Kitty Hawk. Their new machines were much larger, and they added a
vertical tail in order to secure better lateral balance. Sometimes the
wind was strong enough to lift the aviator above the point from which
he had started and hold him motionless in the air for half a minute.
They made new tables of calculation for aerial flight, and found that
a wind of eighteen miles an hour would keep their plane and its
operator in the air.
Their next step was to place a gas-engine on their aeroplane and
attempt actual mechanical flight. After many experiments they
succeeded, and on December 17, 1903, the first airship made four
flights at Kitty Hawk. In the longest flight it stayed in the air
fifty-nine seconds, and flew against a twenty-mile wind. It weighed,
with the aviator, about 745 pounds, and was propelled by a gas-engine
weighing 240 pounds, and having twelve or thirteen horse-power. That
test assured them that mechanical flight was possible.
The Wrights had now solved the real problem of aviation, equilibrium.
They were ready to try mechanical flights in places where the
wind-conditions were less favorable than at Kitty Hawk. They secured a
swampy meadow eight miles east of Dayton, and, using that secrecy
which they have always believed was necessary to the protection of
their interests, began to fly there. Their airship flew well in a
straight course, but there was difficulty in turning corners.
Sometimes it could be done, but occasionally the plane would lose its
balance as it turned, and have to be brought to the ground. In time
they remedied this, and on September 20, 1904, they were able to make
a complete circle. Later in that same year they made two flights of
three miles each around a circular course.
The Wrights’ system of balance, the great original feature of their
invention, is attained by what is called the warping of the
wings. When they are flying, and some cause, such as a change in their
position, or a sudden gust of wind, makes the airship tip, a lever is
moved, and the two planes warp down on the end that is canting toward
the earth. Simultaneously the two opposite ends of the planes warp up.
The lower ends at once gain greater lifting power, the upper ends
less. Therefore the airship stops tilting and comes back to an even
flight. The lever is instantly moved to keep the machine from tipping
to the other side.
WILBUR WRIGHT
ORVILLE WRIGHT
CABLE ADDRESS:
WRIGHTS, DAYTON
WRIGHT BROTHERS
1127 W. THIRD STREET
DAYTON, OHIO
July 22, 1911.
George W. Jacobs & Co.,
Philadelphia.
Gentlemen:--
Replying to yours of June 26th we are herewith enclosing a
photograph of our first flight made at Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina, on December 17, 1903.
Yours truly,
[Signature: Wright Brothers.]
[Illustration: THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRSHIP]
When the airship came to turn a corner it was apt to “skid.” It slid
from its balance, owing to the change in its course against the
currents of air. The Wrights overcame this by having the planes of
their machine warp at the same instant that the rudder shifts the
course, by this raising one wing and lowering the other, so that the
aeroplane cants over and makes the circle leaning against the wind, on
the same principle that a bicycler takes a curve on an angle instead
of riding upright. The problems of balance and of turning corners were
therefore both met and solved by warping the planes to meet the
conditions of the airship’s contact with the wind.
One of the chief reasons for the Wrights’ success was that they had
studied their subject long and faithfully before they tried to fly.
They had worked with their gliders several years, and had made new
calculations of the changing angles and currents of air. They had been
in no hurry, and when they built their first real airship they made
use of all the principles of aerodynamics that they had discovered.
They knew that their machine would fly before they tried it, because
they knew exactly what its various surfaces would do in the air. The
propeller was the only part of their airship they had not studied when
they began to build. When they found that they could not use the
figures that had governed the construction of marine propellers they
set to work to solve this problem in the same thoroughgoing way. They
mastered it, and their success with their propeller is the feature of
their airship in which they take the greatest pride.
The first official statement of their progress in flying was made in
letters of the Wrights in the _Aerophile_ in 1905, and to the Aero
Club of America in 1906. These declared that they had begun actual
flight with a motor-driven aeroplane on December 17, 1903, had then
spent the year 1904 in experimenting with flights in circular courses,
and had so learned the proper methods of control of the planes by 1905
that they had at last made continuous flights of eleven, twelve,
fifteen, twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-four miles, at a speed of
about thirty-eight miles an hour, and had been able to alight safely
in each instance, ready to fly again as soon as their fuel was
replenished.
Until that date the inventors had been singularly successful in
keeping their experiments from public knowledge. They had reached
agreements with the farmers who lived near their field outside Dayton,
and with the local newspapers, that no notice should be taken of their
flights. But finally one of their flights attracted so much attention
that a score of men appeared with cameras, and the Wrights decided
that it was time to stop their experiments. They dismantled their
machines, made public statements of what they had accomplished, and
started to negotiate with various governments for the purchase of
their aeroplanes for use in war.
In December, 1907, the Signal Corps of the United States army invited
proposals for furnishing a “heavier than air flying machine.” The
Wrights submitted a bid, proposing to deliver a machine that would
meet the specifications for $25,000. Their offer, with those of two
others, was accepted. By now their names and something of what they
had accomplished were very generally known, and when they began the
preliminary tests of their machines at their old grounds at Kitty
Hawk, near Kill Devil Hills, a legion of reporters was on hand. The
Wrights still tried to preserve as much secrecy as possible, and the
newspaper men to furnish as much publicity. The flights could not be
concealed and the trials were announced as thoroughly satisfactory. On
May 10, 1908, ten ascensions in the government airship were made, the
longest being over a mile and a half. On succeeding days longer
flights were made, one of two miles at a speed of forty-six miles an
hour. Orville Wright made a flight with a passenger on board, and a
little later Wilbur flew eight miles, at a rate of forty-five miles an
hour. The reporters assured the world that the Wrights had proved the
success of the “heavier than air” machine. As one of them wrote,
“Then, bedraggled and very sunburned they tramped up to the little
weather bureau and informed the world, waiting on the other side of
various sounds and continents and oceans, that it was all right, the
rumors true, and there was no doubt that a man could fly.”
Kitty Hawk, the place the Wrights had chosen because the Weather
Bureau had told them the winds were strongest and steadiest there, now
became one of the chief foci of the world’s attention. The Wrights,
still quiet and unassuming, suddenly jumped into fame. The public
could not understand how these two men, bicycle-makers of Dayton, had
learned so much about airships. They did not appreciate that the
brothers had mastered every detail of flight long before, that they
had learned the fundamental principles of soaring and floating, diving
and rising, circling and gliding, before they attached the first motor
to their planes. They had been far more thorough and more resourceful
than those Europeans who had for some time experimented with aviation.
Henri Farman, who had caused a sensation in Europe by flying a
kilometer (five-eighths of a mile) over a circular course on January
13, 1908, came to this country, and heard what the United States
government was requiring in the tests. “I have done some flying,” said
he, “but I do not try to do what your inventors must do at Fort Myer.
I never fly in winds. Once I had a spill in France when I attempted
it.”
The government trials were held at Fort Myer, outside Washington. Here
the Wrights took their machines when they were satisfied that they
were in shape for the tests. Mr. Augustus Post, secretary of the Aero
Club of America, has graphically described in _The World’s Work_ for
October, 1909, his impression of Orville Wright’s flying in 1908. He
says that Mr. Wright and he left Washington about six o’clock on a
clear, still morning, bound for the flying field. “The conditions for
flight were perfect,” he continues. “Mr. Taylor, Mr. Wright’s
mechanic, got out the machine and it was placed on the starting-rail.
The weights were raised, and Mr. Wright took his place. None of us
expected anything more than a short flight down the field, with
possibly a circle. The machine was released, and away he went, rising
higher and higher, circling when he came to the end of the field and
continuing round. I had taken the time of starting and marked on the
back of an envelope each circle of the field. From a position of
strained attention and fixed gaze, Mr. Wright gradually became more
confident and comfortable; round and round he went for fully twenty
minutes, and then we began to realize that something wonderful was
taking place. Thirty minutes passed; we could hardly believe it. Mr.
Taylor came up and said: ‘Don’t make a motion; if you do, he’ll come
down’; and we all stood like statues, watching the flying man, every
nerve as tense in our bodies as though we were running the machine
ourselves. Mark after mark I made on the back of the old envelope--so
many that I had lost track of the number; it seemed an age since the
machine started, and it appeared to be fixed in the sky. We were
impressed that it could circle on forever, or sail like a bird over
the country, so positive and assuring and complete was this
demonstration. We knew that the problem of flight by an aeroplane had
been solved.”
An accident caused the flights to be suspended for a time, but a year
later the Wrights were ready for the official endurance test, a flight
of one hour, carrying a passenger. President Taft and a great audience
were present. Lieutenant Lahm was the passenger. Signal Corps men
raised the weight and fastened the end of the starting rope to the
aeroplane. Wilbur Wright, at the rear, turned the propellers and
started the motor. Orville Wright adjusted the spark, and took his
seat. He grasped the levers, spoke a few words of instruction to his
passenger, seated beside him, and gave the word to release the
machine. It glided down the track, gathering speed until it left the
rails. Then the forward planes rose, and the plane soared into the
air, flying swiftly. It circled around and around, each circle taking
about one minute. For the first ten minutes the motor did not move
smoothly, but after that it settled to perfection. The great audience,
watches in hand, kept their eyes on the airship. The hour mark was
passed, and there were wild shouts of applause and encouragement. Then
the plane broke the world’s record of one hour, nine minutes, and
forty seconds, that Wilbur Wright had made earlier in the year. Wilbur
Wright led in a cheer to those circling above. Then the airship began
to descend, taking the circles easily, and finally skimming down to
the ground. The motor was shut off, and the test was ended, the
machine having flown for one hour, twelve minutes, and forty seconds.
President Taft crossed the field and shook Orville Wright’s hand. “I
am glad to congratulate you on your achievement,” said he; “you came
down as gracefully and as much like a bird as you went up. I hope your
passenger behaved himself and did not talk to the motorman. It was a
wonderful performance; I would not have missed it.” Then he turned to
shake hands with Wilbur Wright. “Your brother has broken your record.”
“Yes,” said the other, smiling, “but it’s all in the family.”
Lieutenant Lahm said, “The machine was under perfect control at all
times. He apparently had given no conscious thought either to his
hands or to the levers. His actions all seemed involuntary. It had
hardly started on one of its dips before his hands were moved in the
proper direction to restore the balance. It seemed impossible for
anything to go wrong. I never knew an hour to pass so quickly as that
one up in the air. The first half seemed like ten minutes, and the
second scarcely longer. I hardly felt the vibrations of the engine,
but at first the rising and dipping were hard to get used to. The only
disagreeable sensation I experienced was a deafness from the whirring
motor. Sometimes the undulating movement was noticeable, but that was
all. The sensation of riding the air in an aeroplane is
indescribable.”
The speed test came on the day following the endurance flight. This
was to be made over a measured course of five miles from Fort Myer to
Alexandria, and back, making a total flight of ten miles over trees,
railroads, and rough country. Aviators declared this a more difficult
course than the crossing of the English Channel, owing to the great
rises and drops of the land, which made it almost impossible to
maintain a level course. Speed was a very important factor in the
government’s specifications for a successful airship, and the price to
be paid depended on this, which had been calculated to be forty miles
an hour. The government was to pay the Wrights $25,000 for the
airship, and a bonus of ten per cent., or $2,500, for every mile made
above the forty. For every mile less, to the minimum limit of
thirty-six miles an hour, the government was to deduct the same
percentage.
The machine that was making these tests was very similar to the one
that had been used at Fort Myer the year before. The amount of
supporting surface had been reduced by about eighty square feet, and a
change had been made in the lever that turned the rudder and
controlled the equilibrating device. This had originally consisted of
two levers, placed side by side. Now the top of one lever was jointed,
so that a sideways movement of the wrist was sufficient to move the
rudder for steering in the horizontal plane. Simultaneously the lever
could be pushed forward and pulled back to lift or lower the opposite
tips of the wings. In this way one hand could control both the
steering and the balancing of the planes.
In spite of the fact that the wind conditions were not exactly as he
wished Orville Wright decided to make the flight for speed on that
day. He made a good ascension, carrying Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois
with him as passenger. Twice he circled the field in order to get up
speed and reach sufficient elevation. Then, amid cheers of
encouragement from the immense throng that was watching, he turned
sharply past the starting-tower and flew between the flags that marked
the starting-line. Two captive balloons had been floated to show the
course and also to give an indication of the proper altitude to
maintain. The wind tended to carry the aeroplane to the east, but
Orville Wright was able to hold it on a fairly even course, and to
reach the balloon at Shuter’s Hill that marked the turning point. Here
the official time was taken by officers of the Signal Corps. On the
return the airship met with strong downward currents of air that bore
it groundward until it was hidden by the tops of trees. Mr. Wright
said afterward, “I had to climb like forty all the way back.” But he
managed to send his aeroplane higher and higher, and to bring it back
over the heads of the crowds at the finish line. There it swept about
in a circle, and landed easily near the aeroplane shed. What
aeronautical authorities declared to be the greatest feat in the
history of aviation had been successfully accomplished. The elapsed
time of the flight was fourteen minutes and forty-two seconds, which
meant that the airship had attained a speed of a little more than
forty-two miles an hour. The conditions of the Wrights’ contract with
the government had been in every respect more than fulfilled.
The Wrights carried Europe by storm, being received there with even
greater acclamations than in America. The French, as a nation, had for
some time been more interested in aviation than any other people.
France was the home of Montgolfier, Santos-Dumont, and Farman. At
first France looked with incredulity and suspicion on the Wrights’
claims. The French papers accused them of playing _le bluff_, and said
that “they argued a great deal and experimented very little,” which,
as a matter of fact, was exactly the opposite of the Wrights’ whole
history. But as soon as Wilbur Wright showed what he could actually
do, all this changed, and the French could not say enough that was
good about him. Delagrange, his nearest competitor, acknowledged
frankly that Wilbur Wright was his superior as an aviator. But he
could not understand the American’s quiet methods, and plan of
pursuing his own way regardless of public opinion. He found that
Wilbur Wright actually preferred to fly without an audience, and
thought nothing of disappointing the crowds that gathered to watch
him. On one such occasion, when Wilbur Wright found the weather
conditions unsatisfactory, he declined to fly. “If it had been I,”
said Delagrange, “I would have made a flight if I had been likely to
smash up at three hundred meters rather than disappoint those ten
thousand people.”
This novel charm of simplicity caught the French fancy. The Wrights
wanted to do everything for themselves. At Kitty Hawk they had lived
in a small shack, and cooked their own meals. Wilbur Wright had a
similar shack built on his flying-field in France, and planned to do
his own cooking. But this was too extreme for the French mind. When he
went to his shack he found a native cook installed there, and had to
submit to the hospitality of his hosts.
The Wrights were organizing companies in the different countries of
Europe, and wanted to attend strictly to their business. But wherever
they went they were fêted. They met the French President, the Kaiser,
the King of England, and the King of Spain, and they were dined and
publicly honored in all the great capitals. Germany turned from its
native hero, Count Zeppelin, to admire them. But everywhere they kept
that same quiet tone. They showed that they cared nothing to perform
hazardous feats simply because of the hazard, nor to establish
records. Wilbur Wright was asked if he would not try for the prize
offered to the first man to fly across the English Channel. He said he
would not at that time, because it “would be risky and would not prove
anything more than a journey over land.” And the public knew that this
was sensible caution, and not lack of courage.
Daring aviators sprang into fame at once. Most of these built their
machines according to their individual ideas, and there was a great
trying-out of different patterns. Blériot, a Frenchman, flew across
the English Channel in a monoplane in thirty-eight minutes. Instantly
he became the French idol. When he reached Paris at five in the
morning an enormous crowd welcomed him, and the cries of “Vive
Blériot!” could be heard for squares. He was dined at the Hôtel de
Ville, given the Legion of Honor, and money was subscribed for a
monument to mark the place near Calais where he commenced his flight.
Shortly after Roger Sommer rose in the country outside Paris on a
moonlight night, and flew for two hours, twenty-seven minutes, and
fifteen seconds, the longest flight made to that time. The world
recognized that the actual invention of the airship was one of the
greatest achievements of the ages. Said the _London Times_, “It is no
wonder that there should be great enthusiasm in France over the
cross-Channel flight of M. Blériot, and that the French papers should
talk of nothing else. Further enthusiasm will doubtless greet the
gallant attempt, which was all but successful, of M. Latham yesterday,
to repeat the achievement. Since the discovery of the New World no
material event has happened on this earth so impressive to the
imagination as the conquest of the air which is now half achieved.
Indeed, the conquest of the air is likely to be more vast and
bewildering in its results than even the discovery of the New World,
and one is inclined to wonder that men should take it as calmly as
they do.”
A great aviation week was held at Rheims, and almost all the world’s
famous aviators, except the Wrights, were there. Control of the
airships was shown to a remarkable degree. On one of the preparatory
days three heavier than air machines were manœuvring in the great
aerodrome at the same time. They were flying at high speed, when
suddenly Glenn H. Curtiss, an American, saw an Antoinette aeroplane
approaching him at right angles, and flying upon the same level.
Instantly he elevated the planes of his machine, and his aeroplane
obeyed his touch, shot upward, and flew over the Antoinette. There was
great applause from those who had been watching him. The manœuvre
showed how easily the airships were controlled.
Germany meantime was intensely interested in Count Zeppelin’s
dirigible balloons, which, although as long as a battle-ship, had
flown with great success. The German government paid $1,250,000 into
the Zeppelin fund for experiments, and contributed a large sum in
addition to the maintenance of a balloon corps. The German people
showed themselves as proud of Count Zeppelin as the French were of
Blériot, and the Americans of the Wrights.
The aviation week at Rheims was followed by other great airship meets
in other countries. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York in the
autumn of 1909 was the occasion of new records in flying, and served
to awaken Americans to a more intense interest in navigation of the
air. That meeting was followed by others in all parts of the United
States, and competitions for height and city-to-city flights became
matters of weekly occurrence. Yet America has not so far reached the
intense enthusiasm over flying that fills the lands of Europe.
The airship is on the market, ready to be purchased by whomsoever will
pay the price. The London daily papers advertise an agency that will
supply buyers with either the Blériot monoplane of the type
Calais-Dover, the Latham or Antoinette monoplane, or the Wright and
Voisin biplanes. Moreover the art of handling the aeroplane does not
seem unusually difficult to master, provided one has the taste for it.
Roger Sommer first sat in an airship on July 3d, yet on August 7th
following he made a world’s record flight outside Paris. “It is easier
to learn to fly than it is to walk,” Wilbur Wright has said.
The only American machines besides the Wrights’ biplanes which have
made a name for themselves are the Curtiss biplanes. Mr. Curtiss is
one of the most daring aviators in the world, and his flight down the
Hudson River attracted the widest attention. But there are questions
as to whether his aeroplanes do not infringe on certain patent claims
of the Wrights, and his flight was made under a bond that should
protect the Wrights in case it proved later that his biplane did
infringe on their title. Here it should be said that the Wrights are
as excellent business men as they are inventors, and intend to receive
due compensation for their years of work. At one time they offered to
sell their invention outright for $100,000, but since then their
patents have been upheld by the courts, and those patents cover a very
large area of the field of airship manufacture. The American market is
largely in their hands.