GLIDING FLIGHT.—The earliest attempt to fly by gliding is attributed to Oliver, a Monk of Malmesbury who, in 1065 prepared artificial wings, and with them jumped from a tower, being injured in the experiment.
Nearly 700 years later, in 1801, Resnier, a
Frenchman, conducted experiments with varying
results, followed by Berblinger, in 1842, and
LeBris, a French sailor, in 1856.
In 1884, J. J. Montgomery, of California, designed a successful glider, and in 1889 Otto and Gustav Lilienthal made the most extended tests, in Germany, and became experts in handling gliders.
Pilcher, in England, was the next to take up the subject, and in 1893 made many successful glides, all of the foregoing machines being single plane surfaces, similar to the monoplane.
Long prior to 1896 Octave Chanute, an engineer, gave the subject much study, and in that year made many remarkable flights, developing the double plane, now known as the biplane.
He was an ardent believer in the ability of man to fly by soaring means, and without using power for the purpose.
It is doubtful whether gliders contributed much to the art in the direction of laterally stabilizing aeroplanes. They taught useful lessons with respect to area and fore and aft control.
The kite gave the first impulse to seek out a means for giving equilibrium to planes, and Montgomery made a kite with warping wings as early as 1884.
Penaud, a Frenchman, in 1872, made a model aeroplane which had the stabilizing means in the tail. All these grew out of kite experiments; and all gliders followed the kite construction, or the principles involved in them, so that, really, there is but one intervening step between the kite and the flying machine, as we know it, the latter being merely kites with power attached, as substitutes for the cords.
ONE OF THE USES OF GLIDER EXPERIMENTS.— There is one direction in which gliders are valuable to the boy and to the novice who are interested in aviation. He may spend a lifetime in gliding and not advance in the art. It is questionable whether in a scientific way it will be of any service to him; but experiments of this character give confidence, the ability to quickly grasp a situation, and it will thus teach self reliance in emergencies.