In the present case, however, the moisture of the atmosphere, which had been heavily laden with fog for several weeks, had penetrated the varnish and softened the glue, even though the submergence of 24 hours in water had shown no effect. To construct new ribs for the wings would have required several weeks, and the delays which had already been experienced had by this time prolonged the stay down the river so greatly that even under the very best conditions it seemed hardly possible to complete the tests before the coming of the equinoxial storms, which would make it necessary to remove the boat from the middle of the river and place it in a safe harbor. Something, therefore, had to be done, and that very quickly, so that an immediate test could be made, or else the tests would have to be delayed until the following season, or possibly postponed indefinitely on account of the lack of funds.
Owing to the varnish with which the ribs were covered, it was impossible in repairing them to carry out the first plan which suggested itself of binding the ribs with a strip of cloth impregnated with glue and wound spirally from end to end. As the wood was so very thin, it was impossible to bind the two parts together with wire, and even thin bands of metal driven up on the tapered portion of the rib were not likely to draw the two strips together without crushing the wood. What was finally done was to scrape the edges of the two strips where the joint had opened, thereby removing all the old glue, and after putting fresh glue on all these edges the two strips were drawn together and bound with surgeons’ tape, which was found to adhere very firmly even to the varnished surface.
After repairing the ribs in this manner and readjusting the guy-wires of their framework so as to make the wing assume the correct form, which had been slightly altered by the warping and twisting consequent on the opening up of the ribs, everything was again in readiness for a test in free flight, numerous tests of the engine having meanwhile been made both with the aerodrome frame inside of the house-boat and also when mounted on the launching track above. The weather, which had been unprecedentedly bad all summer, now became even worse, and although short periods of calm lasting an hour or less occasionally occurred, there were for several weeks no calm periods long enough for completing the necessary preparations and making a test, although the time required for assembling the aerodrome had been greatly shortened by building the “wing boxes” on the superstructure, and in other ways previously described. On several occasions when an attempt was made to utilize what appeared to be a relative calm, the aerodrome was assembled on the launching apparatus and everything got in readiness except the actual fastening of the [p265] wings and rudder to it, but in every instance, before the wings could be actually applied and a flight made, the wind became so strong as to absolutely prohibit a test. On two occasions when the wings were actually attached, heavy rain storms suddenly came up and drenched the machine before the wings could be removed, and on several occasions it was necessary to leave the entire metal frame and engine of the aerodrome mounted on top of the boat all night, because the heavy sea which was running made it impossible to utilize the large raft in returning the frame to the interior of the boat.
Finally, however, after it seemed almost useless to hope for calm weather, what appeared to be a most propitious day arrived on October 7. The wind which had been quite high in the early morning gradually quieted until at 10 a. m. it was blowing only about twelve miles per hour and the indications were that it would quiet down still more. Every energy was concentrated in getting the aerodrome ready at the earliest possible moment, as previous experience had shown too clearly that the conditions might be completely reversed in less than an hour. As the tide and wind caused the boat to swing up the river from its buoy, and thus made the launching track point down the river, the steam tug-boat was sent down the river for a distance of a mile or more so that, should the aerodrome come down into the water without being able to make a return trip to the house-boat, the tug-boat would be able to reach it quickly and render assistance to both the writer and the machine should they need it. At 12.20 p. m. everything was in readiness and what appeared to be the decisive moment had arrived, when the writer, after starting up the engine and gradually raising its speed to the maximum, and after taking the last survey of the whole machine to insure that everything was as it should be, finally gave the orders to release it.
Although the writer did not have the privilege of seeing it glide down the track, as his attention was too thoroughly engaged in insuring that he was in the proper position for reaching immediately any of the control apparatus, either of the aerodrome or of the engine, yet those who did witness the actual passage of the machine down the track have said that the sight was most impressive and majestic. No sign of jar was apparent when the machine was first released, but with lightning-like rapidity it gathered its speed as it rushed down the sixty feet of track, the end of which it reached in three seconds, at which time it had attained a speed of something over thirty-two feet per second. Just as the machine reached the end of the track the writer felt a sudden shock, immediately followed by an indescribable sensation of being free in the air, which had hardly been realized before the important fact was intuitively felt that the machine was plunging downward at a very sharp angle, and he instinctively grasped the wheel which controls the Pénaud tail and threw it to its uppermost extent in an attempt to depress the rear of the machine and [p266] thereby overcome the sharp angle of descent. Finding that the machine made no response to this extreme movement of the tail, he immediately realized that a crash into the water was unavoidable and braced himself for the shock. The tremendous crash of the front wings being completely demolished as they struck the water had hardly become apparent before he found himself and the machine plunging downward through the water. By some instinct he grasped the main guy-wires which were above his head, and pulling himself through the narrow space between them freed himself from the machine and swam upward as rapidly as possible. A few moments after reaching the surface of the water the uppermost point of the pyramid of the machine was seen to project from the water and he swam over and sat down on it until a row-boat could be sent to it from the nearby power-boat.
The first thing that the writer saw after looking around him was a newspaper reporter, his boatman expending the utmost limit of his power in pushing his boat ahead to be the first one to arrive.
After giving directions to the workmen regarding the recovery of the machine, the writer returned to the house-boat to obtain dry clothing, and although his first inclination was not to make any statement until a complete examination could be made to determine both the cause of the lack of success and also the extent of the damage which had been sustained by the machine, yet owing to the very great pressure brought to bear by the press representatives who said that unless some statement was given out they would write their own conclusions as to the cause of the mishap, he finally gave out the following statement:
STATEMENT MADE BY MR. MANLY TO ASSOCIATED PRESS
“It must be understood that the test to-day was entirely an experiment, and the first of its kind ever made. The experiment was unsuccessful. The balancing, upon which depends the success of a flight, was based upon the tests of the models and proved to be incorrect, but only an actual trial of the full-size machine itself could determine this. My confidence in the future success of the work is unchanged. I can give you no further information. I shall make a formal report to Secretary Langley.”
