“My brother Orville started on a flight with one wing slightly higher than the other. This caused the machine to veer to the left. He waited a moment to see whether it would right itself, but finding that it did not, then decided to apply the control. At the very instant he did this, however, the right wing most unexpectedly rose much higher than before, and led him to think that possibly he had made a mistake. A moment of thought was required to assure himself that he had made the right motion, and another to increase the movement. Meanwhile he had neglected the front rudder, by which the fore-and-aft balance was maintained. The machine turned up in front more and more till it assumed a most dangerous attitude. We who were on the ground noticed this in advance of the aviator, who was thoroughly absorbed in the attempt to restore the lateral balance, but our shouts of alarm were drowned by the howling of the wind. It was only when the machine came to a stop and started backward that he at length realised the true situation. From the height of nearly 30 feet the machine sailed diagonally backward till it struck the ground. The unlucky aeronaut had time for one hasty glance behind him, and the next instant found himself the centre of a mass of fluttering wreckage. How he escaped injury I do not know, but afterwards he was unable to show a scratch or bruise anywhere, though his clothes were torn in one place.”
The amount of practice the brothers obtained began to tell its tale, and they became sufficiently experienced to glide in winds of 37 miles an hour. It was Wilbur who, emphasising this need for constant flying, declared: “By long practice, the management of a machine should become as instinctive as the balancing movements a man unconsciously employs with every step in walking.”
After the experience with the 1902 machine, and not before, did the brothers feel encouraged to build a craft with a motor. They decided to construct the engine themselves, so that they might have it ready for use in 1903. They were capable engineers, they had their own workshops, and above all they knew just what they wanted. So they made a petrol engine with four cylinders, developing about 25 horse-power. It was water-cooled, and followed upon the lines of a motor-car engine—save that it was lightened where they considered weight could be spared. As a matter of fact, when compared with the light and ingenious motors afterwards made in France, this engine was a heavy and clumsy piece of work, weighing as it did about 200 lbs. But they had calculated what load their machine would bear; and they wanted to ensure that the motor should run reliably. They attempted, therefore, no drastic cutting down of weight.
Fig. 31.—Man lifting
a 100 horse-power
aeroplane motor.
An explanation may well be interposed as to the working of the petrol motor, seeing that it plays so large a part in aviation. First should be remembered the steam engine and its disadvantages—its boiler, weight of water, and need for a heating agent to make this water boil. In the petrol-motor none of these are required—none, at least, save a tank with liquid fuel and another, a smaller tank, containing lubricating oil. Beyond these tanks and their contents, the weight of the engine is no more than the weight of metal which composes it; and so it is possible, with a specially-lightened motor, to deliver one horse-power of energy for a weight of less than 3 lbs. How lightly a petrol engine can be made was demonstrated by the firm constructing the Antoinette motor, with which many of the pioneers fitted their craft. A 16-cylinder engine was made so that a man could raise it upon his shoulders—as shown in [Fig. 31]—and carry it without much difficulty; and yet this same motor, which one man could lift from the ground, developed 100 horse-power.
The principle of the petrol engine is simple. From the tank containing petrol runs a pipe, and the liquid passes through this into the carburettor,—a small chamber in which the petrol is vapourised and made to mix with air and so become explosive. Petrol is a liquid which, when in contact with air, evaporates in the form of vapour, and this forms a powerful explosive, only needing a spark to ignite it. In the carburettor, therefore, the petrol and air are mingled until they form an explosive mixture, then they pass through another pipe to the engine itself.
