Historic Inventions

by Rupert Sargent Holland

This novel charm of simplicity caught the French fancy. The Wrights wanted to do everything for themselves. At Kitty Hawk they had lived in a small shack, and cooked their own meals. Wilbur Wright had a similar shack built on his flying-field in France, and planned to do his own cooking. But this was too extreme for the French mind. When he went to his shack he found a native cook installed there, and had to submit to the hospitality of his hosts.

The Wrights were organizing companies in the different countries of Europe, and wanted to attend strictly to their business. But wherever they went they were fêted. They met the French President, the Kaiser, the King of England, and the King of Spain, and they were dined and publicly honored in all the great capitals. Germany turned from its native hero, Count Zeppelin, to admire them. But everywhere they kept that same quiet tone. They showed that they cared nothing to perform hazardous feats simply because of the hazard, nor to establish records. Wilbur Wright was asked if he would not try for the prize offered to the first man to fly across the English Channel. He said he would not at that time, because it “would be risky and would not prove anything more than a journey over land.” And the public knew that this was sensible caution, and not lack of courage.

Daring aviators sprang into fame at once. Most of these built their machines according to their individual ideas, and there was a great trying-out of different patterns. Blériot, a Frenchman, flew across the English Channel in a monoplane in thirty-eight minutes. Instantly he became the French idol. When he reached Paris at five in the morning an enormous crowd welcomed him, and the cries of “Vive Blériot!” could be heard for squares. He was dined at the Hôtel de Ville, given the Legion of Honor, and money was subscribed for a monument to mark the place near Calais where he commenced his flight. Shortly after Roger Sommer rose in the country outside Paris on a moonlight night, and flew for two hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds, the longest flight made to that time. The world recognized that the actual invention of the airship was one of the greatest achievements of the ages. Said the London Times, “It is no wonder that there should be great enthusiasm in France over the cross-Channel flight of M. Blériot, and that the French papers should talk of nothing else. Further enthusiasm will doubtless greet the gallant attempt, which was all but successful, of M. Latham yesterday, to repeat the achievement. Since the discovery of the New World no material event has happened on this earth so impressive to the imagination as the conquest of the air which is now half achieved. Indeed, the conquest of the air is likely to be more vast and bewildering in its results than even the discovery of the New World, and one is inclined to wonder that men should take it as calmly as they do.”

A great aviation week was held at Rheims, and almost all the world’s famous aviators, except the Wrights, were there. Control of the airships was shown to a remarkable degree. On one of the preparatory days three heavier than air machines were manœuvring in the great aerodrome at the same time. They were flying at high speed, when suddenly Glenn H. Curtiss, an American, saw an Antoinette aeroplane approaching him at right angles, and flying upon the same level. Instantly he elevated the planes of his machine, and his aeroplane obeyed his touch, shot upward, and flew over the Antoinette. There was great applause from those who had been watching him. The manœuvre showed how easily the airships were controlled.

Germany meantime was intensely interested in Count Zeppelin’s dirigible balloons, which, although as long as a battle-ship, had flown with great success. The German government paid $1,250,000 into the Zeppelin fund for experiments, and contributed a large sum in addition to the maintenance of a balloon corps. The German people showed themselves as proud of Count Zeppelin as the French were of Blériot, and the Americans of the Wrights.

The aviation week at Rheims was followed by other great airship meets in other countries. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York in the autumn of 1909 was the occasion of new records in flying, and served to awaken Americans to a more intense interest in navigation of the air. That meeting was followed by others in all parts of the United States, and competitions for height and city-to-city flights became matters of weekly occurrence. Yet America has not so far reached the intense enthusiasm over flying that fills the lands of Europe.

The airship is on the market, ready to be purchased by whomsoever will pay the price. The London daily papers advertise an agency that will supply buyers with either the Blériot monoplane of the type Calais-Dover, the Latham or Antoinette monoplane, or the Wright and Voisin biplanes. Moreover the art of handling the aeroplane does not seem unusually difficult to master, provided one has the taste for it. Roger Sommer first sat in an airship on July 3d, yet on August 7th following he made a world’s record flight outside Paris. “It is easier to learn to fly than it is to walk,” Wilbur Wright has said.

The only American machines besides the Wrights’ biplanes which have made a name for themselves are the Curtiss biplanes. Mr. Curtiss is one of the most daring aviators in the world, and his flight down the Hudson River attracted the widest attention. But there are questions as to whether his aeroplanes do not infringe on certain patent claims of the Wrights, and his flight was made under a bond that should protect the Wrights in case it proved later that his biplane did infringe on their title. Here it should be said that the Wrights are as excellent business men as they are inventors, and intend to receive due compensation for their years of work. At one time they offered to sell their invention outright for $100,000, but since then their patents have been upheld by the courts, and those patents cover a very large area of the field of airship manufacture. The American market is largely in their hands.

Every year lighter and lighter gas-engines are being made, and this means that the surplus carrying power of the aeroplane can be increased. Fuel can be carried for flights of greater and greater distances, and rapid increases of speed can be attained. With improvements in safety there seems no limit to the possibilities of flight. So far a long train of casualties has marked the airship’s progress. This was inevitable when men came to imitate the birds, and trust themselves to the fickle currents of the air. But many aviators have been drawn from a reckless class, and many accidents have been due to a desire to thrill an audience rather than to learn more about the laws of flight. The Wrights have held to the wise course. They care nothing for spectacular performances or establishing new records for their own glory. Their work is in the shops, devising improvements that will make the airship safer and better fitted for commercial uses. They are men of remarkable balance, and it was their quality of unremitting care that made them the wonder of Europe, used above all things else to the dramatic in men’s flights through air.