Successful steering necessitates lateral resistance to drift, i.e., a fulcrum. This is provided, to some extent, by the stays and frame of the machine; and in a much more ample way by the vertical planes of the original Voisin cellular biplane. A recent Wright machine had vertical planes forward probably intended for this purpose.
Recent Type of Wright Biplane
It now begins to appear that the aviator has a great many things to look after. There are many more things requiring his attention than have yet been suggested. No one has any business to attempt flying unless he is superlatively cool-headed and has the happy faculty of instinctively doing the right thing in an emergency. Give a chauffeur a high power automobile running at maximum speed on a rough and unfamiliar road, and you have some conception of the position of the operator of an aeroplane. It is perhaps not too much to say that to make the two positions fairly comparable we should blindfold the chauffeur.
Broadly speaking, designers may be classed in one of two groups—those who, like the Wrights, believe in training the aviator so as to qualify him to properly handle his complicated machine; and those who aim to simplify the whole question of control so that to acquire the necessary ability will not be impossible for the average man. If aviation is to become a popular sport, the latter ideal must prevail. The machines must be more automatic and the aviator must have time to enjoy the scenery. In France, where amateur aviation is of some importance, progress has already been made in this direction. The universal steering head, for example, which not only revolves like that of an automobile, but is hinged to permit of additional movements, provides for simultaneous control of the steering rudder and the main plane warping, while scarcely demanding the conscious thought of the operator.
TURNING CORNERS
A year elapsed after the first successful flight at Kitty Hawk before the aviator became able to describe a circle in the air. A later date, 1907, is recorded for the first European half-circular flight: and the first complete circuit, on the other side of the water, was made a year after that; by both biplane and monoplane. It was in the same year that Louis Blériot made the pioneer cross-country trip of twenty-one miles, stopping at will en route and returning to his starting point.