Machine Balanced by Warping of Planes
The Wrights found one of the greatest difficulties to be overcome was the balancing of their machine. This was only measurably and unsatisfactorily accomplished by the horizontal rudder. They began to study the flight of soaring birds for a solution of the difficulty. They found that the hawk, the eagle and the gull maintained a horizontal position by a slight, almost imperceptible upward or downward bending of the extreme tips of their wings. They then began experiments with slightly flexible planes that could be bent or warped at will by the pilot. This was one of their most important and original contributions to the problem of aviation, and it gave the pilot in a marked degree control of his machine. The scientific arching of the planes to give them the maximum lifting effect was also the result of their investigations.
They now removed the field of experiment to Hoffman Prairie near Dayton where at first they met with indifferent success. They invited friends and reporters from their home city to witness a flight, but the machine acted badly in the presence of company. While the spectators were not favorably impressed the inventors were in no wise discouraged. Their perseverance was later rewarded in 1904 by a flight of three miles in five minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The year following a flight of 24.20 miles was made in thirty-eight minutes, thirteen seconds, at heights of seventy-five to one hundred feet. These attracted small attention. The inventors fully satisfied with their success and working industriously to perfect their machine were also safeguarding the results of their labors by carefully patenting every device that helped them to the goal of practical aviation. While Europe was applauding the achievements of the intrepid and wealthy Brazilian, Santos-Dumont, who made public flights near Paris, the world was practically unaware of the greater achievements of the Wright brothers a year earlier. Newspaper accounts of their flights were received with a degree of incredulity, but the indifference of the public was favorable to the modest brothers who with tireless energy and slender means triumphed over difficulty after difficulty as they moved toward the larger success that they ardently desired and the fame that they sought not.
Newspaper Reports Verified
In 1907 the United States Government asked for bids for a flying machine that would carry two men, remain in the air an hour and make a cross-country flight of forty miles an hour. The Wright brothers entered into a contract to build such a machine. This fact and rumors of their success that reached the large cities from time to time led a party of newspaper reporters to organize themselves into a spying party to trace the Wrights to their secret retreat and verify the claims made in their behalf or publish the deception to the public. After a long and tedious journey from Norfolk they finally sighted the rude hut of these birdmen. They then secreted themselves until they were rewarded with evidence that the reports were true and promptly announced to the world that these quiet men had actually solved the problem of aerial flight.
Trial Flights at Fort Meyer
In 1908 Orville Wright began trial flights at Fort Meyer preliminary to the tests required by the government contracts. A record flight was made in June. The morning was still and beautiful; the leaves hung motionless on the great plane trees of Washington as Orville Wright and August Post, Secretary of the Aero Club of America left the city about six o’clock and proceeded by way of Georgetown to Fort Meyer where trial flights were to be made with the biplane. It was taken from its shed and placed on the starting rail. The weights were lifted into position, the engine started, the propellers set in rapid motion and all was in readiness for starting. Only a few persons were in sight, including a squad of soldiers who were cleaning the guns of a field battery. Mr. Wright took his place on the machine. At a signal the weights were released, it was drawn forward, and rising gracefully at the end of the rail gradually ascended in a circuitous course upward. Mr. Post kept time and marked circuits on the back of an envelope. Round and round went the machine, rising higher and higher. After a little the spectators realized that a record flight was in progress. Ten-twenty minutes passed. Higher and higher circled the aeroplane. Now it has been aloft on wing for half an hour! The spectators stand rigid and look upward. Mr. Taylor, chief mechanic, in almost breathless interest exclaims, “Don’t make a motion. If you do he’ll come down.”
In the city, word had reached the newspaper reporters that Mr. Wright had gone out for a flight. “Does he intend to fly today?” came the question over the telephone. “Yes, he is in the air now and has been flying for more than half an hour,” was the answer.
Then came the rush for fuller details and the results of the record-making trial were flashed over the country and cabled under the seas to distant lands. Senators, congressmen, departmental officials and representatives of every walk of life in the national capital were a little later on their way to witness another exhibition of the wonderful flying machine. Mr. Wright in the afternoon made another world’s record, remaining in the air an hour and seven minutes. In the evening with Lieutenant Lahm at his side he performed without accident the greatest two-man flight ever made. These achievements awed and thrilled the great throng of spectators who greeted the triumphant conclusion of each with tumultuous cheers. The problem of the centuries had been solved. The “impossible” had been accomplished! The dream of the visionaries had become a reality!
Fatal Accident
On the 17th of September occurred a sad accident that brought to a close for the year the preliminary tests that had been carried on thus far with marked success. When Orville Wright and Lieutenant Selfridge were flying at a height of about seventy-five feet, one of the propellers struck a stray wire which coiled around and broke the blade. This precipitated the machine earthward and fatally injured Lieutenant Selfridge who died three hours afterward. Orville narrowly escaped the same fate with a number of broken bones. Aviation at this time was attended with great dangers and the daring spirits who ventured aloft on the wings of the wind were in constant peril of their lives.