THE IMPOSSIBLE ACCOMPLISHED
The plunge of Langley's aerodrome downward into the water instead of upward through space as had been confidently expected, carried with it the hopes of a great number of hitherto enthusiasts, who were now inclined to believe that the practical conquest of the air was almost as far beyond our reach as it had been beyond that of all preceding generations. Learned scientists were able to prove to their own satisfaction, by long columns of figures and elaborate mathematical calculations, that the air is unconquerable.
THE WRIGHT AEROPLANE.
The aeroplane is here shown at rest, facing the right. This is the original type of bi-plane flying machines, of which all the others are only modifications. The starting-rail along which the machine glides while acquiring momentum is seen at the right; the rope connecting it with the starting derrick, at the left. The sledge-like runners, intended to break the shock of alighting, are plainly shown. The parallel planes of canvas at the right are horizontal rudders to direct the machine upward or downward. The vertical planes at the left are active rudders to direct the machine laterally. The two paddle-like structures at the back of the machine are the wooden propellers, actuated (at a rate of from 1000 to 1400 revolutions per minute) by an oil motor. With a machine of this type the Wright brothers, of Dayton, Ohio, were the first to demonstrate the feasibility of aerial navigation with a heavier-than-air machine; and world-famous flights were made by Mr. Orville Wright at Washington and by Mr. Wilbur Wright in France in the summer of 1908.
But even as they labored and promulgated these conclusions, two unknown men in a little Ohio town, discarding all accepted theoretical calculations, and combining with their newly created tables of figures a rare quality of practical application and unswerving courage, had accomplished the impossible. Wilbur and Orville Wright—two names that must always be linked with those of Fulton and Stephenson, only possibly on a higher plane as conquerors of a more subtle element—were at that very time making flights in all directions at will through the air in their practical flying-machine. While others caviled and doubted, these two modest inventors worked and accomplished; until presently they were able to put in evidence a mechanism that may perhaps without exaggeration be regarded as the harbinger of a new era of civilization.
The interest of these two brothers in the fascinating field of air navigation was first excited when, as boys, their father, a clergyman, brought home for their amusement the little toy known to scientists as a "hélicoptère," which, actuated by twisted rubbers that drive tiny paper screws in opposite directions, actually rises and flutters through the air. "A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding" the inventors themselves have tersely said. So abiding, indeed, that a few years later they began making similar "bats," as they had dubbed the machines.
Soon they discovered that the larger the machine they made the less it flew, and in pondering this fact they gradually evolved for themselves the theory which is now known as Langley's unyielding mathematical law, referred to a few pages back. The problem of human flight had not been considered by them at this time, and it was not until the news of Lilienthal's death startled the world that they entered the field of invention in earnest. Then they began constructing gliding machines, modifications of those of Lilienthal and Chanute, and began making long flights, studying defects and overcoming adverse conditions as they presented themselves.
By 1901, they had surpassed the performances of all predecessors, yet, as they tell us, "we saw that the calculations upon which all flying-machines had been based were unreliable, and that all were simply groping in the dark. Having set out with absolute faith in the existing scientific data, we were driven to doubt one thing after another, till finally, after two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations. Truth and error were everywhere so intimately mixed as to be indistinguishable. Nevertheless, the time expended in preliminary study of books was not misspent, for they gave us a good general understanding of the subject, and enabled us at the outset to avoid effort in many directions in which results would have been hopeless."
From mere gliding machines without self-contained power the brothers progressed through the various stages of achievement until in the fall of 1903 they had created the type of flying-machine now made so familiar to everyone through the pictorial publications. Incidentally they had invented and constructed their own gasoline motor for furnishing the power—an accomplishment of no mean importance in itself. On December 17th, 1903, in the presence of a small company of witnesses who had braved the cold, the Wright machine, carrying one of the brothers, made a short but successful flight—the first ever accomplished in which a machine carrying a passenger had raised itself by its own power, sailed a certain distance in free flight, yet subject to guidance, and landed itself and its passenger safely. Mr. Hiram Maxim's machine had, indeed, lifted itself and its passengers, but it sailed unguided through the air, and it could in no sense be said to have made a flight comparable to that of a bird or a bat. The Wright machine, on the other hand, progressed through the air under guidance of its passenger, rising or settling, or turning to right or left as he wished. Its progress constituted, in other words, a veritable flight.
Yet the problem of perfectly controlled flight under all ordinary conditions was by no means completely mastered. The principle was correct, but there were endless details to be worked out. The embodiment of these is the Wright flying-machine of the present time.
In the Wright aeroplane the lifting power is obtained by two parallel horizontal planes of canvas stretched over retaining-frames, placed with their long diameters transversely to the direction of flight, as in the case of the wings of a bird. At a little distance, in front of these, are placed two horizontal parallel rudders, and at the back two parallel vertical rudders. The machine is mounted on huge skids, which resemble giant sled-runners in shape, but lighter and more flexible, and is driven by two wooden-bladed propellers not unlike some of the types of ship-propellers. For stability in flight under all kinds of atmospheric conditions this machine has shown itself to be a true flying-machine, capable of navigating the air in any direction at the will of the operator, and remaining in flight a length of time dependent entirely upon the amount of fuel carried.
The stability of this machine, particularly in a transverse direction, has proved far greater than that of any of its predecessors or contemporaries. The two horizontal rudder-planes mounted in front maintain the fore-and-aft stability; while keeping the machine on an even keel is accomplished by varying the angle of incidence by warping the two main planes,—this being, indeed, a vitally important feature of the mechanism. In this manner a greater lift on the low side and a diminished lift on the high side is obtained, this being maintained manually, as is the fore-and-aft stability. Since the warping of the wings of the machine would tend to deflect it from its course, the apparatus is so arranged that a single lever controls the flexible portion of the wings and the vertical rudder, the motion of the latter counteracting the disturbing influence that would otherwise result from the twisting of the wing-tips. The discovery of this combination gave the finishing touches to the aeroplane, and made it a manageable mechanism. In other words, it made the flying machine a machine in which man could fly.
MR. WILBUR WRIGHT PREPARING TO ASCEND IN HIS AEROPLANE WITH HIS PUPIL M. CASSANDIER.
This mechanism was patented in 1906, and the patent office specifications then became accessible to other experimenters. The French scientific workers had for some time recognized the success of the Wright brothers' efforts, even when most Americans were still skeptical. Now that the manner in which this success had been obtained was disclosed, numerous experimenters began copying the Wright brothers' successful machine, making sundry modifications, while still adhering to the main principles through which success had been obtained. The first of these experimenters to win conspicuous success was Mr. Henry Farman, an Englishman residing in Paris, who on the 13th of January, 1908, aroused the enthusiasm of the entire world, and won a £2000 prize, by flying in a heavier-than-air machine in a prescribed circle, covering about sixteen hundred yards, and alighting at the starting-point.
This was more than four years after the Wright brothers had made far more remarkable flights, to which few persons had paid any attention, and of which most people had never heard. But in the autumn of the same year Orville Wright in America, and Wilbur Wright in France began a series of public flights which demonstrated for all time that the air at last had been conquered, and that they were the unquestionable conquerors. Orville, at Fort Myer, near Washington, on September 12th, electrified the world by flying continuously around a circular course for an hour and fifteen minutes. This was the most conclusive performance yet accomplished and set at rest all doubts as to the possibility of mechanical flight. For no one could doubt that a machine which could maintain itself in the air by its own power for more than an hour was truly a flying-machine in the most exacting sense of the term.
A few days after this performance an accident to the propeller of this machine wrecked it, the resulting fall breaking the leg of the inventor, and killing his companion, Lieutenant Selfridge of the United States Army.
Almost simultaneously Wilbur Wright began a series of flights at Le Mans, France, which demonstrated still more conclusively that erstwhile earth-bound man had really learned to fly. His longest flight lasted for two hours, twenty minutes, and twenty-three seconds; while by flying over captive balloons at an altitude of three hundred and sixty feet, he demonstrated that the mere matter of altitude offered no obstacle.
From this time forward the number of aeronauts increased day by day, and new records were made in bewildering confusion. Only a few of the more spectacular of these need be referred to. On July 19, 1909, Hubert Latham attempted a flight across the English Channel, but his motor failed him and his machine plunged into the water, from which, however, he was rescued, having suffered no injury. On July 25th, Louis Blériot made a similar attempt with better results. Starting from the cliffs near Calais he made the passage without mishap and landed near Dover.
THE FARMAN AEROPLANE.
This is the machine with which Mr. Farman, an Englishman living in France, won the Deutsch prize in the early spring of 1908. This performance was notable as being the most important public flight hitherto made by a heavier-than-air machine. The Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio, had made numerous flights of far greater length, but the general public was not aware of that fact and for a time Mr. Farman was popularly regarded as the foremost of aviators. His best performances were, however, eclipsed by the public flights of the Wright brothers a few months later.
There was of course no particular difficulty involved in the flight across the Channel; but its obvious dangers, together with the suggestion as to the new possibilities of the use of the airship in war time,—the virtual elimination of that all-important barrier of water that had proved so effective against England's foes in the past,—gave to Blériot's flight a popular interest not exceeded by any preceding achievement even of the Wright brothers. We may add that Blériot's feat was presently duplicated by another Frenchman, Count Jacques de Lesseps by name, who crossed the Channel in an aeroplane in May, 1910; and excelled by the Hon. Charles S. Rolls, an Englishman, who on June 2nd, 1910, made a still more remarkable flight, in which he crossed the Channel, starting from the cliffs near Dover, and after circling over French soil without landing, returned to his starting-place. The aeroplanes used by the two Frenchmen were of the monoplane type; that used by Mr. Rolls was a Wright bi-plane.
Just at the time when the first successful cross-Channel flight was made, the attention of aviators was focussed on the flights being made near Washington by Mr. Orville Wright in the attempt to fulfill the Government tests which had been so tragically interrupted the year before. On July 27th, 1909, Mr. Wright successfully met the conditions of the endurance test, by flying more than an hour carrying as a passenger Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm. Three days later a more spectacular flight, to a distance of five miles across country and return, over tree-tops, hills, and valleys, with a passenger (Lieutenant Foulois), was accomplished without mishap. This was in many respects the most important flight, as suggesting the possible practical utility of the aeroplane, that had hitherto been made.
Later in the same year Mr. Orville Wright went abroad with his aeroplane and made a large number of flights at Berlin, demonstrating to the German people the points of superiority of the aeroplane as against the gigantic dirigible balloons to which that nation had heretofore paid chief attention. Mr. Wilbur Wright meantime remained in America to give flights about New York Harbor during the Hudson-Fulton Centenary Celebration. On October 4th (1909), he made a sensational flight up the Hudson from Governor's Island, circling about above the warships anchored in the river in the neighborhood of Grant's Tomb, and returning to land at his starting-point. What would probably have been a still more spectacular flight was prevented by an accident to Mr. Wright's motor just as he was about to start on the afternoon of the same day.
Another flight that aroused great popular interest and enthusiasm was made by the Frenchman Louis Paulhan in competition for a prize of ten thousand pounds offered by the Daily Mail of London for a flight from London to Manchester. Paulhan left London at 5:20 on the evening of April 28, 1910. He descended at Litchfield but renewed his flight early next morning, arriving at Manchester at 8:10. He had covered the distance of 186 miles with a single stop, his actual flying time being four hours and eleven minutes, or an average rate of 44.3 miles an hour. In this flight M. Paulhan had for his only competitor Mr. White, an Englishman, who made a daring flight but did not cover the entire distance.
Paulhan had previously been known as one of the most daring of aviators. At Los Angeles, California, on January 13, 1910, he rose to a height of about 4,163 feet, establishing a record for altitude. He had also made thrilling cross-country flights on the occasion of the Los Angeles meet, as well as in France. Paulhan's record flights were made in a Farman bi-plane.
THE MONOPLANES OF BLÉRIOT AND LATHAM.
The upper figure is that of Blériot launched for his flight across the English Channel, on July 25th, 1909. The lower shows Latham starting in an attempt to cross the Channel, which barely failed of success through fault of the motor.
The spectacular flight from London to Manchester was matched soon after by Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss' flight from Albany to New York, which took place May 29, 1910. Mr. Curtiss had already achieved fame as an aviator, having won the chief speed contest in the International Aviation Meet held at Rheims in August, 1909. He used a bi-plane of his own construction, differing but little in design from the Wright machine, but of very small size, and propelled by an eight-cylinder motor, also made by Mr. Curtiss himself. The start from Albany was made at three minutes after seven o'clock and the aviator arrived at Governor's Island, New York Harbor, at twelve o'clock, having stopped twice on the way to rest and take on fuel. The first stop was made near Poughkeepsie, the second on the heights near the Hudson, within the bounds of New York City. The distance covered 142-1/2 miles; the actual time of flight, 2 hours and 54 minutes,—an average speed of about fifty miles an hour. Parts of the flight were made at a good deal better speed. The first part of the journey from Albany to Poughkeepsie, a distance of 74-1/4 miles, was covered in 1 hour 23 minutes, or at a rate of more than 53.68 miles an hour. The minimum speed at which Mr. Curtiss' bi-plane could be maintained in the air is about 40 miles an hour, the supporting surface of its main plane comprising only 236 square feet, and the weight of the machine complete, including aviator, fuel, and oil, being 950 pounds. The machine uses a single propeller, 7 feet in diameter, making 1,100 revolutions per minute, and giving a pull, when the machine is held stationary on the ground, of over 300 lbs. The engine used is an eight-cylinder motor of 50 horse-power.
A flight in some respects even more interesting than that of Mr. Curtiss was accomplished in France on the ninth of June, 1910, by Lieutenant Feguant and Captain Marconnet, officers of the French army, on a Farman bi-plane. "Starting from Chalons at 4:40 A. M.," says the Scientific American, "the officers flew 176 kilometers (109-1/4 miles) across country to the artillery park at Vincennes, which was reached at 7:10. This flight of two and one-half hours' duration was accomplished at a speed of 43-3/4 miles per hour. Captain Marconnet was able to take photographs and make sketches that would have been of great strategic interest in time of war. This is the first practical demonstration of the aeroplane for scouting purposes, in addition to its being a new world's record for cross-country flying with two men in the machine. Another French aviator, Labouchère, flew for ten minutes with two passengers at Mourmelon on the same day."
A BRITISH AEROPLANE.
This apparatus was built and is operated by Colonel Cody of the British Army. It has made flights of a mile or more. With minor modifications it is, like all bi-plane flying machines hitherto constructed, of the Wright aeroplane type.
A record flight of yet another character was accomplished in America by Charles K. Hamilton, a disciple of Curtiss, who, flying under the auspices of the New York Times and the Philadelphia Public Ledger, attempted successfully a round-trip flight from New York to Philadelphia on June 14, 1910. The aviator left Governor's Island at 7:36 A. M. and landed at Philadelphia at 9:26 A. M., having covered the 86 miles at an average speed of 46.92 miles an hour. After delivering messages from the Governor of New York, and the Mayor of New York City, Mr. Hamilton took wing at 11:33 for the return voyage. A difficulty with his motor made it necessary for him to descend at South Amboy, after covering 68 miles in 1 hour and 21 minutes. An injury to the propeller necessitated a delay of several hours, but the aviator was enabled to re-ascend at 6:17 and to land at Governor's Island at 6:40, the return journey having been accomplished at an average hourly speed of 51.36 miles.
The machine used by Mr. Hamilton is a Curtiss bi-plane, which in most respects follows closely the model of the original Wright aeroplane, but in which the function of the warping wings is fulfilled by two small wings, or ailerons, adjusted at each side between the larger planes. These ailerons, being deflected in opposite directions simultaneously, meet any tendency of the machine to tip unduly. Whether or not this method of maintaining lateral stability is the same in principle as the Wright method of warping the large planes themselves, is a question at issue between the inventors. From the purely scientific standpoint it would seem that one method is merely a modification of the other, which, however ingenious in its application, introduces no new principle.
On the same day on which Mr. Hamilton's inter-urban flight took place, a new record for altitude was made at Indianapolis by Mr. W. H. Brookins, a pupil of the Wrights, who rose in the Wright bi-plane to a height of 4,384 feet. The height was calculated by President Lambert of the St. Louis Aero Club, with the aid of a sextant. Earlier in the same day Mr. Brookins had risen about 2,000 feet. It becomes increasingly difficult for an aeroplane to rise to great heights owing to rarefaction of the upper atmosphere, but the flights of Paulhan and Brookins, as well as various unmeasured altitudes attained in cross-country flights, show that the aeroplane as at present equipped may be depended upon to rise well toward the mile limit.
These are but a few of the interesting flights made within a brief period after the Wright brothers' first successful demonstrations. The number of the aviators who so quickly entered the field, and the prominence given by the press to such feats as those of Blériot, Paulhan, and Curtiss, have tended to distract attention from the original inventors, and to produce some confusion in the popular mind as to the exact share the various aviators have taken in the conquest of the air. The facts, however, are quite clear and unequivocal. At the time when the Wright brothers made their first successful flights, comparatively few people in the world believed that anyone would ever be able to propel himself through the air with safety or certainty in a heavier-than-air apparatus.
The Wright brothers solved the problem after years of patient effort, and solved it effectively and conclusively. They profited of course by the efforts of predecessors, but they were the inventors of the airship in a far fuller sense than, for example, Fulton was the inventor of the steamboat, or Stephenson of the locomotive, or Morse of the telegraph. To their success, and to that alone, must be ascribed the fact that many scores of men in various parts of the world are now able to fly in aeroplanes. Slight modifications of type mark various of these aeroplanes, but no radical departure in principle.
Mr. Wilbur Wright flying over New York Harbor, October 4, 1909.
In time, no doubt, flying-machines of quite different types will be invented. Quite possibly the machines of the Wright model will become altogether obsolete. But this can have no possible effect upon the position that the Wright brothers themselves must always hold in the history of scientific progress. The men who fly from New York to San Francisco, or from New York to London, will be carrying out the work of the Dayton pioneers; and no future accomplishment of the heavier-than-air machine can possibly rank in historical importance with that first flight in the presence of witnesses made December 17, 1903. Then and there it was successfully demonstrated that the last difficulty, so far as joining theory and practice was concerned, had been mastered. Potentially, from that moment, the conquest of the air was complete; and the names of the conquerors as all the world knows, and as throughout the future all must remember, are Wilbur and Orville Wright.
[APPENDIX]
REFERENCE LIST AND NOTES
CHAPTER II
THE HIGHWAY OF THE WATERS
(pp. [77]-[79]). The Great Eastern. The quotation is from Ancient and Modern Ships, by Sir George C. V. Holmes, K.C.V.O., London, 1906.
CHAPTER III
SUBMARINE VESSELS
(pp. [95], [98]). The first submarine. As stated in the text the quotation is from a letter written to Thomas Jefferson by David Bushnell, and published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1789.
(pp. [104]-[105]). A successful diving boat. The quotation is from The Naval History of the Civil War, by Admiral Porter.
CHAPTER IV
THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE
(pp. [127], [128]). George Stephenson's locomotive of 1825. The quotation is from The History of the First Locomotive in America, by William H. Brown, New York 1874.
CHAPTER VI
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC RAILWAYS
(pp. [179]–1[81]). Early experimental railways. The quotation is from the article on "Street and Electric Railways," by Thomas Commerford Martin, in the Special Report of the U. S. Census Office on Street and Electric Railways, Washington, 1905.
CHAPTER IX
NAVIGATING THE AIR
(p. [247]). Henson's studies of the flying-machine. The quotation is from Travels in Space, by E. Seton Valentine and F. L. Tomlinson, New York, 1902.
CHAPTER X
THE TRIUMPH OF THE AEROPLANE
(p. [275]). How the air supports a heavier-than-air mechanism. The quotation is from an article on "The Flying Machine," by Professor S. P. Langley, in McClure's Magazine for June, 1897.
(p. [284]). Langley's aerodrome. The description is from Professor Langley's own account in McClure's Magazine, above cited.
(pp. [289], [290]). Experiments of the Wright brothers. The quotation is from an article on "The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane," by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in The Century Magazine for September, 1908.
(p. [298]). Cross-country Bight by French officers. The quotation is from the Scientific American of June 18, 1910. This periodical has shown great interest in the new science of aeronautics, and was the first to offer a trophy for long-distance flying—a trophy that was won for the years 1908 and 1909 by Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss. The Wright brothers have declined to compete for prizes; otherwise "records" for cross-country flying and the like would doubtless have advanced even more rapidly than has been the case.
[Transcriber's Notes]
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Text uses both "aerial" and "aërial".
Page [262]: "representing six thousand words" should be "representing six hundred thousand words".