None of those newspapermen ever returned. During all their experiments that year and the next, the Wrights had about all the privacy they needed. They used to smile over a comment by Octave Chanute: “It is a marvel to me that the newspapers haven’t spotted you.”
Having disposed of the reporters, the inventors resumed their work.
Almost as soon as the new trials began, the brothers encountered a new difficulty. A track 60 feet long had been adequate for launching the machine in the wind at Kitty Hawk; but a track of 160 feet, or even one of 240 feet, was not long enough for use at Huffman field where the winds were usually light.
The Huffman field was covered with hummocks from six inches to a foot high. Only a few spots free from hummocks were suitable for a 240-foot track. And landing wheels, such as were used later, would have been impractical on that uneven ground. Laying 240 feet of track, after finding enough ground space free from hummocks, was a considerable job. But frequently, after the track was laid, the wind would change its direction, and then all the work had to be done over. After a few times, the brothers gave up trying to use so long a track, and ordinarily used one of only 160 feet.
As steady winds of eleven miles an hour, the least that would do for starting from a 160-foot track, were not frequent, the Wrights had to be in readiness to take advantage of occasional gusts of strong wind. With their machine on the track, they waited until they could “see” a flurry of wind coming—that is, until they could see weeds being agitated by the wind in the distance. Then they would start the motor and run the machine down the track to meet the wind gust when it reached the end of the rail. In that way they sometimes succeeded in making a start on a day generally calm. But one such start ended disastrously, and Orville, who was piloting the machine, had one of his narrowest escapes. When the machine first met the flurry of wind, it rose rapidly, but a second later it was on the ground with the wings pointing vertically into the air. It had dived at a steep angle, throwing Orville forward to the ground. The upper wing spar came down across the middle of his back. But luckily, a section about two feet wide, just wide enough to miss hitting him, was broken out. No other damage was done to the spar, and the Wrights could never account for the seemingly miraculous breakage that provided a space for safety over the very place where Orville lay on the ground. After that accident, Charlie Taylor, who had seen other narrow escapes, gloomily told the neighbors across the road that every time he saw one of the brothers start on a flight he felt that he was seeing him alive for the last time.
Early in July the Wrights made alterations in the machine which located the center of gravity farther toward the rear than it had been before. In the first trial after those alterations, the machine, after leaving the track, kept turning up more and more and looked as if it were going to loop the loop. The center of gravity was so far back that the front elevator, even when turned to its limit, could not check the upward turn. While pointing vertically upward, the machine came to a stop and then began to slide backward. By the time it reached the ground it was once more so nearly level that if the skids had had a slight upward bend at their rear ends, the landing might have been made without damage. As it was, the rear ends of the skids dug into the ground; but the damage was slight.
Before their experiments had progressed far in 1904 the Wrights saw that a better method of launching the machine was needed. They decided that a derrick with a falling weight would be the simplest and cheapest device. A 1,600-pound weight, falling a distance of 16½ feet, was so geared with ropes and pulleys that it produced a 350-pound pull on the machine through a distance of 49½ feet. By this arrangement the machine could be put into the air after a run of only 50 feet, even in a dead calm. Shifting the track was now seldom necessary.
Up to the time the derrick catapult was ready for its first trial on September 7, less than forty starts had been made and many of them failed for lack of speed. But now the length of the flights increased rapidly. The shorter flights had been in almost a straight line, but as the lengths of the flights increased it was necessary to make turns to stay within the field. Then a new trouble—or rather an old one that supposedly had been overcome at Kitty Hawk—began to bother the Wrights. Often in making a short turn they suddenly found themselves in a tail-spin which ended in a crash requiring days, or even weeks, for repairs. They soon learned what it was in making the turn that caused the tail-spin; but they found it difficult to avoid, because they had no way of knowing at what angle the air was striking the machine. This led to the “invention” of the first instrument for guidance of a pilot in flying. They simply attached a short piece of string to the crossbar beneath the front elevator. When the machine traveled directly forward the string trailed straight backward; but when the machine slipped to either side the string blew to one side or the other and indicated approximately the amount of the side slip. By close observance of this string it was possible to avoid entirely the danger of tail-spins, but the pilot learning to fly had so many things to attend to, so it seemed to him, that he sometimes neglected to watch the string closely enough.
After it was found that the derrick permitted the plane to be launched at any time, the Wrights often let the machine stand on the track during the day with the weights raised, ready to start at a moment’s notice. One day in early November, while idly strolling in front of the track, Orville thought he saw a slight movement of the plane on the track. A more careful look did not confirm his first impression; nevertheless he turned and leisurely walked towards the plane. When within a few steps of it he saw that it actually was in motion. The wire that held it against the pull of the 1,600-pound weight was attached to a stake driven into the soft ground several feet. That stake was slowly coming out of the ground! By leaping upon one of the skids, Orville reached the elevator control lever in time to prevent the machine from rising as it rushed down the track. A strained shoulder was the principal damage, though the machine suffered a few slight breakages.
Not until the 51st flight in 1904, when the machine stayed in the air one minute and one second, did the Wrights beat their best Kitty Hawk record of 59 seconds. The first complete circle was not made until September 20. But toward the end of the 1904 experiments, there were two five-minute flights. In each of these the machine circled the field four or five times without stopping.