The Boy's Book of New Inventions

by Harry E. Maule

On the day of the great test the glider was taken to the top of Kill Devil Hill, which is 110 feet high, and while the wind was roaring through the canvas at 42 miles an hour the machine was launched. To those unaccustomed to the actions of gliders it would have seemed that the engineless biplane would be blown backward over the edge of the hill. Instead, it shot forward and upward into the teeth of the hurricane. The force of the wind on the planes, which were presented diagonally to it, caused the flier to rise and go ahead by just about the same principle that a ship can sail almost into the teeth of the wind by having her sails set at the proper angle.

When it had reached the altitude of 200 feet it stopped motionless and to those below who saw Orville Wright sitting calmly in the pilot's seat it seemed that some unseen hand was holding him aloft. Suddenly the pilot pressed a lever and the glider darted 250 feet to the left, returned to her original position, sank to within a few feet of the hillside and hovered there for two minutes.

The Wrights had been working on the principles involved for a long time and at the testing grounds were Orville Wright, his brother Loren, who up to that time had not been known to the world of aviation, and Alexander Ogilvy, an English aviator.

After the remarkable test Orville Wright was asked, "Have you solved real bird flight?"

"No," he replied, "but we have learned something about it."

The aviator went on to explain that had he been up 3,000 feet or so, where the wind currents are always strong, he probably could have stayed up there all night, or as long as he cared to.

This greatest of all feats of soaring was accomplished in a glider that looked to the ordinary person very much like the modern Wright biplane without the engine. There were skids but they were very low. In general outline the machine was composed of two main planes, a vertical vane set out in front, two vertical planes at the rear of the tail, and behind these the horizontal plane. The details of the construction of the glider were not made public and only a few persons saw it, but from all accounts the curve of the main planes was much greater than is usual, thus gaining the glider a greater degree of support from the air, and the planes were capable of being warped much more than in the ordinary Wright biplane. The vertical vane in front, which does not appear on any of the Wright power fliers, was a foot wide and five feet tall. It acted as a keel and gave the machine greater side-to-side stability because the wind passing at a high speed to each side of it tended to keep it vertical.

In working out a biplane that could rise from or alight on the water, Glenn Curtiss practically doubled the usefulness of aeroplanes. The experiments, conducted under the auspices of the United States Navy so impressed the officers that several have been added to its equipment. Curtiss has been experimenting with hydro-aeroplanes for several years, but before actually completing one he conducted a number of experiments with ordinary biplanes in the vicinity of Hampton Roads, Va., in 1911, to prove them available for use on battleships. Finally, Lieutenant Ely flew from the deck of the cruiser Birmingham over the water and to a convenient landing spot on land.

Later on Curtiss went to California to perfect his hydro-aeroplane, and while conducting the work Lieutenant Ely made a flight from shore to the deck of the battleship Pennsylvania which was lying in San Francisco Harbour. These two incidents were more in the nature of "stunts" than developments, but they showed what an aeroplane could do if attached to a battleship fleet as a scout.

Even more convincing was the proof when Curtiss finally worked out a form of wooden float which was put between the mounting wheels. The float was flat-bottomed with an upward inclination at the prow so that when skimming over the water the tendency was to rise from the surface rather than to cut through it. Small floats at the outer tips of the lower main plane helped to keep the machine on an even balance while floating at rest upon the water. The wheels served their regular purpose if the machine started from or alighted upon land.