The Romance of Aircraft

by Laurence Yard Smith

An Englishman named Percy S. Pilcher had followed the work of Lilienthal with the deepest interest, and he now determined to begin a series of experiments on his own account. Like Lilienthal he realized that it would be useless to attempt a motor driven airplane until the principles of glider construction were fully understood. A glider is simply an airplane without an engine, and Lilienthal succeeded in giving it a certain motive power by starting from a high point, so that the force of gravity could draw him forward and downward. Pilcher adopted an even more original scheme for making his glider “go.” He treated it exactly as if it had been a huge kite, fastening a rope to it and having it pulled swiftly by a team of horses, until it had gained sufficient momentum to carry it up in the air. The moment it began to rise, Pilcher, who hung between the two large wings much as Lilienthal had done, detached himself from the rope and went soaring into the air like a kite, attempting to balance himself and prevent his glider from overturning. But he had not the experience that long and careful practise had given to Lilienthal, and before he had made very many flights in his glider, he fell and met his death.

In 1896 an Australian, Hargrave, experimented with kites in order to discover a glider form which possessed both lifting power and stability. He was the originator of the familiar “box-kite,” which flies so steadily even in a strong breeze. Hargrave connected four very large kites of this sort by a cable, swung a rope seat beneath them and succeeded in making ascents without fear of accident.

Chanute, a Frenchman, now devised a biplane glider with which he succeeded in making brief flights of a few seconds.

The way was now paved for the coming of two great pioneers in the history of aviation. Wilbur and Orville Wright were owners of a small bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They were men with an innate mechanical skill and with the same dogged persistence and indifference to physical hardships which might have brought success to Lilienthal if he had had the time to devote to his experiments.

The Wright brothers had read with fascination accounts of the gliding efforts of Lilienthal. They determined to set to work to solve the problem of human flight. For two years they read and studied everything that had been written upon the subject, and then finally they felt ready to make a trial of a glider of their own construction. They had made up their minds that Chanute's idea of the biplane was most practicable, and so the machine which they built was not strictly bird form, but had two long planes extending horizontally and parallel to each other, attached by wooden supports. The operator or flier lay face downward in the center of the lower plane.

Their glider was too large to be operated with the arms as Lilienthal's had been, and so they had to devise some new method for controlling and balancing it in the air. This they managed by the use of small auxiliary planes, which were operated by levers and ropes. In front of the two large planes was a small horizontal plane which could be raised or lowered. When raised to catch the wind it gave the glider an upward motion which carried it into the air, bringing the large planes to an angle with the wind where they could continue the climbing process.

One of the great difficulties of the early gliders was their tendency to turn over sidewise. Lilienthal counteracted this whenever he felt one side of his glider falling by shifting his weight toward the highest wing and thus pulling it down. This crude method was impossible in the Wright biplane. The brothers set themselves to seeking a solution from the balancing methods of birds, and right here they made a discovery which was of the greatest importance to the progress of the airplane. The bird when he feels one of his wings falling below the level of the other, simply droops the rear portion of the wing which is lowest, forming a cup or curve at the back which catches the air as it rushes under. This increased pressure of air forces the wing up again until in a second the bird has regained his balance. Imitating this method, the Wright brothers constructed the planes of their glider in such a manner that a cord fastened to the rear sections of each plane could be pulled to draw the rear edge downward. If the left side of their machine became lower than the right it was a simple matter to pull down the left halves of the rear edges of the two planes, and so catch the air currents which would force that side upward. This ingenious scheme of obtaining sidewise or “lateral” balance is used in a modified form in airplanes to-day, and is known as “wing-warping.”

The brothers chose the coast of North Carolina as the best place for their first attempts to fly, for there the breezes were usually not too strong. After a good deal of difficulty they learned not only to glide, as Lilienthal had done, but also to soar some distance into the air. They had so far no means of turning around, but this was remedied by fastening at the rear of the two large planes a small vertical plane which could be moved from side to side and which served to turn the glider.

There were three achievements in airplane construction which so far could be placed to the credit of the Wrights. One was the elevating plane by means of which an upward or downward motion of the glider was obtained. The second was the ingenious wing-warping device, for securing stability. The third was the rudder, which enabled the pilot to turn around in mid-air.

Not satisfied with what they had already accomplished, the brothers now turned their attention to constructing a motor suitable for use in a flying machine. This had to be exceedingly light and at the same time strong, and some means had to be discovered for converting its power into motion. The first engine they built was a four-cylinder petrol, and it was used to revolve two wooden propellers acting in opposite directions. The blades of these propellers as they churned the air, gave “thrust” to the airplane exactly as the propellers of a ship drive it through the water. In this new model airplane the flier no longer lay face downward as in the old glider, but sat on a bench between the planes, from which he controlled the action of the engine, the elevating plane, the rudder and the wing warping arrangement by means of levers and cords.