December 7. L, B, R, and M present; day overcast but perfectly calm. Taught by experience, we had everything ready, and a little after one o’clock the launch was made. The aerodrome fell directly into the boat, the rod of the starter having broken. It was little damaged, but in view of the injury and the rising wind, all other attempts were abandoned for the day.
December 11. Present, L, with B, R, and M. A new “starter” had been devised and brought down, but was not yet quite ready for use, and an attempt was made to employ the old one with the improvements suggested by experience, but, after two attempts to launch, the work was abandoned for the day, owing this time not to the launching apparatus, but to troubles in the engines and pumps, due probably to injuries received in the fall of the 7th, which were not detected until the time of the actual trial.
December 20. L, with B, M, and G, present; engine and aerodrome in order and everything apparently favorable. What seemed to be an almost entire calm came toward evening, yet once more the all but imperceptible breeze which prevailed was found to defeat all arrangements for holding the aerodrome to the launching ways before it was let go.
Trips to Quantico were also made on November 24, and December 1 and 21, of which no account is given as the very moderate wind which prevailed in each case precluded any attempt at launching the aerodrome.
It will be seen that eight trips were made to Quantico, and that, far from any flight having been made, not once even was the aerodrome launched at all. The principal cause for this lay in the unrecognized amount of difficulty introduced by the very smallest wind, irrespective of the unfitness of the launching apparatus to give the desired initial speed and direction.
In all these trials, the aerodrome rested on the launching apparatus, by which it was projected forward by means of a spring in such a way as not to interfere with the propellers. [p096]
Previous tests with the rubber-driven models had demonstrated the futility of all simple pendulum types of “cast off,” and likewise all the trials hitherto of a railroad form of launching apparatus, in which the aerodrome was mounted on a car, which had itself to get out of the way, were equally failures, so that when the device referred to above proved to be worthless, it seemed that almost every plan had been exhausted. There were, moreover, other difficulties, some of which have been indicated above, such as that of making the burners work properly in even a moderate wind during the very short time required for attaching the wings and so adjusting the aerodrome on the launching apparatus.
These difficulties, which, now that they have been overcome, seem difficulties no longer, but which then seemed insuperable, were all connected with the ever-present problem of weight. It would have been easy to make rigid sustaining surfaces which would not bend in the wind; to make fires which would not go out; and easy to overcome all the impediments which seem so trivial in description and were so formidable in practice, were it not that the mandate of absolute necessity forbade this being done by any contrivance which would add to the weight of an already phenomenally light construction. The difficulties of the flight as they were seen in the workshop were multiplied, then, beyond measure by the actual experiments in the field, and the year closed with a most discouraging outlook.
1894
The new year began without any essential improvement in the means already described, though a new launching apparatus had been devised by the writer, which was scarcely so much an apparatus for launching, in the ordinary sense of the word, as one of holding the aerodrome out over the water, and simply letting it drop from a height of about 25 feet, during which fall it was hoped (exact data being unobtainable in advance of experiment) that there would be time for the propellers to give the aerodrome the necessary soaring speed before reaching the water. This device consisted of an inverted tripod, which held the aerodrome comparatively steady by three bearing points, while a cross-bar of wood was added to prevent the wings from swaying before the launch. Previously, the supporting surfaces, wings and tail, had been put on only at the last minute. Now it became possible to keep them on in a gentle breeze for an indefinite time before launching.