A LONG GLIDE
Wright glider in full flight over Kill Devil Hill, N. C.
After a little pause the scientist continued, saying that, at the time the Wright brothers made their first flight they were experimenting with what we now know as a biplane, or Chanute type glider, at Kill Devil Hill, near Kitty Hawk, N. C. It is a desolate wind-swept spot on the coast where only a little rank marsh grass grows on the sheltered sides of the great sand dunes. The brothers chose this barren place for their experiments because here the winds were the most favourable for their purpose.
They were not ready for their first attempt to fly in a motor-propelled machine until December 17th, and though they sent out a general invitation to the few people living in that section, only five braved the cold wind. Three of these were life savers from the Kill Devil Hill station near by. Doubtless the other people had heard of the numerous failures of flying machines and expected the promised exhibition of the silent young men who had spent the autumn in their neighbourhood, to be just another such. They were sadly mistaken, for they missed a spectacle that never before had been seen in all the history of the world. Nowadays we are familiar with the sight of an aeroplane skimming over the ground and then soaring into the sky, but to the five people who, besides the inventors, were present it undoubtedly was almost beyond belief.
The brothers had installed a specially constructed gasoline engine in their glider, and after thoroughly testing it they carried the machine out on to a level stretch of sand, turned it so that it would face the wind, and while the life savers held it in place the brothers went over every wire and stay. They felt perfectly confident that the machine would fly, but they made no predictions, and in fact spoke but few words between themselves or to the five men gathered about the aeroplane. The machine was not the smoothly finished one we know to-day as the Wright biplane. The operator lay flat on his face on the lower plane, the elevating rudder composed of two smaller planes stuck out in front, instead of behind, and there were several other important differences in design, but in principle it was the same machine that has carried the fame of the American inventors around the world.
Finally the operator took his place, the engine was started, the signal was given, the men holding the machine dropped back and it started out along the rail from which it was launched. It ran along the track to the end, directly against the wind, and rose into the air.
It meant that the air had been turned into a highway, but the Wright brothers were very modest in setting down an account of their achievement.
"The first flight," they wrote, "lasted only twelve seconds," a flight very modest compared with that of birds, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked. The second and third flights (the same day) were a little longer, and the fourth lasted fifty-nine seconds, covering a distance of 853 feet over the ground against a twenty-mile wind.
"After the last flight the machine was carried back to camp and set down in what was thought to be a safe place. But a few minutes later, when engaged in conversation about the flights, a sudden gust of wind struck the machine and started to turn it over. All made a rush to stop it, but we were too late. Mr. Daniels, a giant in stature and strength, was lifted off his feet, and, falling inside between the surfaces, was shaken about like a rattle in a box as the machine rolled over and over. He finally fell out upon the sand with nothing worse than painful bruises, but the damage to the machine caused a discontinuance of experiments."
"Thus," said the scientist, we see the record aeroplane flight for 1903 was 853 feet while in 1911 a Wright biplane flew more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In ten years more we may look back to our monoplanes and biplanes of to-day in the same way we do now on the first cumbersome 'horseless carriages' that were replaced by the high-powered automobiles we know now. Some experts in aeronautics say that we may even see the complete passing of the monoplane and biplane types in favour of some now unknown kind of aeroplane."