At the moment his machine lost balance, Lilienthal was more than 100 feet in the air. Striking the ground with great violence, he sustained injuries which were almost immediately fatal. In his work, to which he sacrificed his life, he had met with no encouragement or recognition. He suffered the fate of pioneers; his theories were so far ahead of his time that folk did not grasp their significance. Little interest seems to have been taken in his glides; there was no sensation; there were no crowds. Nobody, in fact, realised what he was doing, or appreciated the vast importance of these seemingly simple tests. But in the years that followed, when other men came to grips with the problem as Lilienthal had done, when they were able to use the data he had compiled and to profit by his experiences in actual flight, then this pioneer came into his own.

His work, summarised, may be said to lie in this: he provided a stepping-stone to power-driven flight. He showed men that they should learn to balance themselves in the air before, and not after, they had built themselves costly craft. How his example acted as a spur upon others, and how the work he had begun was carried to its triumph, will be the purpose of our next chapters to show.[1]

CHAPTER VII
WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT

How two American engineers followed up Lilienthal’s work—Their biplane glider and its ingenious control—First experiments and successes.

For those who might care to study them, Lilienthal had written papers and essays as explanations of his work, and when the news of his death was flashed round the world, inventors were induced to turn to these teachings and read for themselves what he had done. Among those who were interested were two young Americans, unknown then, but now world-famous—Wilbur and Orville Wright. Living in Dayton, Ohio, they were the sons of Milton Wright, a prominent church worker of that city, and they carried on a bicycle store and engineer’s shop. Both were born engineers—keen, clever, patient, and enthusiastic in their work; and they had discussed many times—before they read of Lilienthal’s death—the problem of building an aeroplane. Now this interest was re-awakened; and as Wilbur Wright himself said:

“The brief notice of his (Lilienthal’s) death which appeared in the telegraphic news at that time, aroused a passive interest which had existed from my childhood, and led me to take down from the shelves of our home library a book on “Animal Mechanism” by Professor Marey, which I had already read several times. From this I was led to read more modern works, and as my brother soon became equally interested with myself, we passed from the reading to the thinking, and finally to the working stage.”

What the Wrights first set themselves to do was to investigate previous data. They wanted to prove, if they could, whether this data was sound or badly reasoned: they needed a firm and definite basis of their own before they would build any large machine. So they tested the theories of their predecessors and made experiments, particularly as to the sustaining power of surfaces of various shapes and curves. To this end they built and flew kites, studying the lift they exercised; then they decided to build a light gliding machine, such as Lilienthal had used. But there was a drawback to be faced in all such practical work, and the Wrights saw it clearly; this was to get a sufficient amount of actual flying. It was Wilbur who wrote:

“It seemed to us that the main reason why the problem had remained so long unsolved was that no one had been able to obtain any adequate practice. It would not be considered at all safe for a bicycle rider to attempt to ride through a crowded city street after only five hours’ practice, spread out in bits of 10 seconds each over a period of five years; yet Lilienthal, with this brief practice, was remarkably successful in meeting the fluctuations and eddies of the wind gusts.”

They made up their minds to build a glider with ample wing-surface, so that it would be sustained in light breezes, and to take the machine to where they might be sure of a steady wind, and there fly it as a kite; allow it, that is to say, to ascend into the air at the end of a rope, and hold it steady against the wind while the operator practised his balancing movements.