The Aeroplane

by Claude Grahame-White; Harry Harper

Fig. 23.—Lilienthal gliding.

His first tests were brief, for the reason that his craft would either dip too sharply, or incline its planes steeply and so check its forward speed. In either event the result was the same: the glide came to an end. But Lilienthal’s caution saved him from being injured in an involuntary descent. It must be remembered he was always moving close to the earth; therefore he had only a short distance to fall. To safeguard himself still further he fitted below his machine a shock absorber, which came into contact with the ground first and lessened the force of any impact.

But the difficulties of preserving his balance were great, as he had foreseen; for not only did his glider dip down, or rear itself up, but also—under the influence of wind-gusts—threatened to slip sideways. It was Wilbur Wright, lecturing afterwards upon problems of aerial equilibrium, who said crisply:

“The balancing of a gliding or flying machine is very simple in theory; it merely consists in causing the centre of pressure to coincide with the centre of gravity; but in actual practice there seems to be an almost boundless incompatibility of temperament between the two, which prevents their remaining peaceably together for a single instant.”

Fig. 24.—Centres of gravity and pressure.

Here, in a sentence, is the problem. As a cambered plane is moved in flight, the air-pressure upon it is not disposed equally over the surface, but tends to locate itself at a spot to the front of the middle line of the plane. When a plane is at a normal inclination to the air, indeed, this centre of pressure, as it is called, is at a point upon the surface about one-third of the distance between the front and rear edges. As to the centre of gravity, the second factor in the problem, this may be explained best, perhaps, by a practical illustration. Take a small sheet of cartridge paper, cut to represent the plane of a flying machine, and lay this along the blade of a knife. By moving it to and fro and adjusting its equilibrium, you will be able to make it rest upon the knife-edge without falling forward or backward; this point at which it balances itself represents its centre of gravity. Here, then, are the forces: the centre of pressure, which is the thrust of the air, and the centre of gravity, which is the pull of the earth seeking to drag down a machine when in flight. These two forces must, as we have been told, be made to coincide. In the next illustration ([Fig. 24]) the problem is made clearer. In diagram A is seen a plane A.B. which is moving through the air in the direction indicated by the arrow. The two forces—that is to say, the centre of pressure (C.P.) and the centre of gravity (C.G.)—coincide with each other: therefore the plane is in equilibrium. But now suppose a gust of wind strikes the plane. This tends to tilt it upward; and the result is that the centres of pressure and gravity show that “boundless incompatibility of temperament” of which Wilbur Wright complained. The impact of the gust, making the plane rear up, throws the centre of pressure farther back along its surface, as is shown in diagram B. The plane is at once out of balance. Or it may be argued that, as it passes through the air, the wind pressure under the plane is suddenly lessened. This would cause its front edge to drop; whereupon the centre of pressure would, as is seen in diagram C, move immediately forward upon the plane—and so throw it out of balance again.

This is the problem of the man who would navigate the air. He launches himself in a treacherous, unstable element: constantly, beneath his wings, the air pressure changes and varies in its strength; constantly is he losing his balance—and as constantly must he regain it. Imagine a man walking a tight-rope, and seeking incessantly to keep himself in equilibrium, and you have a notion of what the first man faced when he strove to fly. And his case, really, was worse than that of the tight-rope walker. The latter is concerned mainly with the danger of falling to one side or the other; he need not trouble himself unduly with the problem of his fore and aft stability. But the aerial acrobat may fall forward or backward, or from side to side. Hence his trick, once he masters it, is the more skilful.

The art, as has been shown, is to bring together these centres of gravity and pressure; and it can be done in either of two ways. One is to alter the centre of gravity should the machine begin to fall, and the other to move the centre of pressure. Lilienthal, and others of the early gliders, adopted the plan first mentioned; they shifted the centre of gravity. But others who followed them, and notably the Wright brothers, finding that they needed to build larger craft, made use of movable planes by which they could shift the centre of pressure; but this, of course, will be dealt with in its place.