MACHINE SEEN FROM ABOVE,
showing the large size of the elevators, the position of the pilot, and the placing of the propellers.
Fig. 51.—The Cody Biplane.
In the control of the machine Cody introduced original devices, notably as to sideway balance. Instead of using ailerons or wing-warping, he arranged his two elevating-planes so that they would move up and down independently of each other. In this way, by making one tilt up and the other down, he was able to obtain the same effect as with ailerons. When raised or lowered in unison, these planes acted as elevators. Cody managed also to combine all controlling movements in one lever, and did not use his feet for steering. Before him, as he sat in his driving seat, he had a rod which ended in a hand-wheel. Pushed forward or backward, this rod moved the elevating-planes; swung over from side to side, it altered the angle of one or other of the elevating-planes and so controlled sideway balance; while by turning the wheel at the top of the rod, the pilot could operate the rudder at the rear of the machine. Cody made little progress until he obtained a powerful motor, his machine being too large and heavy for the engines fitted to other craft. Acquiring a motor of 120 h.p. in 1912, he won the War Office competition on Salisbury Plain, his biplane showing its superiority—as a purely military craft—even over those of the famous French builders. It was in the summer of 1913, while flying a new machine, that the airman and a passenger fell to their death—expert evidence showing that the craft collapsed in the air.
Two other Englishmen prominent in the early days of aviation were the Hon. C. S. Rolls and Mr. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon. The former, having learned to glide as the Wrights had done, obtained a British-built Wright biplane and made excellent flights at Shellbeach, Isle of Sheppey. During the season of 1912, still piloting a Wright, he took part in several aviation meetings; and it was at Bournemouth, owing to the collapse of a tail-plane, that he fell 90 feet and was almost instantly killed. Towards the end of 1909, Mr. Moore-Brabazon, after buying and learning to pilot a Voisin, ordered a British-built biplane from Messrs. Short Brothers, and with this machine on 30th October 1909 he won a £1000 prize offered by The Daily Mail for the first circular mile flight by a British aviator upon an all-British machine.
Now indeed, once the first obstacles had been overcome, the building of aeroplanes and the training of men progressed astonishingly. New champions appeared almost every day; many aviation meetings were held; and Henri Farman, to complete the triumphs of a wonderful year, flew in November for 4 hours 17 minutes 35 seconds, covering a distance of 150 miles through the air, and breaking all records for duration of flight.
CHAPTER XII
PERILS OF THE AIR
How pilots fought the wind—Military demands for an “airworthy” machine—Value of the air-scout—Dangers in wind-flying—The “side-slip”—Aeroplanes that are automatically stable.
It has been shown how aeroplanes were built and made to fly, and not machines of one particular make, but biplanes and monoplanes of various types of construction; also how, granted he had a reliable motor, a man might fly for hours without alighting. These were the lessons of 1909; these, and the fact that flying was proved an art that could be learned by any man who was active and had sound nerves. After Wilbur Wright had taught his first pupils, and Bleriot and Farman had established training schools, men in rapidly increasing numbers came to learn to fly; so that, quite early in 1910, it was possible to list the names of more than 200 pilots.