WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT, THE MEN WHO GAVE HUMANITY WINGS
207. Early Attempts to Fly. To sail through the air as birds do is an ambition that has dazzled men since ancient times. The Greek myths tell us of Phaeton who drove the horses of the sun, and of Icarus who flew too near the sun with his wings of feathers and wax.
WILBUR WRIGHT
Studying birds
To learn how to fly men studied the wings of huge birds living millions of years ago, made careful mathematical reckonings about them, and then made themselves wings of feathers or skin. But with these wings they could only glide to earth from high towers or cliffs. One useful thing they learned from this study. They found that the wing of a bird is bent as you bend a long piece of paper if you hold it by opposite corners and start to twist it. This is called the principle of the screw, and is now used in making the propeller blades of airplanes.
208. The First Airplanes. Early airplanes, airplane models and "gliders" were made in the queerest, most outlandish shapes imaginable. They had from one to five or more planes, arranged at almost every possible angle. Some looked like a row of box kites, some like dragons, and some like a collection of old fashioned windmill wheels all fastened together.
ORVILLE WRIGHT
It was only a little while ago that men were working with these strange models, for it was only about ten years before the World War that a successful airplane flight was first made.
The invention of the balloon came late in the history of flying. Two sons of a French paper manufacturer probably made the first balloon. They filled a large bag with hot air from a bonfire, and found that it rose and sailed away.
Early balloons were carried through the air by wind currents, and could not be guided. Their passengers were often blown out to sea and drowned.
Zeppelins
A German, Count Zeppelin, invented a balloon called a dirigible, because it could be directed through the air. The Germans named these large cigar-shaped balloons "zeppelins," after their inventor.
Dirigibles are now built more than two blocks long, about the length of the largest battleships. They can lift heavy loads, but are very expensive and very easily broken, and require huge sheds or houses to shelter them.
First successful flight
An airship properly means a dirigible, while an airplane is a heavier-than-air machine. The first successful flight of any length in an airplane that could be directed was made by Wilbur Wright in 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was also the first time an airplane had been driven by a gasoline engine.
Did bicycle repairing
209. The Wright Brothers. Wilbur Wright was one of two brothers who had long been working on the problem of a flying machine. He was born in 1867, and his brother Orville in 1871. Their father was a bishop whose excellent library took the place of a university education for his boys. Wilbur and Orville studied especially works on physics, mathematics, and engineering. They earned their living by making and repairing bicycles. But they spent much time experimenting with different kinds of gliders. They also studied the action of the atmosphere. Aërostatics, or the science of the air, is a very difficult and important part of flying.
Flights by airplane models
Before Wilbur Wright's success in 1903 progress of various kinds had been made. Fairly long flights with gliders had been made in different countries. Two Americans, Langley and Hiram Maxim, had worked out models driven by steam. Langley's had flown half a mile over the Potomac, and Maxim's, though not allowed to fly freely, was strong enough to carry a man.
A DIRIGIBLE BALLOON
The Wright brothers were wise in employing a gasoline motor. A steam engine, with its large boilers, was of course much heavier. They had a rudder in the tail of their machine, but they also invented a new method of steering. By "warping" or bending the planes, a monoplane, with its one set of wings could keep its balance as well as a biplane, which has two.
AN EARLY WRIGHT AIRPLANE
After Wilbur Wright's first flight in 1903 several Frenchmen made successful flights. But in 1908 Wilbur Wright went to France and broke the records of all the French flyers by the unparalleled feat of remaining in the air for more than two hours.
A MONOPLANE
From a photograph of a Bleriot Monoplane in "Flying," New York
Air records
Now the airplane can do all kinds of fantastic tricks. Aviators "loop the loop" dozens of times, and move in any direction through the air at will. They can rise in the air thirty-six thousand feet, and can fly at the rate of three miles a minute. In 1907 Orville Wright made the first record flight of an hour. All this has been accomplished in scarcely more than a dozen years since then. Flying developed especially rapidly during the World War. Airplanes were used to spy out the enemy's defenses, to direct gunfire, to drop bombs, to shoot down soldiers, and to hunt submarines. The daring and brilliant fighting of airmen in the World War makes a story more breathless than that of any novel. Incidents like landing with burning planes or with planes partly stripped of their canvas were not uncommon for these fighters of the air.
A HYDROPLANE
Bombing machines
One type of airplane was used for fighting and another heavier type for bombing. Air bombing is now so accurate that in the future it may be useless to build super-dreadnaughts and large battleships.
210. Peace Time Uses of the Airplane. During times of peace airplanes are useful in exploring and for carrying passengers and light freight. Airplanes scarcely more expensive than the earlier automobiles can now be bought.
Airplanes carry the mail
Airplanes in this country are chiefly used for carrying mail. "The mail must fly" is the slogan of the mailmen of the air, and in storm or fog—even in the face of a tornado—it has gone.
In May, 1919, a hydroplane belonging to the United States navy made the first trip across the ocean. A hydroplane is an airplane having a boat-like body so that it is able to alight on or rise from the water.
Transatlantic flights
In July a British dirigible flew across with its crew. A few weeks earlier a British plane flew from continent to continent in less than sixteen hours. It took Columbus seventy days to make his crossing.