROPLANE.
In 1903, Mr. Ernest Archdeacon stimulated by a conference with Mr. Chanute, at a meeting of the AËro Club of France, founded a prize of 3,000 francs to be awarded to the first person who should sail or fly 25 meters, with a maximum descent not exceeding one third of the range. As yet no one in either hemisphere had flown in a practical machine, but various aviators were industriously pluming their wings. Captain Ferber had been a follower of Lilienthal since 1898, and a pupil of Mr. Chanute since 1891. Dozens of votaries in France, not to mention other countries, had entered, or were about to enter, the aviation field. Archdeacon himself, Voisin, BlÉriot, Esnault-PÉlterie, Vuia, Delagrange, Tatin, Cornu, Bazin, Levavasseur and many others, were stanch apostles of the heavier than air. Many of these were disciples of Lilienthal, but they were destined all to be distanced by an impetuous Hensonite, who could not realize the necessity for spending months, or years, cautiously coasting downhill to acquire the adroitness requisite to speed a flying chariot over the plain. In 1906, while many aviators in Europe were developing flyers, and cautiously testing them in various ways, by gliding above sand or water, or swinging from a high wire or traveling arm, SeÑor Alberto Santos-Dumont, of Brazil, brought forth in France the quaint and crude biplane shown in Plate XXII. After some days of preliminary adjustment and trial, Santos-Dumont was ready for a dash in his new aËromobile. On August 22d, 1906, he made a brief tentative flight, the first witnessed in Europe since Ader’s surreptitious experiment. On October 23d, he ran this strange machine swiftly over the ground and glided boldly into the air, flying above the excited spectators at a speed of 25 miles an hour, and covering a distance of 200 feet, thus gaining the Archdeacon cup. Again on November 12th, 1906, he made four flights, the last one covering 220 meters in twenty-one seconds, thus gaining the prize of 1,500 francs offered by the AËro Club of France for the first person who should fly 100 meters. The demonstration was made before the general public Intrinsically the achievements of November 12th were crude and primitive; but in moral effect they were very important. They marked the inception of public aËroplaning before the professional and lay world alike. There was no patent mechanism to conceal, no secret to withhold from rivals, such as had shrouded the work of more circumspect aviators in Europe and America. If Santos-Dumont was not the first to fly, he was the first aËroplane inventor to give his art to the world, and to inaugurate true public flying in presence of technical men, as he had initiated modern motor ballooning. His liberal enthusiasm and that of his colleagues, both aËroplanists and patrons, quickly made France the world’s foremost theater of aviation, at least for the moment. The contagion would of course spread swiftly, and involve the entire civilized world. Santos-Dumont’s unconventional dash into the air sounded the knell of Lilienthalism. This slow method served to pass time profitably in the nineties, while the gasoline motor was still developing. But with an Antoinette in hand, what live man, particularly what live Frenchman, could tinker long years on the sand hills? Why not mount the craft on little wheels and take a cautious little run; then after some adjustment, make more runs followed by innocuous saltatory flights? This would be so easy, so fascinating, so instructive. How much better than to make two thousand preliminary jumps down the hill slope with the body dangling wildly to keep the balance, then to redesign the entire frame before an engine could be successfully applied! An Antoinette PLATE XXII. SANTOS-DUMONT’S BIPLANE. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. SANTOS-DUMONT’S DEMOISELLE. (Courtesy A. J. Moisant.) The next daring aËroplanist to arouse the world of aviation was Henri Farman, also a votary of the wheel-mounted flyer. He had been an adept motorist, therefore accustomed to brisk driving. In the summer of 1907 he received from the Voisin brothers the aËroplane illustrated in Plate XXIII. With this he made a number of preliminary flights during the autumn, proving that his aËroplane had suitable stability and motive power. On October 26th, on the government drill grounds at Issy-les-Moulineaux he surpassed Santos-Dumont’s record, by flying 771 meters. But this was to him of minor importance; he was preparing to win the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize of 50,000 francs offered for the first person who should fly one kilometer over a returning course. On January 12th, he convoked a committee of the AËro Club of France to witness a trial on the morrow. Next morning at ten o’clock, the The machine with which Farman achieved his first success, and which broadly resembles his subsequent triumphal flyers, seems to be a cross between a Hargrave kite and a Chanute glider, having a Maxim horizontal steering plane in front. As shown in the figure it was mounted on four bicycle wheels; was steered up and down by the front plane, and sidewise by the box rudder seen in the rear. The rider seated between the large supporting surfaces, and in front of his engine, operated these rudders separately, by pushing or rotating a pilot wheel, and abetted the automatic lateral balance by swaying his body. The machine spread 559 square feet of sustaining surface, weighed 1,100 pounds and carried a 50-horse-power Antoinette motor actuating a single two-blade aluminum propeller 6.9 feet in diameter by 3.6 feet pitch, directly connected to the engine shaft. The stability in mild weather was so great that Farman, during his first few weeks’ practice, made over 200 flights, measuring in length from 100 to 500 yards, without serious mishap. In gusty weather, however, his machine was defective in steadiness, and unsafe near the ground. This objection was remedied later by adding flexible wing margins for controlling the lateral balance. The age of prize flying was thus fairly ushered in by the feeble but very important public demonstrations of Santos-Dumont and Henri Farman. Other public flyers would quickly follow. Delagrange, BlÉriot, Curtiss would soon become international figures, not to mention numerous more recent avia PLATE XXIII. FARMAN BIPLANE, 1908. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) FARMAN BIPLANE, 1909. HARMON IN FARMAN BIPLANE. Leon Delagrange, the sculptor-inventor, who first had demonstrated the biplane, on March 30, 1907, aspired in 1908 to outfly Farman. He now practiced industriously on the military drill ground at Issy-les-Moulineaux, a large field which the Minister of War permitted the AËro Club of France to use for such purpose. Here he and Farman, in friendly competition, flew day by day over gradually increasing courses. At times they were joined by other aviators, and thus the drill grounds at Issy became famous as an aviation school. Farman’s new rival made startling progress during those frequent trials of March, 1908. “Just imagine,” he says, “that within a week I was able to complete my education as an aviator.” On March 17th he made an official flight of 269.6 meters, thus winning a prize of 200 francs offered by the AËro Club of France for a beginner who should fly over 200 meters. Four days later he engaged in contest with Farman. Two poles were erected 500 meters apart to mark the points about which the men must race. The machines were brought forth from their sheds in the morning, gleaming dimly through a dense fog, and were given some preliminary trials. Then Farman made a flight of 2004.8 meters, going twice around the course in 3 minutes, 31 seconds. He thus trebled his grand prize flight of January. Presently Delagrange took wing and flew 1,500 meters in 2.5 minutes. Having been beaten by Farman, he invited his successful rival to take a seat behind him, and the two sailed away close to the ground, covering a distance of 50 meters. This was the first trip ever made by two Delagrange continued to pursue Farman for the championship. On April 11th, he flew 2,500 meters, and would have exceeded Farman’s official record of 2,004 meters, had he not touched the ground. The next day he summoned the official committee of the AËro Club of France to witness and time his performance. Poles were erected at the corners of a triangle 350, 200, 275 feet apart respectively. Around this course he flew nearly five times, covering a distance of 5,575 meters in 9¼ minutes. Of this range the last 3,925 meters were covered without touching the ground. Thus at last he had out-flown Farman and established a new official record, the total distance actually covered being about ten kilometers, or approximately six miles. This ended, at least temporarily, the friendly competition at Issy; for now the aviators separated, Farman going to Belgium, Delagrange to Italy. Delagrange’s fortune accompanied him abroad. On May 24th, he made some impressive demonstrations on the Place d’Armes at Rome in presence of the Minister of War and thirty thousand people. On May 27th, he flew before the King and Queen of Italy and many other court personages, remaining in the air nine and one half minutes, thus surpassing all previous European records for endurance and distance. But this was only preliminary. On the morning of May 30th, he came forth again on the Place d’Armes, a light breeze blowing. His machine rolled quickly over the ground, then circled gracefully ten times around in the air at a height of four to seven meters, covering an official distance of 12.75 kilometers, and remaining aloft 15 minutes, 26 seconds. On June 22d, at Milan, he flew before 15,000 In the meantime, Farman was making rapid progress, gathering prizes and achieving wide renown. On May 30th, at Ghent, Belgium, taking with him M. Archdeacon, he flew 1,241 meters at a height of seven meters. He thus established a new record with two people, and won the 1,200 franc wager made with Santos-Dumont and Archdeacon against M. Charron, who contended that a flying machine would not, within the year, carry two men weighing sixty kilograms each. On June 6th he flew 20 minutes, 20 seconds, covering 19.7 kilometers, thus again increasing the world’s record, and winning the Armengaud prize of ten thousand francs for the first aviator to remain aloft fifteen minutes in France. On September 29th and October 2d, at Chalons, he successively increased the world’s record, and achieved his best results for the year. The first of these trials lasted 42 minutes, covering 24.5 miles; the second lasted 44.5 minutes, covering 25 miles. This last flight was forty times as long as the one of January, which gave him the grand prize of fifty thousand francs, and is a good index of the wonderful progress in aviation made in France during the year 1908. Between these two performances he, on September 30th, sailed from Chalons to Rheims, a distance of 27 kilometers, in twenty minutes. This Mr. Curtiss drifted into the business of building and operating air ships and flying machines by frequent association with inventors, who came to his bicycle works at Hammondsport, N. Y., for assistance in the design and construction of aËrial craft. He was particularly sought as a constructor of propelling mechanism, for he had special skill and experience in producing light gasoline engines. As a motor expert he was invited to the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, at Beinn Breagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in the summer of 1907. Dr. Bell had developed his wonderfully light, strong and stable tetrahedral kites to such an extent that he wished to convert them into “aËrodromes” by applying light propelling mechanism. He accordingly invited two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy, to consult with him regarding the structural details of his proposed flyer, and contracted with Mr. Curtiss to supply the motive power. These gentlemen with Lieutenant T. Selfridge, a guest of Dr. Bell, developed so many independent ideas that Mrs. Bell suggested the advantage of forming themselves into a scientific organization, at the same time offering the capital required for experimentation. Acting on this advice and generous offer, they formed themselves into the now famous AËrial Experiment Association, whose object was the construction of a practical aËroplane, driven through the air by its own motive power, and carrying a man. PLATE XXIV. THE RED WING. CURTISS BIPLANE. CURTISS BIPLANE WITH PONTOONS. After some preliminary downhill glides[48] and studies with a motorless aËroplane, the association, on March 12, 1908, brought forth their first dynamic machine, the Red Wing, shown in Plate XXIV, in order to speed it along the ice of Lake Keuka, near Curtiss’s factory; the purpose being, not to fly, but to test the effect of the vertical rudder. To the surprise of the twenty-five onlookers, the machine, after running two hundred feet along the ice, serenely rose into the air and flew 319 feet. “This,” says Dr. Bell, “was the first public exhibition of the flight of a heavier-than-air machine in America.” It is noteworthy also that this machine was completed and ready for trial in less than seven weeks from the time of starting. Its design, while embodying suggestions from each member of the association, was attributed chiefly to Lieutenant Selfridge, who took the leading part in evolving the plans, and who gave them his final approval, it being the intention of the association to offer each man a chance to produce a flying machine after his own notions, aided by the experience and liberal advice of his fellows. As the advantage of flying from the ice had been suggested some years before the death of Lilienthal, it seems remarkable that this method did not yield important results earlier in the development of aviation. A smooth ice field is such an ideal place for testing a dynamic aËroplane, that previous gliding experience would seem unnecessary, providing the machines were designed with a fair knowledge of the elementary principles of stability and control. Even glider practice could be effectively conducted over a smooth ice field after momentum had been acquired by aid of gravity, or a tow line. Having sufficient momentum the aviator could test his rud The aËroplane II, designed by Mr. Baldwin, aided by his associates and their combined experience, resembled that of Lieutenant Selfridge in the trussing of its body surfaces, but was mounted on wheels, and provided with torsional wing tips for lateral control. When tested, it was found easy to launch and land, besides responding very promptly to the three-rudder control. In the hands of Mr. Curtiss, on May 22d, this aËroplane, called the White Wing, flew 1,017 feet in 19 seconds, and landed smoothly on a plowed field. This at the time was the longest flight ever made by an aviator in his first trip on a heavier-than-air machine. It was now Mr. Curtiss’ turn to be captain of design and construction. Under his supervision aËroplane III, called the June Bug, was ushered forth, in the month of honeymoons. It differed from the two preceding in having a box tail; also in having a nainsook cover, instead of the red and white silk that characterized the Red Wing and the White Wing. After some practice, this flyer behaved so well that it seemed competent to win the Scientific American Cup offered for a public flight of one kilometer straight away. Accordingly an official trial was arranged with a committee of the AËro Club of America, for the fourth of July, 1908. It was the first official flight in the western hemisphere, and proved in every way most satisfactory. The machine flew 2,000 yards over an S-shaped course at a speed of 39 miles an hour, displayed admirable control, and The year 1908 also brought to happy fruition the long and persistent experiments of Louis BlÉriot, the most illustrious pioneer and champion of the monoplane. Beginning in 1900, he had tried one type after another, of flying machine, till he became world renowned for his fertility of invention, his daring, his picturesque accidents and hairbreadth escapes. So long as he was not killed he was certain to make progress; for he had every endowment that ensures success. He possessed the energy of early manhood, having been born in 1872; he had the thorough technical training of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, where he graduated in 1895; he possessed extraordinary talent for invention and constructional detail; he had the prowess, courage and coolness requisite for testing intractable and dangerous flyers; he was in the world’s most active center of aviation; he also had sufficient means. If he was late in achieving success, it was because he preferred to develop original ideas, and could not be content with merely copying his predecessors. Like many other novices in aviation, BlÉriot began by trying to build a machine with flapping wings that should fly like a bird. This was to be actuated by a carbonic acid motor. In 1904 he abandoned his first machine, of bird type, and turned to aËroplanes, beginning with a biplane of the Farman, or Voisin type. His second machine was built by Gabriel Voisin, one of the most experienced of the pioneer aËroplane manufacturers. This biplane, unprovided with an engine, was mounted on floats, towed along the Seine by a motor boat, and rose from the After various minor flights in the spring and summer of 1908, BlÉriot, on October 31st of that eventful year in aviation, determined to attempt a cross country voyage, as Farman had done the day before. As will be remembered, Farman had flown from Chalons to Rheims, above trees and houses, a distance of nearly 17 miles, thus achieving the first town-to-town flight in history. BlÉriot would improve that record at once, by flying in a closed circuit embracing several villages. His renowned cross-country flight was directed from Toury to Artenay, a village nine miles distant. Mounting his aËroplane VIII-ter, at mid afternoon, PLATE XXV. BLÉRIOT FLYING OVER TOURY-ARTENAY CIRCUIT. BLÉRIOT MONOPLANE NO. VIII. BLÉRIOT MONOPLANE NO. IX. Fig. 40.—BlÉriot’s Toury-artenay AËroplane Circuit, 1908. In the meantime the Wright brothers had resumed their field practice. During the month of May, 1908, they tested their famous aËroplane of 1905, provided with increased engine power, and carrying two passengers upright. A few brief flights were made at speeds of 41 to 44 miles an hour, showing that all the mechanism was adequate and effective. But on May 14th a false push on a The Chief Signal Officer of the United States Army in December, 1907, had issued specifications, and invited bids, for a flying machine apparently far in advance of the art. The flyer was to carry two men aggregating 350 pounds, was to remain aloft one hour continuously, and was to maintain an average speed of 40 miles an hour in a cross-country flight to and fro, covering a distance of ten miles. The contractor must instruct two officers to operate the flyer. Furthermore the machine must be capable of flying 125 miles without stopping. The requirements seemed severe, even to those well versed in aviation. Nevertheless two bids were received; one from the Wright brothers for a biplane to cost $25,000, another from Mr. A. M. Herring for a biplane costing $20,000. Both bids were accepted for the summer of 1908; but only the Wright contract was eventually carried out. About the same time the Dayton inventors had sold their patent rights in France to a syndicate in that country. The contract specified a machine for two passengers, having a speed of 50 kilometers an hour, and a range of 125 miles. Furthermore, the inventors agreed to instruct three pupils to manage the aËroplane. The fulfillment of these two contracts occupied some months, but presented no formidable difficulties. Though neither of the brothers had ever flown an hour, and though both were comparatively unskilled as operators, they had such faith in their invention that they undertook to Of these two tests, the one conducted by Orville Wright at Fort Myer, near Washington, was the most successful at first. After a few brief preliminary trips, he suddenly astonished the world by phenomenal flying. On the morning of September 9, 1908, he made a voyage above the drill ground lasting 57 minutes, 31 seconds, and again in the evening another flight lasting one hour and three minutes, this time before a throng of distinguished spectators. Immediately thereafter he took aboard Lieut. Frank P. Lahm for a flight of six minutes’ duration. These records were improved day by day, and all things seemed propitious for the official tests of speed and endurance. But on September 17th, while sailing with Lieutenant Selfridge at a height of about 75 feet, a blade of the right-hand propeller struck and loosened a stay wire of the rear rudder. Instantly the wire coiled about the blade, snapping it across the middle. Thereupon the machine became difficult to manage, and plunged headlong to earth, throwing the men with their faces on the bare ground, fatally wounding Lieutenant Selfridge, and seriously injuring Mr. Wright. Lieutenant Selfridge did not recover consciousness, and died within three hours, from wounds on the forehead and concussion of the base of the brain. Mr. Wright suffered a fracture of the left thigh and of two ribs on the right side. The aËroplane was badly shattered in its framing, but the engine was practically intact. This accident terminated the tests for the season; but ere long a date was set for their resumption during the following year. PLATE XXVI. WRIGHT BIPLANE OF 1908. STANDARD WRIGHT BIPLANE OF 1910. WRIGHT RACING BIPLANE OF 1910. Wilbur Wright began his demonstration for the French syndicate on the plain of Auvours, ten miles Having completed the speed and distance tests at Le Mans by the close of the year 1908, Wilbur Wright went to Pau, in the South of France, for the winter practice with his three pupils, Count de Lambert, Paul Tissandier and Alfred Leblanc. Here on the vast trial grounds at Pont Long, six miles from Pau, he had a commodious hangar with a workshop on one side, and on the other, apartments for the aviator and his mechanics. He arrived with his pupils, on January 14th, and next day was joined by his brother and sister, who had followed him from Paris, Orville being now well recovered from his A pleasant feature of the sojourn at Pau and Le Mans was the number and character of the visitors, and the boundless enthusiasm displayed toward the new art. Tens of thousands of people from the neighboring places, and tourists from many parts of the earth assembled to see the flights; statesmen, military officers, scientific and parliamentary delegations, representatives of innumerable periodicals. Queen Margherita, having missed a flight on her first visit to Le Mans, came a second time, and remained three hours standing on the field, fascinated by the wonderful aËrial equipage. The King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, who visited the aËrodrome at Pau, on February 20th, manifested the keenest interest and delight in examining the aËroplane and seeing it fly; first with the pilot alone, then with an extra passenger. He took a seat in the machine beside Mr. Wright, discussed its working, and expressed his deep regret that reasons of state prevented him from making an ascension. A month later the King of England, who was at Biarritz, adjourned to Pau, where he remained to witness two unusually fine flights. He expressed the greatest pleasure in the performance, questioned the brothers about the details From Pau, Wilbur Wright went to Italy, about the end of March, to fulfill an engagement to give demonstrations and lessons in the use of the biplane. He was welcomed at Rome by the King of Italy, on April 2d, and later gave a public exhibition of flying, to aid the sufferers in the recent earthquake at Messina. His flights were attended with great enthusiasm, and his lessons in aviation were quickly mastered; his pupil, Lieutenant Calderara, soon making public flights alone. A rare sight it was, this modern winged chariot soaring above the ruins of that ancient campagna, bearing with it a moving-picture camera. By the end of April Mr. Wright had finished his task in Italy, and was journeying homeward with his sister and brother by way of London, where they enjoyed the hospitalities of the AËronautical Society of Great Britain; and where, on May 3d, the brothers received the beautiful gold medal of that famous society, the oldest aËronautical organization in the world. The return to America was primarily for the purpose of completing the official tests at Fort Myer; but incidentally the brothers must find time to receive new honors and ovations. While in the shop at Dayton, working vigorously to complete a new aËroplane for the War Department, in the hope of finishing the demonstrations by June 28th, the limit of their allotted month, they were showered with attentions too numerous for their comfort. They must drop their tools in order to go to Washington to receive the gold medal of the AËro Club of America from President Taft, at the White House, on June 10th. On June 17th they must witness an elaborate demonstration in their honor at Dayton, The early tests of this aËroplane were not an unmixed triumph for the Wright brothers and their well-wishers. At first the machine failed to fly completely about the drill ground. It took the air with difficulty, and came to the earth on the first turn. Some lack of adjustment in the frame was suspected. The motor was accused of weakness. The launching weights[49] were too light. The brothers explained that a new flyer is like a new horse; the driver must learn his idiosyncrasies before attempting to show him off to advantage. They intimated also that they would be pleased to have the great throng of prominent people, who flocked daily to the drill ground, kept away until their flying instrument was properly tuned for public performances. They discouraged superfluous attentions. The big legislators who ventured audaciously to peep into the sacred shed containing the marvelous machine, were hailed by the military guard, and unceremoniously marched across the line among the plain people. It was a dreadful shock to these mighty signors, and many a fat lawmaker cursed audibly, vowing never to vote a cent for flying squadrons. But still they haunted the drill ground daily, despite the long journey and the late dinner; for they were fascinated by the untold and unconjecturable possibilities of the new art. June 28th came quickly, obliging the patient aviators to beg another extension of time. They The cross-country flight was next in order. The course from Fort Myer to Alexandria lay over scattered forests and a deep valley. The flight seemed a difficult and hazardous enterprise; but the brothers, confiding in their machine, seemed to have little apprehension of failure or peril. Indeed, they seemed most concerned about the bonus to be secured by flying at an average rate exceeding the contract speed of 40 miles an hour; for each additional mile an hour would pay them $2,500 above the normal price of the aËroplane. They accordingly declined to fly in any but very calm weather, no matter how vast the gathering of visitors, or how illustrious. They wished, of course, to expedite the final and crucial test; but they could not always have ideal conditions, and would not take undue chances. On the evening after the endurance test the engine balked, owing to the clogging of a rubber pipe from the gasoline tank. Dusk came on, and the disappointed crowd went home to a late dinner. On the following evening the weather was clear and fairly still. All was in readiness for the flight to Alexandria and return. Orville Wright, taking with him Lieut. B. D. Foulois, circled the drill ground on easy wing, then sailed directly across country for the captive balloon at Shuter’s Hill. In a few moments they vanished beyond the forest, and for a while even the most optimistic were doubtful of their safety. At length they reappeared sailing homeward at very great speed. The machine proudly circled the drill ground amid thunders of applause, and landed softly at the lower end, beyond the shed. The multitude hastened to congratulate the aviators on their marvelous performance. For everybody it was a scientific and national triumph; for Wilbur Wright it was something more. With pencil and pad he quickly computed the bonus, surrounded by a wall of reporters. “Wise old Wilbur,” remarked one, “he knows the worth of coin in a crude republic. While Fame blows her trumpet he counts the solid gain.” The figures showed an average As shown in Plate XXVI the Wright aËroplane used at Fort Myer in September, 1908, was a twin screw biplane mounted on skids and having the three-rudder system of control. The rear rudder turned the machine right or left, the front rudder raised or lowered it, the warping of the wings controlled the lateral poise. The turning right or left could be effected on level wing; but the inventors canted the machine sidewise, to obviate skidding, or sidewise gliding of the craft, due to centrifugal force. These three-rudder movements were performed by three separate levers actuating suitable mechanism; but they could be performed easily by a single lever having three separate movements, as preferred by some designers. The aËroplane in launching ran along a monorail, accelerated by a towrope passing over pulleys, and attached to a falling weight comprising nearly a ton of iron. The dimensions of the various parts are given as follows by Major George O. Squier,[50] the officer in charge of the experiments:
On the whole the demonstrations at Fort Myer in 1909 did not greatly enhance the prestige of aviation. They were attended by too many delays and accidents, and too much waiting for ideal weather. As a consequence the guardians of the national purse were not clamoring for an aËrial flotilla. Some few, no doubt, understood that the aËroplane could brave more than a zephyr with safety; but the general public accepted the demonstrations at their face value. The unthinking multitude did not realize that with sufficient incentive, such as war presents, the Wright brothers could repeat those brilliant flights, of the end of July, under more severe weather conditions. Fortunately, events were transpiring elsewhere which vastly increased the popular fame and valuation of the new art. This refers more particularly to those startling achievements in aviation abroad which were largely stimulated by competition and prizes. After the Fort Myer flights the Wright brothers separated, Orville going to Germany to represent their interests and give demonstrations; Wilbur exhibiting at the Hudson-Fulton celebration in New York, and teaching the Signal Corps officers to manipulate the newly purchased government aËroplane. As usual, both achieved distinction in their new fields. At Potsdam, on October 2d, Orville Wright, after a ten-minute flight with Crown Prince Frederic The brothers now ceased public flying for a while, to attend to the business of manufacturing and selling their craft. They formed an American company, enlarged their facilities for constructing machines, procured grounds for training operators, and The cardinal allurements in aviation for 1909 were the prize offered for the first flight across the English Channel, and the prizes to be won at the world’s first aviation meet, scheduled for the last week in August of that year, at Rheims, France. The desire to win these honors stimulated to livelier effort the most noted designers and operators of aËroplanes, all of whose machines were represented at the great tournament. It also brought into sudden prominence several new aviators. Young men, little versed in the science or literature of flight, took to wing, and in a few days found themselves world-famous. AËrial chauffeurs, skillful and daring, delighted vast throngs of people, kept the cables warm with news, and incidentally filled their purses with money. Thus the trade of aËroplane jockey was one of the interesting products of this eventful year. The first half of the aviation season of 1909 brought forth many improvements which seemed to augur well for the public demonstrations to follow. Hubert Latham, with the swallowlike Antoinette monoplane, designed by Levavasseur, the inventor of the Antoinette motor, began soaring grandly in the sky and into fame. Paul Tissandier, on May 20th at Pau, established a new French record by flying 1 hour and 2 minutes. The Voisin brothers were perfecting in detail their boxlike aËroplanes, noted for inherent stability, and destined to achieve further In the latter part of April, Henri Farman tested a new biplane of his own design and manufacture, which proved very satisfactory. It resembled his former craft, but was provided with small balancing planes hinged to the rear margins of the wings near their tips. This machine, furthermore, was provided with both landing skids and wheels, the latter yielding to any unusual stress by means of elastic connections, so that the skids took up the shock. With this improved biplane, Farman beat his former records by flying continuously 1 hour, 23 minutes, at Chalons, on July 19th. Four days later he made a new cross-country record by flying from the Chalons parade ground to Suppe, about forty miles, in 1 hour and 5 minutes. These flights were gently suggestive of what might be expected at Rheims the following month. During the opening period of the 1909 aËroplane season, Glenn H. Curtiss brought forth a new biplane, designed for the AËronautic Society of New The demonstrations near Mineola were most successful, and proved the beginning of a brilliant summer for Mr. Curtiss. On July 17th he won in quick succession both of the prizes mentioned above. The trial for the smaller prize began at 5.15 in the morning and lasted but 2½ minutes, followed 6 minutes later by the start for the coveted cup. In both cases the machine took the air with ease and grace, after a 200-foot run over the rough marsh land. In the cup trial the first twelve turns, aggregating 25 kilometers, The type of machine used by Mr. Curtiss in 1909 was a natural outgrowth of his previous ones, but very much perfected in power and finish. It was a biplane mounted on a three-wheeled chassis, two wheels under the main body and one well to the front, so as to prevent toppling forward. It was propelled by a single screw at the rear, directly connected to a water-cooled motor of the Curtiss make. Its flight was controlled by three rudders exerting torque respectively about the three axes of the aËroplane, supplemented by two fixed keels, a vertical one in the front and a horizontal one in the rear. Of the three rudders mentioned, one in the rear turned the craft right and left, like a boat, one in the front raised or lowered her, while the third or lateral rudder, consisting of small horizontally pivoted planes between the wing-ends, and turning oppositely to each other, controlled the lateral poise. These lateral rudders, or winglets, used by Curtiss, Farman and others, are commonly called ailerons. PLATE XXVII. BLÉRIOT XI WITH MOISANT AVIATOR ON MEXICAN BORDER. (Courtesy A. J. Moisant.) BLÉRIOT XII. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) Louis BlÉriot with his two new machines, his No. XI at Douay and his No. XII at Issy-les-Moulineaux, practiced nearly every fine day in June and July, making fast progress in the art, and achieving some The monoplanes No. XI and No. XII represented BlÉriot’s most successful types. They bore a family resemblance to his preceding machines, but had a more vigorous lateral control due to warpage of their main surfaces instead of the wing-tips, as of Hubert Latham, in his beautiful Antoinette monoplane, began to achieve distinction for himself and his admirably designed long-tailed flyer early in the spring, and, ere midsummer, was one of the favorite idols of the thronged aËrodromes. He preferred a lofty course; he cut through the sky with the precision and grace of a winged-spear; he fascinated the spectators by the steadiness of his sweep. The French reporters declare they saw him roll and light cigarettes in full flight. Not only did he delight the artist, but he surprised the official measurer. Toward the end of May he established a new monoplane record by a flight lasting 37 minutes and 3 seconds. On the 5th of June he flew continuously 1 hour, 7 minutes and 37 seconds, at a speed of 45 miles an hour. This was done in a wind and heavy rain which drenched and blinded him, finally inducing him to come down. On June 7th he carried a passenger, something new for a monoplane. In July he increased the altitude record by flying 450 feet high. Next day he flew across country from Arras to Douai, 12½ miles, in 20 minutes. Very reasonably, therefore, he announced, his intention of sailing for England above the waters of the turbulent strait. The Antoinette monoplane resembled, at a distance, a long-winged fish with its head cut off and replaced by a screw-propeller. It had a skifflike body with the screw in front, followed by the Antoinette engine, then by the pilot’s seat, the tail part carrying fixed horizontal and vertical fins and mov PLATE XXVIII. ANTOINETTE MONOPLANE OF 1909. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) ANTOINETTE MONOPLANE OF 1910. The cross-Channel prize, above mentioned, was a cash sum of one thousand pounds, offered by the London Daily Mail for the first successful flight from France to England. Many would fain have it, though the voyage seemed dangerous, if not foolhardy. Of the various aviators who coveted the prize, Latham and BlÉriot were the most strenuous in competing for it. The bold boy tried first. Housing his aËroplane on the high cliff facing the Channel near Calais, Latham looked toward England, impatiently waiting for placid weather, and a chance to soar. The venture was hazardous. By some it was deemed rash, owing to the uncertainty of having to alight upon the water, if the motor should fail. But the brave youth was less alarmed than the old aviators, who had no intention of competing with him. So, with a boy’s confidence, he brought forth his huge-winged Antoinette, on July 19th, skimmed along the ground, soared grandly above the high cliffs, and sped over the waters at a great elevation, as usual in his aËrial voyages. Latham’s flight was magnificent, but brief. Owing to spark failure and the stoppage of his motor six miles from the French shore, he settled promptly, but skillfully, down upon the sea. When found by the accompanying torpedo boat destroyer, detailed to follow him from Calais, he was seated on the aËroplane, serenely smoking, buoyed up by the great Louis BlÉriot now hurried to Calais eager to attempt the cross-Channel flight. Placing his little monoplane, No. XI, in a tent on a farm near Calais, he waited an opportune moment to sail. On Sunday, July 25th, he was routed from bed very early by his friend, Alfred LeBlanc, and taken forth all reluctant to the field, for preliminary practice before sunrise; for the weather was favorable and he should sail as soon as the sun arose. Though suffering from a foot burned in a recent accident, he discarded his crutches and mounted his winged machine with eager courage, remarking: “If I cannot walk I will show the world that I can fly.” For some minutes he circled about the ground where, even at that early hour, many scores of people were assembling. All was now in readiness; the flyer was in excellent trim, the pilot in buoyant spirits, and the torpedo boat destroyer, Escopette, well out at sea to escort her swift aËrial charge as well as might be. The moment of departure had come. BlÉriot, buttoned in his close-fitting suit and hood, sat on his white-winged machine, headed for the cliff, and surrounded by a group of well-wishers. At 4.35 the light-wheeled craft with propeller whirring, sped along the ground, rose gracefully in the air and shot bravely over the precipice, with the hustling aviator on its back. The admiring spectators were wild with excitement and joy. But there was one sad group in Calais that morning. Latham and his watchers, who had been waiting for better weather, rose in time to see his rival on the wing, but too late for pursuit, as the wind had suddenly risen. BlÉriot was now soaring high over the sea, faring toward Dover without a guide or a compass. For some time he could observe the Escopette following him, her great column of smoke obscuring the new risen sun. Presently both shores vanished, and for ten minutes he could descry neither land nor signal of any kind. He was sailing over the sea at forty miles an hour and drifting with the air he knew not whither; but he allowed his fiery steed to follow its instinct, as a bewildered horseman does sometimes. Along the horizon now appeared the white cliffs of the English shore. He was headed not for Dover but for Deal, carried adrift by the southwest wind. Three boats crossing his course seemed plying for some port on his left, and hailed him with lively greeting. He could not well inquire the way, but he followed the general course of the vessels, soaring high aloft. At length he saw a man on the cliff violently waving the tricolor, and strenuously shouting: “Bravo! Bravo!” He plunged in the direction of the signaler, whom he knew to be his friend M. Montaine. On nearing the earth he was caught in a violent turmoil of air and whirled about. Wishing to land at once, he stopped his power sixty feet aloft, and swooped abruptly down with an awakening thud upon the old English soil, sleeping in the peaceful sunlight of a Sabbath morning.[52] BlÉriot’s landing was the greatest jolt to British insularity since the birth of steam navigation. Nevertheless it was welcomed with unfeigned delight as emphasizing the triumph of a new art which enriches all people. Shortly afterward was erected Sportsmanlike, Latham wired his congratulations to BlÉriot, expressing the hope to follow ere long. Two days later he flew across the Channel to within one mile of the English coast, where he had to land in the water again because of motor failure. This time he struck the sea violently and suffered a broken nose. His goggles were shattered and cut his face. The big competitive flyers of the world now turned toward Betheny Plain near Rheims, where the first International Aviation Meet was to be held August 22–29, 1909. Here was a place to make record flights, to win rich prizes, and to achieve great distinction. A well-designed aËrodrome had been prepared for the occasion. In the midst of a broad plain was marked by means of high poles, or pylons, a rectangular course, measuring roughly one by two miles, or more exactly, 1,500 by 3,500 meters. At one end was the judges stand, the grand stand, the cafÉ and the aËroplane sheds. The numerous cash prizes offered for speed, for distance, for endurance, for altitude, etc., totaled in value nearly forty thousand dollars. But the most coveted prize of all was the James Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup, together with $5,000 cash, the winner of which should have the honor of placing the next international contest in his own country. This should be awarded to the aviator having the best speed over a two-round, or 20-kilometer course. The next most desired prize was a cash sum of $10,000 for the longest flight. A special charm of the tournament was that each fortunate entrant should meet the distinguished aviators from all localities, and should fly in presence of a world-gathering. AËroplanes of all the most successful The first day of the great aviation week, Sunday, August 22d, was devoted to elimination trials to determine which aviators should represent France in the race for the Bennett trophy. Of the seventeen entrants in these trials the three who should cover two rounds of the course in the shortest time should be selected as champions, the next six, in order of speed, to act as reserve pilots. But owing to the severe weather of that day, only six of the seventeen entrants succeeded in flying well enough to be admitted in either capacity. Of these six the cup champions were: BlÉriot, Lefebvre, Lambert and Latham; the reserve champions being in order, Tissandier, Paulhan and Sommer. These men won their places by bold flying in rough conditions; for rain had fallen heavily during the previous night, and the wind was still blowing in swift and gusty current over the sodden field. Indeed, the weather seemed anything but propitious at the opening of that great experimental tournament, on the success of which should be based the estimates and forecast of so many subsequent meets. Swift clouds overhead, and black flags displayed on high masts, indicated that flying would be impossible. A passing storm raged at five o’clock in the afternoon. But toward evening the face of Nature brightened, and with it the hopes of the aviationists. The weather at last became ideal. Nearly all the aËroplanes came forth, and at six o’clock no fewer than seven were on the wing at one time. Some of them were doing most startling feats. Lefebvre would make a threatening swoop at the grand stand, then circle swiftly away. BlÉriot, in a moment of unsteadiness, charged a wheat stack with his swift monoplane, damaging his sharp-bladed propeller. Count de Monday, the second day of the meet, dawned fair and calm, with promise of settled weather. It was the last qualifying day for the ten-thousand-dollar long-distance prize, the Grand Prix de la Champagne. No one who had not flown a reasonable space on, or before Monday, could take part in the trials for that coveted honor on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The aviators were about early, and many had qualified before evening. Several of the pilots tried for speed records. BlÉriot, with an 80-horse-power monoplane, made one round of the course in 8 minutes, 42? seconds. Curtiss, in his 60-horse-power biplane, lowered the time to 8 minutes, 35? seconds. This was an achievement of the greatest concern, since Curtiss stood alone, as champion of America, against the more experienced flyers of Europe. He thought of nothing, engaged in nothing, except the speed trials, for in these he hoped to win, with his 60-horse flyer, even against renowned BlÉriot, in his 80-horse machine. Other interesting events were designed solely to entertain or amuse the people. Lefebvre again furnished merriment by sweeping over and under, and around Paulhan, who was flying at an elevation of 25 feet. M. Kapferer had navigated from Meaux, in the dirigible Colonel Renard, and sailed about the grounds, with fine effect. Tuesday should have brought ideal conditions and performances; for it was the day set for the Wednesday morning, the fourth of the meet, was heavy with black clouds, which presaged unfavorable weather. The winds were light, but still nothing transpired till late in the afternoon to break the Thursday morning brought fine weather and the promise of an eventful day. As a consequence serious efforts were made to excel all previous records, particularly for speed, duration and distance. In the forenoon Latham flew 43.5 miles in the Antoinette XIII. In the afternoon Count de Lambert, in his Wright biplane, flew 72 miles. BlÉriot entertained the throng by carrying Delagrange as passenger; but while sailing near the ground he encountered some dragoons, turned sidewise to avoid striking them, and plunged into a fence, breaking his propeller. But the great sensation of the day was Latham’s afternoon flight for the Grand Prix, in his Antoinette No. 29. Starting with plenty of fuel and favorable weather, he rose to a high level and flew till his supply was exhausted, at times encountering rough winds and for a while plowing through a rainstorm. It was the banner flight of the week thus far; for it surpassed all other long ones in distance and speed, though not equaling Paulhan’s in endurance. His total range, when compelled to alight through exhaustion of fuel, was 95.88 miles, in 2 hours, 18 minutes, 9? seconds. This showed an average speed of 41.63 miles an hour for the whole distance, while the speed for his first round was 44.65 miles an hour. For this great achievement he could thank his 50-horse, 8-cylinder Antoinette motor, one of the lightest in existence, for that power. Friday, August 27th, was the last day allotted for the distance, or Grand Prix contest. After the wonderful new records of Paulhan and Latham, people were marveling what might happen on the final day. Many assumed, of course, that Latham’s record of 96 miles would remain unsurpassed. At four-thirty, Latham started on another long flight, in his Antoinette monoplane No. 13, followed presently The seventh morning of the tournament, Saturday, August 28th, came with a beaming smile, promising good flights and a pleasant termination of the glorious cup contest for the highest speed in two rounds of the 10-kilometer course. The air was calm, mild and hazy above the Betheny plain. The Curtiss, shortly after ten o’clock, made a preliminary trial, lowering his best anterior time. With this he was so pleased that he prepared immediately for the one official flight allowed in that contest. He filled his small gasoline tank, replenished his radiator, signed a legal paper certifying this to be his trial for the cup, and at once took wing, circling before the grand stand, then crossing the line at full speed. The biplane pitched perceptibly at its unusual gait, but turned the corner in easy curves, completing the first round in 7.57?, the second in 7.53?; the total time being 15 minutes, 50? seconds, and showing an average speed of 47.04 miles an hour. About noon BlÉriot came forth with his 80-horse monoplane No. 22, which was expected to eclipse the Curtiss biplane, but in reality proved exasperatingly slow. At two o’clock he tried another propeller, with little encouragement. An hour later he tried again with a four-blade propeller, but descended before completing the round. After tinkering for an hour, aided by several mechanics, he flew to his shed, shortly before five o’clock. As no start was allowed after five-thirty, he hastened zealously and started his official flight at five-ten. The mighty monoplane cut the air at terrific speed, without pitching, or rolling, and finished the first round in Other official flights for the cup during the day were made by Latham and Lefebvre for France, and by Mr. Cockburn, champion for England, the latter bird-man sailing into a stack of wheat in the middle of his first round, then wheeling to earth. Incidentally Henri Farman established a new world’s three-man duration distance and speed record by carrying two passengers ten kilometers in 10 minutes 39 seconds. Thus ended the chief day of the tournament, leaving the contestants in the following order of speed: Curtiss, BlÉriot, Latham, Lefebvre. Of the other leading prizes, that for the fastest single round was taken by BlÉriot; that for the fastest three-round flight was won by Curtiss on Sunday, with a record of 23 minutes, 29 seconds for the thirty kilometers; the Altitude Prize was won by Latham, who attained an elevation of 508.5 feet; the Prix des Mecaniciens was won by Bunau-Varilla in a flight of 100 kilometers; the Prix des AËronats was won, on Sunday, by the large dirigible, the Colonel Renard, The small band of men who organized the first international aviation meet, with the Marquis de Polignac as president, and the great wine merchants of the Champagne district as their supporters, were now elated and triumphant. They had undertaken a novel and costly sporting enterprise, regarded by many as hazardous, or rash, even though sanctioned by the AËro Club of France. For an enormous attendance would be required to meet the expense of preparations and prize money. It was doubtful whether the few available aviators could draw large crowds to Betheny for a week, even in ideal weather, and there was risk of sending the critical populace away displeased if abundant flights were not made. The whole event might prove a painful fiasco, if rains and high winds should predominate; for were not aviators notoriously reluctant to fly in rough weather? Vain apprehensions, ignoring the reckless and intrepid daring of the Gallic sportsmen! Nothing short of a week’s continual tempest could have kept them down. The great tournament was a triumph, not only to the courageous promoters, but also to the aviators, the manufacturers, the whole of mankind. It astonished both actors and spectators. It marked a new epoch in the art of aËroplaning. It inaugurated a magical and wholly novel kind of recreation and public amusement that should be demanded at once in all civilized countries. It eradicated, in a measure, the inveterate notion that the aËroplane is essentially a fair-weather machine. With a cheap instrument capable of flying scores of miles in rain and wind, The fashion set at Rheims was imitated in other cities. Before the close of the year 1909, aviation meets were scheduled for Brescia in Italy, Berlin, Juvisy, near Paris, Blackpool and Doncaster, England. The succeeding year was to have more such events than the really capable aviators could attend. In both hemispheres, sums in cash, equaling or exceeding those at Rheims, would be offered by many prominent communities, eager to witness such novel and thrilling entertainment as only dexterous aviators could furnish. But it would be learned also that considerable financial risk attends an aviation meet, unless good judgment mark the choice of site, season, pilots and the executive agencies. Several of the meets following the one at Rheims succeeded neither in defraying expenses nor in furnishing competent aviators to repay the trouble of holding the tournament. The meets held in England were practically failures. A most interesting flight, however, was performed by Latham in a wind of 25 to 35 miles an hour. This itself was a very impressive achievement. The Brescia meeting was remarkable for the turbulence of its aËrial currents and for Rougier’s record high flight of 645 feet. The two most wonderful flights in the autumn of 1909 were those of Count de Lambert and Farman. During a meet at the Juvisy aËrodrome, Lambert, on October 18th, after circling the ground a few times on a Wright biplane, attaining a height of 450 feet, started for Paris, steadily ascending in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. Circling this at an altitude of about 1,300 feet, he returned to Juvisy at 5.30 p.m., having journeyed 30 miles over that dangerous route, in about 50 minutes. This indicated PLATE XXIX. ESNAULT-PELTERIE MONOPLANE, EARLY PATTERN. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) ESNAULT-PELTERIE MONOPLANE OF 1910. Unheralded, but quite astonishing, were the flights of Santos-Dumont in September, 1909. Though conspicuous as a pioneer in aviation, he for a while had been absorbed in other affairs, and had not kept pace with his brother aËroplanists in France, since his bold and brief dashes into the air in the early days of the art. During the season of 1909, however, he developed a surprisingly small and simple monoplane, spreading 102 square feet of wing surface, and weighing in complete running order, 259 pounds. It was driven by a Darrac motor, mounted above the main surface, carrying the propeller directly on its shaft, and having radiator tubes along the inner surface of the main plane. Its triangular trussed frame was wheel-mounted, and tapered rapidly to the rear, terminating in horizontal and vertical rudders. With this tiniest flyer he sailed across country from St. Cyr to Buc, 4¾ miles, in five minutes, at the unprecedented speed of 55 miles an hour, repeating the performance several times, according to report. He also left the ground after a run of 60 feet, in an unofficial trial. Characteristically, he presented to the public the scale A very original type of monoplane was developed by Robert Esnault-PÉlterie, who began experimenting in 1903. As shown in Plate XXIX, its body frame was covered to reduce air-resistance, and was provided with ample keel surface to promote directness and steadiness of flight. The weight was borne on two wheels in tandem, aided by wheels at the wing tips to preserve the lateral balance when the machine was resting. When under way the lateral poise was controlled by wing warping; the motion about the other two axes being controlled by a horizontal and a vertical rudder, the latter being “compensated,” that is, having its axis near the center of side pressure, when in action. An air-cooled motor of 30 to 35 horse power with a direct mounted four-blade screw formed the propulsion plant. Though the “R. E. P.” aËroplane, as it was commonly called, did not achieve great distinction at first, due, perhaps, to the inventor’s being over original, and making all its parts himself, instead of buying some high-class engine and propeller, as other successful aËroplanists had done, still his machine was greatly admired by technicians for its excellent finish and the fastidious, thorough and patient manner in which its young inventor labored to make it perfect, both in design and construction. It was regarded as a future record breaker, which, indeed, it was destined to become on further improvement. Although little was accomplished in building aËroplanes in other countries than America and France, up to the beginning of 1909, that year witnessed some good flights in homemade machines in Germany, England and Canada. In November, 1909, Herr Grade, in Germany, made a flight of PLATE XXX. GRADE MONOPLANE. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) CODY BIPLANE. The last months of this strenuous year, 1909, and of the first decade of dynamic flight, closed without further startling developments. True, some records were made, but they merely pleased, not perturbed the world, now accustomed to marvels. Be it recorded, however, that, with a Voisin biplane, Paulhan, on November 1st, flew 96 miles in 2 hours, 20 minutes, and on November 20th flew 1,960 feet high in a Farman biplane; on December 9th, Maurice Farman, mounted on his own type of biplane, rode through the icy atmosphere from Buc to Chartres, a distance of 40 kilometers, in 50 minutes, the longest town-to-town flight up to that date; and on December 31st he flew from Chartres to Orleans, a distance of 41.6 miles, in forty-six minutes. But several fine achievements which the world anticipated for that year remained unattempted. The great prize flight of 183 miles from London to Manchester was still untried, though several machines and pilots seemed equal to the voyage, and $50,000 would be awarded by Lord Northcliffe to the brave The decade that inaugurated dynamic man-flight had closed without fully demonstrating the capabilities of such aËroplanes as had been so far developed. No considerable altitude record had as yet been achieved. No very long cross-country flight had yet been attempted, though for many months the New York World had offered $10,000 for the first aËrial voyage from Albany to New York, and the London Daily Mail had long offered $50,000 for a flight from London to Manchester. The uses of the aËroplane for scouting by land and sea had not been tested, much less its probable value in aggressive warfare. Such experiments were for the immediate future, as also the development of specialized types of machines for racing, for climbing, for burden bearing, for distance, for endurance, for landing on water, for rising from water, for protection of passengers from severe weather. To air men and spectators alike the future of the art promised to be quite as captivating as the past. The first startling achievements to usher in the new decade were the great altitude flights. New world records followed in rapid succession all through the year 1910, with marked persistence and wonderful progress. Levels that had been regarded as the peculiar region of motor balloons were passed one after another, until the aviators vanished beyond the clouds, their limbs palsied with cold, and The starter in this exciting race for cloudland was Hubert Latham, already the official holder of the world’s altitude record. At Bouy, on January 7th, in presence of official witnesses, he rose in his Antoinette monoplane, describing a great upward spiral till his barometer recorded 1,050 meters; then returned to earth with like ease and precision, landing softly near his hangar, before his assistants, transported with enthusiasm. He had touched the goal of Gallic ambition, having driven his aËroplane to the height of one kilometer. Latham’s tenure of the world’s altitude record quickly passed to his doughty rival, Louis Paulhan. At Los Angeles, on the twelfth of January, Paulhan, mounted on a Farman biplane, ascended 4,165 feet, as against Latham’s record of 3,444 feet. This was a great step upward, due not only to Paulhan’s prowess and dexterity, but also to the science and constructive skill of the less spectacular gentlemen in the designing room, workshop and laboratory. Latham strove again for the world’s altitude record and gained it on July 7th at the second Rheims tournament, by driving his Antoinette to a height of 4,541 feet.[53] But again his victory was soon eclipsed; for two days later, Walter Brookins at Atlantic City ascended 6,175 feet in a Wright biplane. An American was thus the first to fly above one mile, as a Frenchman had been first to pass the
Such lofty flights have proved a severe test of both the aËroplane and the pilot. In the lighter atmosphere the engine must turn the propeller at higher speed to secure the same thrust, and the aËroplane must sail faster to support the same weight as at the lower levels. Thus more power is required on high, though the explosive medium, being less dense, is less capable of exerting power. The driver has, therefore, to jockey his machine with assiduous care and alertness, at a time when he is least fitted for exertion, owing to fatigue, cold, and it may be, physical discomfort due to the great change of atmospheric pressure. But still, both aËroplane and pilot are capable of ascending well above any levels thus far attained. After the triumphant altitude flights of 1910 the aËronautical skeptics could no longer contend that The increase in speed of flight during 1910 was also quite remarkable. The official record by which Mr. Curtiss won the Bennett Aviation Contest at Rheims, in 1909, showed a speed of 47.04 miles an hour. Still higher velocities, ranging from 50 to 60 miles an hour, were reported later in that season from England and France. In 1910, however, at the Rheims aviation meet, Morane, with a BlÉriot monoplane, covered the 20-kilometer course in 12 minutes 45.2 seconds, or at an average speed of 66.2 miles an hour, showing a gain of forty per cent on Mr. Curtiss’s speed of the preceding year. Still better was achieved at the international tournament held at Belmont Park in 1910. Le Blanc in a 100-horse BlÉriot monoplane, especially designed for speed, covered nineteen laps of the 5-kilometer course at an average rate of 61 miles an hour, and his fastest lap at the rate of 71.68 miles an hour, thus exceeding Curtiss’s speed of the previous year by fifty per cent. Other spurts during the latter part of 1910 were reported to have attained nearly 80 miles an hour over a closed circuit, though perhaps not a level one. The best results were The advance in long-distance flying in 1910 more than kept pace with the progress in speed. The best achievement at the close of the preceding year had been Farman’s flight of 144 miles at an average rate of 35.06 miles an hour in a closed circuit. At the Rheims aviation meet in 1910, Jan Olieslaegers, in a BlÉriot monoplane, driven by a Gnome engine, covered 244 miles in a rectangular course, at an average speed of 48.31 miles an hour. At Buc, on the 28th of October, an aviator of three months’ practice, Maurice Tabuteau, in a Maurice Farman biplane, driven by a RÉnault engine, flew over a closed circuit, covering 288.8 miles at an average speed of 47.9 miles an hour. At Pau on December 21st, M. G. Leganeaux, in a BlÉriot monoplane, flew for the Michelin Cup, covering 516 kilometers or 320.6 miles in six hours and one minute, or at an average speed of 53¼ miles an hour—a splendid showing. Finally, at Buc, on December 30th, Tabuteau, flying for the annual Michelin prize, covered 362.66 miles in a Maurice Farman biplane with an 8-cylinder 60-horse RÉnault motor. The average speed in this very long flight was 47.3 miles an hour, or practically the rate by which Curtiss won the international contest of the preceding year. Of course a considerably better showing of both distance and velocity could have been made on a longer course. The world records for cross-country flying and for endurance and load illustrate both the increasing perfection of the machine and of the pilot’s skill and confidence. At Los Angeles, on January 19th, Mr. and Mrs. Paulhan, in a Farman biplane, flew together 21 miles overland from the aviation field to Redondo and Hermosa Beach and return. The contest for cross-country records continued unabated all that memorable year. During the first three days of September, Jean Bielovucic, a youth of twenty-one, mounted on a new type of Voisin biplane, with but a few days’ practice, flew from Paris to Bordeaux, covering 540 kilometers, or 336 miles, in four stages, comprising altogether 6¼ hours on the wing. In spite of severe weather, at times, he beat the regular express train and established a new world’s record for cross-country straightaway distance flying with stops. On August 17th, Alfred Le Blanc, finished a six-stage tour round a hexagonal circuit northeast of Paris, with the finish at Issy, These are but a few of the records which serve to illustrate the progress in cross-country flying during that year of strenuous and world-wide popular demonstrations. But the bare numerical statement of facts can give no conception of the delight and exultation aroused in millions of souls who witnessed or learned of these marvelous human achievements. They were the advancing triumph of a proud and fortunate generation, happy in realizing one of the fondest dreams of the ages. Often during one of these cross-country flights the aËroplane was accompanied by a swift railway train whose passengers were delirious with enthusiasm. The entire route was thronged with people assembled from afar. It was a general holiday for all the fortunate cities and villages along the way. Mills and factories blew their whistles and forgot the serious business of life, homes were deserted, schools were The most famous overland voyages of the season 1910 began with the race for the London Daily Mail prize of $50,000, offered by Lord Northcliffe for the first person who should fly from London to Manchester, 183 miles within twenty-four hours, with not more than two stops. An Englishman, Claude Grahame-White, comparatively new in the pilot’s art, was first to undertake that difficult and perilous adventure. Starting from London, without competitor, on April 24th, he flew in his Farman biplane, from London to Rugby, thence to Hademore, about halfway to Manchester, landing at a quarter past nine o’clock at night, after a four-hour trip, and hoping to reach Manchester next day. But during the night his aËroplane, which was left in the open, was damaged by the wind, thus necessitating repairs and a new start. On April 27th, while he was strenuously mending and adjusting his biplane for a new start, Louis Paulhan, who the day previously had arrived from France with a Farman biplane to enter the contest, was also vigorously setting up and adjusting his machine. At half past five in the afternoon, Paulhan suddenly set out for Manchester. Mr. White, who was much fatigued and expecting to start on the morrow Next morning, Paulhan sailed away at a quarter past four. Mr. White, hoping to overtake him, had started at dead of night and covered twenty miles before Paulhan had started. It was a heroic effort, but unavailing. At twelve minutes after five, Mr. White landed at Hademore, having completed two thirds of the entire journey. Twenty-five minutes later Paulhan landed on the outskirts of Manchester, greeted by a thousand persons. He had covered the whole distance in 4.2 hours, and had fulfilled all the essential conditions for winning the great prize. The next world-famous aËroplane voyage was that of Glenn H. Curtiss for the New York World’s prize of $10,000 for the first aËrial journey from Albany to New York, allowing two stops. Aviators had been yearning for this prize since the previous year, but had been too timidly shying at the dangers of the route. After most careful preparations for this voyage, Curtiss, bearing a letter from the Perhaps the most exciting incident of the voyage to Mr. Curtiss was his transit of the Storm King Mountain. As he was flying through the narrow gap at this place he caught the down-rolling air on one side more than on the other, and dropped very suddenly sidewise 30 or 40 feet. By shifting his front control, he quickly gained headway and promptly righted his machine. Commenting on Mr. Curtiss’s average speed of 50 miles an hour and his rugged course, AËronautics makes comparison between his voyage and Paulhan’s great prize flight as follows:
The most audacious and marvelous aËronautic exploit of the year was the flight of George Chavez across the Alps from Brig to Domodossola, in his attempt to win the prize of 70,000 francs offered by the Italian Aviation Society for the first aËroplane flight from Brig to Milan, a distance of 75 miles. From the nine volunteers for this contest who presented themselves to the committee in charge, five competitors were selected, and these for several days made tentative efforts to scale the lofty pass, but were baffled by the wind or fog. Finally at one-thirty, on September 23d, the conditions being favorable, Chavez rose, from Briegen-Berg, in his white-winged BlÉriot, spiraled upward 1,000 meters, circling around the vast amphitheater of the mountains, and in nineteen minutes appeared in magnificent career well above the Simplon Pass, probably 7,000 feet above the sea, whence he glided grandly down the Italian slope, parrying the rude cross winds and finally reaching Domodossola, where the enthusiasm was at its climax. Here he expected to land on a level spot to replenish his supplies, thence proceed over the easy remaining two thirds of his journey. But though the perilous pass had been crossed so successfully, disaster appeared in the valley when least expected. As the aËroplane was gliding thirty feet high over the level tract chosen for landing, it met a sudden gust, its wings collapsed, and it fell crashing to earth, pinioning its brave pilot under the dÉbris. Poor Chavez suffered severe wounds about the face and head, had both legs broken, and for some moments lay unconscious. But he was soon revived by his friends and taken to a hospital, where he died The exact nature of the accident was never ascertained, but it was surmised that the sudden starting of his engine preparatory to landing overstressed some part of the structure already fatigued from hard usage. However this be, the committee recognized that Chavez had with excellent skill covered all the really difficult and dangerous part of this journey. Accordingly they very generously waived the exact letter of the rules, and awarded him one half the prize, though he had completed but one third of the journey. Quite as dangerous, spectacular and brilliant as the flight across the Alps, though less arduous, was Hubert Latham’s aËrial voyage over Baltimore. On previous occasions cross-city flights had been made, but never one of such length or one executed under such exacting conditions. At various times aviators had flown above Paris, Rome, Berlin, etc. On October 14th Mr. White had flown across Washington, landing on a narrow street between the White House and War Department; on October 15th Leganeaux had flown above Paris with a passenger; but these were short flights over an uncharted course. Latham’s voyage was unique; for he had to follow a long and a prescribed course over the business section and closely built residence portion of the city. This great exploit was an exhibition flight made on the invitation of the Baltimore Sun for a sum of $5,000. It was to be made at the time of the Baltimore aviation tournament at Halethorpe, Md., and The voyage was triumphant and glorious in every feature. Starting from the aviation ground, seven miles south of Baltimore, about noon on November 7th, Latham drove his beautiful Antoinette about the field in an ascending spiral, like some imperial bird taking its bearings; then, chart in hand, deliberately sailed away over his elaborately prescribed journey. This was a figure 8 course with its bottom at the aviation field and its center at the Sun Building in the heart of Baltimore, the whole length being 22 miles. As the long-winged bird in majestic poise, with the intrepid rider on its back, approached in the distance, soaring 1,000 feet above the gleaming waters of the Chesapeake, the great bell of the City Hall sounded a mighty peal, and the whole populace responded in tumultuous chorus; whistles, bells and a myriad voices mingling their heartiest welcome to the bravest of aviators. With arrowlike speed and directness he rounded the center of the course at the Sun Building, then looped the vast northern half of the city, flying a thousand to three thousand feet high, more easily to parry the surging eddies of the northwest wind; rounded again the center of his course and then returned to the aviation field, where he landed with infinite coolness before the excited throng of applauding spectators, whose acclaim was all too feeble to express their mingled wonder, admiration and delight. The voyage lasted forty-two minutes and fulfilled perfectly every minute requirement, including a short circle and salutation before the home of Mr. Ross Winans, an invalid gentleman who had solicited this unique favor, and rewarded Among the many brilliant flights of that memorable year of strenuous piloting will long be remembered the voyage of the Hon. C. S. Rolls to Calais and return without landing, and that of Mr. Sopwith, already recounted; the splendid flight of Mr. Clifford B. Harmon in his Farman biplane from Mineola, Long Island, to a small rounded island before his house on the Connecticut shore, for the trophy offered by Country Life to the first person who should fly across Long Island Sound; Henri Farman’s flight of December 18th, for the Michelin long-distance prize, covering 288 miles, and establishing a new endurance record of 8 hours 23 minutes; Mlle. Helene Dutrieu’s flight of December 21st, for the Coupe Femina, covering 103¾ miles in 2 hours and 35 minutes in a Farman biplane. Interesting, too, were the first attempt to fly from Paris to Brussels with a passenger, when Mahieu and ManihÉ on starting were brought to bay by a vicious dog which violently attacked the propeller and was cut in two; and when Loridan and Fay landed on a tree, from which they descended by a ladder. After this followed the glorious voyage of Henri Wijnmalen, the youthful and many-sided Dutch sport, for the prize of 150,000 francs offered by the Automobile Club of France for the quickest aËroplane trip not exceeding 36 hours, with a passenger from Paris to Brussels and return. This voyage of some 320 miles was valiantly accomplished by Wijnmalen and his companion Dufour, in a day and a half, of 13.2 effective hours, and in weather for the most part windy or tempestuous. Finally to the foregoing list of splendid achievements must be added the glorious voyage of John Moisant, who in August flew with a passenger, by compass, from Paris to London, The International Aviation Tournament of 1910, held at Belmont Park, Long Island, October 22d to 31st, was the most prominent and eventful meet of the year, and the second of its kind in history, as the meeting of the preceding year at Rheims was the first. The present meet was conducted by the AËro Corporation, Limited, of New York, under the auspices and official sanction of the AËro Club of America, representing the Federation AËronautique Internationale. This tournament was the annual aËrial Olympic contest of the world, and should have been indicative not only of the aviator’s skill, but also of the state of national progress in the science and art of aËroplane construction. Unfortunately, however, for the prestige of the most deserving nations, the rules of the International AËronautic Federation did not confine the contestants to the use of home-built machines, to prevent the glory of winning the international contest from passing to the nation which merely furnished the operator, a person who might be an illiterate jockey, and representative of a country wholly devoid of science. As luck decided, however, the highest honor in 1910 was won by a first-class French machine driven by a first-class English aviator. In some respects the raw material and working elements of this meet were most satisfactory. The site is near the wealthiest and most populous center in America. The grounds are spacious and level, and provided with all the equipment of a great race course; the transportation facilities by carriage and by rail from the heart of New York are adequate to every requirement. The personnel of the meet comprised the most experienced and most devoted The status of aviation was well represented in both pilots and machines. Twenty-seven aviators were entered on the program, many of them world famous. Of these Alfred Le Blanc, Hubert Latham, Emile Aubrun were the formidable champions of France in the contest for the James Gordon Bennett aviation trophy; Claude Grahame-White, James Radley, A. Ogilvie represented England; while Walter Brookins, J. A. Drexel, Charles K. Hamilton were enlisted as defenders of the coveted cup and of American prestige. All told, the aviators brought with them nearly two-score machines, ranging in capacity from 30 to 100 horse power. Of these about half were monoplanes and half biplanes, for the most part of French and American manufacture. The prizes and remuneration awarded to the contestants were on a scale proportionate to their skill and number. All told the winnings aggregated more than $60,000. Further appropriations were made to cover the expenses of the aviators, and a further sum equal to about forty per cent of the winnings was paid for immunity from prosecution for possible A conspicuous feature of the meet was the display of hardiness and skill of several of the aviators in facing the cold and tempestuous weather. This was particularly characteristic of Latham in his Antoinette monoplane, and of Ralph Johnstone and Arch Hoxsey in Wright biplanes. On October 27th Latham flew round the regular course for an hour when it was nearly impossible to turn the pylons against the fierce wind, while Johnstone and Hoxsey performed lofty altitude flights in a powerful gale which carried them backward, sometimes at the rate of 40 miles an hour. As a consequence they landed in the open country, remained overnight and returned next day. Johnstone was carried backward to Holtsville, 55 miles east of the aviation grounds, and Hoxsey was blown to Brentwood, 25 miles away, both landing at dusk in open fields, and both having attained great elevations: Hoxsey, 6,903 feet; Johnstone, 8,471 feet. An interesting novelty of the aviation week, at least to Americans, were the erratic Demoiselle monoplanes, invented by Santos-Dumont and piloted by Garros and Audemars. These aËroplanes were notable as having the pilot under the sustaining plane, and the engine above with its direct mounted propeller. The lateral stability was enhanced by a low placement of the center of mass, and by a slight dihedral inclination of the wings. Furthermore, as there was not much leverage or surface in the rear Barring the stormy voyages above mentioned, the most memorable events of the tournament were the Gordon Bennett speed contest, the Statue of Liberty race and Johnstone’s great altitude flight. Of the numerous other performances little need be said, except that they contributed to the general success of an elaborate and most interesting program. They served the daily need of a costly tournament; they delighted vast throngs of spectators whose admission fees helped to promote the aËrial sport; but they did not of themselves have more than local interest, or constitute an advance in the records of first-class achievement. The chief race of the meet, the James Gordon Bennett speed contest, was scheduled for Saturday, October 29th. The prize of $5,000 and the coveted cup were to be awarded to the pilot who should make the best average speed in 20 laps over a 5-kilometer course, aggregating 100 kilometers, or 62.14 miles. The winner should have the distinguished honor of taking to his own country the next annual contest for the precious speed prize. Grahame-White, England’s foremost aviator and strongest hope in the contest, brought forth his untried 100-horse BlÉriot in the calmest part of the day, and took wing a quarter before nine. He flew with steady poise and swift, well-sustained speed, completing the 100-kilometer distance in 1 hour 1 minute and 4.7 seconds, at an average speed of 61 miles an hour. Le Blanc, the most likely winner of all, sailed at nine o’clock. He was mounted on a 100-horse BlÉriot with nearly flat wings, the swiftest monoplane of French manufacture. He was the boldest, sturdiest and most dexterous pilot in a nation of renowned aviators, the winner of unnumbered trophies, the “Vainquer de l’Est.” He now flew at unwonted speed, establishing new world records at every round of the course. It seemed evident to the timers that only an accident to this impetuous Frenchman could retrieve the glory of England and save that of America. Suddenly the accident came. In the last lap, when victory seemed assured, the gasoline failed; the monoplane shot downward, knocked off a telegraph pole, and, with broken frame and engine, fell crashing to earth, entangling the brave aviator. Le Blanc was cut and bruised about the forehead, and was taken to the hospital to be bandaged, not seriously injured but in a towering rage, suspecting that some trickery had given him a shortage of fuel. He had lost the day, though his average speed for the whole flight was 67 miles an hour as against Grahame-White’s speed of 61 miles. No well-tried machine was available to defend the American prestige. Curtiss had constructed a new monoplane designed for speed, but though he had brought the cup to America, he was not chosen as one of its three defenders. The little Wright biplane of 61 horse power had flown a few minutes with great velocity, and was looked to with some confidence. Mounted by Walter Brookins, it set out with tremendous speed, but had only well started when the cylinders began to miss fire. Brookins turned toward the infield to land, struck the ground with terrific shock and tumbled violently on the field beside his broken machine. He, too, was taken to It was now granted that Grahame-White would be the ultimate winner. Other aviators attempted to defeat him, but lacked either the necessary speed or endurance. The cup was accordingly taken from the nations that had done the most to develop the practical art of aËroplaning. Of these two nations, the one most deserving of victory, by virtue of its more careful preparation, was defeated by an extraordinary mishap, when victory was at hand; the other failed perhaps for want of preparation rather than from lack of manipulative or constructive skill. Of the various highly coveted stakes the largest in monetary value was known as the Thomas F. Ryan Statue of Liberty Prize. This was a cash sum of $10,000, to be awarded to the properly qualified contestant who should fly from the aviation ground to and around the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, and return in the shortest time, the airline distance being 16 miles each way. The prize was founded by Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, whose son, Allan A. Ryan, was Chairman of the Committee on Arrangements of the tournament, and who though suffering with pain and ill-health, labored so indefatigably to insure the success of the event so germain to the aËronautical prestige of his country. The Statue of Liberty race occurred on Sunday afternoon, October 30th, beginning just after three o’clock. Count De Lesseps in a 50-horse BlÉriot monoplane led the race, followed three minutes later by Grahame-White. They passed toward the southwest in perfect poise and vanished beyond the horizon unchallenged by an American contestant; for Moisant, the American champion, had shortly before injured his racing monoplane, and the other American racing machines had been damaged the The final day of the tournament was made memorable by Johnstone’s altitude flight. The best previous record was that of Wijnmalen to an elevation of 9,104 feet, made at Mourmelon, France. Johnstone ascended on a small Wright machine with powerful propellers adapted to rapid climbing, determined not only to surpass Wijnmalen but to exceed, if possible, the ten-thousand-foot level, and win the special prize offered for such achievement. He actually rose to the great elevation of 9,714 feet, but could not develop power enough to continue upward. On his descent he fully exhausted his fuel at 3,000 feet, and thence glided to earth, landing softly, 1 hour and 43 minutes from the time of starting. Thus the greatest tournament of the year terminated with fine new laurels for the science and art of aviation; for the spectacular pilots and for the unseen men behind them—the scientific men in the laboratories, the designing rooms and the workshops. New standards had been established in speed, in altitude, in prowess and daring. In these elements, the spectators could hardly ask for a better exhibition. What is it to the onlooker to have an aËroplane go higher than the cumuli, since at that level a thousand feet makes no perceptible difference? What more could he wish in dexterity of manipulation and audacity in braving the elements? One thing more, doubtless, and that is, security and precision of flight in stormy weather. When these improvements shall have been effected much will have been added to both the sportive interest and practical utility of the aËroplane. The most businesslike and crucial flying contest of the year was the famous “Circuit de l’Est,” organized by the Paris Matin. It was a competitive voyage over an irregular hexagonal course, lying generally northeast of Paris, and having its vertices at various cities to the east and north of the national capital. The main prize offered by the Matin was one hundred thousand francs for the first air man to complete the entire course, doing the first side of the hexagon on August 7th, and the succeeding sides in regular order on successive odd days of the month, the place and hour of starting each stage being assigned in advance. Various subsidiary prizes aggregating nearly a hundred thousand francs more, were available for meritorious performances at the various stages and stopping-places along the route. Fig. 41.—Map of the “Circuit de l’Est.” The race began at Issy, near Paris, on August 7th, with eight aviators on the wing—Le Blanc, Aubrun, Leganeaux, Mamet, Lindpainter, Weyman. It terminated August 17th, headed by Alfred Le Blanc on his BlÉriot, and followed by Emile Aubrun on a BlÉriot, then by Weyman on a Farman, all three driven by Gnome engines actuating ChauviÈre propellers. Le Blanc completed the tour of six stages, covering an air-line distance of 488 miles, in 12 hours’ effective flying, or at the average rate of 40.6 miles per hour. This long tour on schedule time over a rough and varied country in face of fog, wind and rain, was a most severe trial of the prowess and endurance of the brave pilots who had the hardiness and pertinacity to complete the voyage. Needless to add that it created unbounded enthusiasm among millions of people who witnessed the event, or read of it, and that the clocklike precision of the “grand raid” inspired new confidence in the practicability of the aËroplane. A particularly impressive feature of the event was that many of its participants, the aviators, government officers, and members of the controlling committee, assembled at Issy and other posts of duty, not by rail, but by aËroplane, sailing across country from many directions and from great distances. This matter-of-fact procedure led many persons to believe that the period of mere demonstrations had approached its close, and that the epoch of practical utility was at hand; that after marveling so much at the aËroplane, with mingled faith and skepticism, people would next calmly turn it to practical use. Though the progress in designing and constructing aËroplanes in 1910 did not keep pace with the wonderful advance in new records, still the inventors and manufacturers continued industriously to perfect the details of their best standard machines, and in a few instances to make radical innovations. The perfection in details of construction manifested itself in the public performance of aËroplanes, particularly in their greater reliability and their increased capabilities. The radical innovations were mainly experimental, and not generally exhibited, though none the less important for all that. Chief of these perhaps were the hydro-aËroplane developments of Fabre in France, and of Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss in America, which enabled the aviator to launch into the air directly from the water and to alight safely on the water, thus virtually adding a new and very important domain to the empire of dynamic flight. Curtiss, in 1909, succeeded in landing his aËroplane safely on the water of Lake Keuka, first with sheet iron cylindrical floats under each wing, and a simple float well to the front of his protruding chassis, then with a hydroplane surface to the front as being more effective than the float. But when he attempted to glide up from the lake with this arrangement, he could not entirely clear the surface, though his aËroplane under the powerful thrust of her aËrial screw, very nearly lifted from the water. Then he planned to use hydroplane floats, of hollow wing form, and of such size that they would buoy up the machine when at rest, and during motion would skim over the water like a skipping stone, till the biplane should acquire sufficient speed to rise by the dynamic reaction of the air. In the successful execution of this plan, however, he was anticipated by Fabre, who made the first successful flight from the As shown in Plate XXXI, Fabre’s hydro-aËroplane was substantially a monoplane mounted on three richochet floats. It was propelled by a screw at the rear, and controlled in flight by the usual three-torque system, in this case consisting of horizontal rudders in front, vertical rudders front and rear, and suitable mechanism for twisting the wings. The floats were hollow to give them static buoyancy; they were curved fore and aft like wings, to give them dynamic lift, both in water and in air; they were elastically constructed with thin veneer bottoms and flexibly attached to the framing, so as to endure the severe buffeting, at high speeds, against the uneven water surface; they were capable of landing the machine safely on a sandy beach or meadow, as well as on the water. Indeed, a plan was conceived for rising and alighting on land and water indifferently. Fig. 42.—Diagram of Curtiss Hydro-aËroplane. (Scientific American.) The structural design of the Fabre monoplane was novel and unique, not to say radical. The wing framing consisted of a single Fabre trussed beam with ribs attached like the quills of a bird, over which was stretched the light sailcloth cover, then laced to the beam. The girder itself was formed of two ash planks eight inches wide by one-fourth inch thick trussed together by flat steel plates zigzagging trelliswise between them. As all parts of the beam cut the air edgewise it offered very little resistance, while at the same time being very strong. The ribs being attached only at one end allowed the sailcloth to be quickly slipped on and off for washing and proper care. The characteristic features of Fabre’s wing construction were adopted by Paulhan in his novel and picturesque biplane shown in Plate XXXI. Trussed beams were used for all parts requiring considerable stiffness, the longitudinal ones being covered with fabric to reduce the resistance. The wings whose solid ribs were fastened only at their front ends were quite elastic, a quality conducive to stability, as long taught by writers[55] on aviation. In addition The flying quality of adequately designed flexible aËroplanes is well illustrated by the swallowlike monoplane shown in Fig. 43. This airy creation of the distinguished Austrian engineer, Igo Etrich, came into public prominence in the spring of 1910, though it had been developing privately for half a decade or more. On May 14th, near Vienna, it carried pilot Illner 84 kilometers in 80 minutes, at an elevation of 300 meters, thus surpassing all previous Austrian records for distance, duration and altitude. Its successor, Etrich IV, had wing tips still more turned up, and possessed such stability that during the meet at Johannisthal in October, Illner circled the pylons with his hands off the warping levers. At times he wheeled round curves of only ten meters radius, the whole machine tilted at an alarming angle, yet maintaining its poise with the natural ease and grace of a soaring albatross. The prominent feature of Etrich’s monoplane Fig. 43.—The Etrich Monoplane of 1910. As always happens in the many-minded development A few examples will illustrate this tendency to choose the most practical devices from the world’s general stock. The Wright brothers, who, following Maxim, had been ardent votaries of the forward horizontal rudder, discarded this in 1910 for the elastic rear horizontal rudder introduced by Etrich. At the same time they abandoned the antiquated catapult introduced by Langley, and adopted the combination of wheels and skids introduced by Farman. In their racing machine they no longer placed the aviator beside his engine, presenting a broad front to the wind, but, like Curtiss and foreign designers, they placed the driver and power plant in line, to diminish the atmospheric resistance. These manifold and timely improvements indicate clearly the advantages to mankind of an “open door” in a crescent art. But if the Wrights adopted the most successful devices of their neighbors, these in turn were not As further illustrations, it may be noted that Voisin brothers adopted the Farman ailerons and abandoned the cellular type of sustaining surface introduced by Hargrave, finding the vertical surfaces strongly frictional and unnecessary for lateral equilibrium, in presence of the ailerons. They also abandoned the forward horizontal rudder, seeing that it could very well be omitted. On the other hand, it must be observed that the Farmans, Sommer and Curtiss still retained the combined fore and aft rudder. Curtiss and Farman also tried their hands at monoplane construction, though without abandoning the biplane. The most famous monoplanists, however, held firmly to their first love. In this they were emulated by many new designers, Nieuport, Hanriot, DÉperdussin, etc. These show a marked tendency to employ smoothly covered hulls shaped after the fish or torpedo. To drive the little aËroplanes so far developed, especially the racers, there was a general preference for a single-screw propeller mounted directly on the engine shaft, though doubtless for machines weighing many tons a multiplicity of such propellers would be used. Theoretically the advantage of twin screws was conceded, but in practice they were employed by very few constructors. The ChauviÈre wooden propeller was the favorite in France, and was approved by the constructors of propellers elsewhere, A special chapter would be required to describe the various motors, even cursorily. Their relative values, however, may be summarized in the following brief words by RÉnÉ Gasnier, in the AËrophile for November, 1910:
The practical utility of aviation began now to be questioned. The aËroplane had passed the primary epoch of experimental development and was becoming a standard article of manufacture representing a considerable industry. But what was it all worth? Aviators had flown faster than the eagle, higher than the clouds, farther than the common distance from metropolis to metropolis. Schools were licensing new pilots from day to day. But what career had these before them, and what essential function in the affairs of humanity could they perform? Some, indeed, might fit themselves for aËrial service in warfare, some for the pleasant profession of amusing and entertaining mankind; but in the serious business of life, what important rÔle could the air men hope to play? This was the pertinent inquiry, and it was largely a question of the reliability and economy of the aËroplane. Improvement in these two elements might therefore receive attentive consideration in the immediate future. The reliability of the aËroplane depends partly on its environment, partly on its plan and structure, partly on the skill of its pilot. The pilot’s skill had been admirably developed in the tournaments and public exhibitions. The aËrodynamic design conducive to stability and steadiness, the structural design conducive to maximum strength and resiliency, uniformly proportioned to the stress and work of each part of the complex machine; and above all the design of the motor, to ensure it against a thousand foibles—all these could be improved by the patient The general cost of the aËroplane to mankind depends on its plan and structure, on the methods of manufacture, on the material running expense; but its particular cost to the passenger is determined largely by the cupidity or business acumen of those who furnish the machine and those who operate it. Naturally when the world first awoke in the morning of practical sporting aviation, with a sudden and strong relish for flying, the prices would be fabulous, not to say ridiculous. During that hour no commercial transportation could be contemplated. But without monopoly the prices must quickly abate; for neither the manufacture nor manipulation of the aËroplane demand rare ability or training. The cost of manufacture would promptly be diminished by means of specialized tools and operatives, immediately upon the assurance of large and continuous orders. The cost of pilotage would become insignificant when a single chauffeur could take a dozen passengers on one aËroplane. So much for the human and external elements in the cost of aviation. The inherent and material cost of the aËroplane could also be reduced, though perhaps less readily. It was unlikely that the machine would be built of much cheaper materials, or made much lighter per pound of cargo. Nor were such improvements of so much importance since they would affect only the first cost of the flyer. But an increase of aËrodynamic efficiency in the propeller and aËroplane proper, together with increased thermodynamic efficiency in the motor, would materially |
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