The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-17

| Xo accustom himself to the new method of operating the front rudder he felt him self ready to undertake the management | of the lateral control also.
 Shortly afterward he started on flight | with one wing slightly higher than the other. This caused the machine to veer | to the left He waited a momcnt to see whether 1t would right itself, but finding that 1t did not he decided to apply the control. At the very instant he dtu this, | however, the right wing unexpectedly rose much worse than before and led him l to think that possibly he had made mis- II take.
 "A moment of thought was required to assure himself he had made the right mo- | tion and another to increase the move ment. Meanwhile he had neglected the l front rudder, by which the fore and aft | balance was maintained. Tho machine turned up in front more and more till it assumed a most dangerous attitude We l who were on the ground noticed this n advance of the aviator, who was thor | oughly absorbed fin his efforts to restore the lateral balance but our shouts were drowned by the bowling of the wind. If was only when the machine came to l stop and started backward that he reaiix- l ed his true situation. From the height Of 1 nearly thirty feet the machine sailed di- aEonaIIy backward till 1t struck the ground The unlucky aeronaut had time | only for one nasty glance behind him and | the next instant found himself the cens | Ire of a mass of fiuttering wreckage. How he escaped injury is more than know, but he was unable to snow scratcn sot bruise anywhere.
 .Tt was now that we fixed on a single movable six square foot tail. 6 The ma tority of the glides had been made m winds approximatlng twenty miles m hour. One day we worked in a thirty | seven mile an hour wind. We had con cIuded that We needed at least an eign- teen mile an hour wind for gliding. In | this wind we found the horse power con | stunned to be one and a half. and in q | twenty-five mile wind two At eighteen miles an hour 166 pounds was sustained per horse power: at a higher lHpeed ID | per horse power. and we found that at between eighteen and twenty-five miles the ratio of speed and power was about equal. but above or below varied sharply.
 "Much time was spent in measuring the
 winds about us and the flights of our
 neighbor birds in them. We had many | sorts of soaring birds in the vicinity in
 cludiDg bald eagles. hawks. buzZards ana ospreys. Maxim's machine supported to | one horse power twenty-etght. pounds
 Langley's 1se6 machine thirty-one pounds
 -ours carried 165 pounds.
 "Chanute's best degree of gliding de- l scent was seven and half to eleven de- gres. We attained five to seven degrees. l If 1t be desired to fly horizontally through | the air by mechanical means the best | angle of incidence would be from i've to | seven degrees.
 "We were now approaching the point
 of Introduction of power into our machinss and in the earlier portion Of lSS mace many interesting experiments. cuilnlnal- ing in the construction of a motor which
 we placed under the operator sun1cienty
 to the rear to retain the centre of gravity
 in its proper position acording to our
 previous designs. A screw fan propeller
 was geared on a line to the rear and
 second one placed underneath the motoE
 to serve to lift the machine, as the nrst
 propeller was meant to drive 1t.
 "The motor was our own gasonne types
 and anything new that was introduced
 had already been suggested by our preH vious experiments. Early in December We began to look forward to the day or trial. The weather was not propitious' but on Thursday the wind was blowing about twenty-one miles an hour, and l took my place in the machine for trial l from the big hill. } First, the lifting propeller was staFtea' and facing the wind the machine rose { easily and gracefully to the height CT 3 about sixty feet, and when the. rear pro- Q peller began to hum and the lifting pro- T pelier to slow down the first flying ma
 | chine sailed into the wind and traversed f easily a distance of three miles down the T dunes.
 "Our experiments are not yet complet- ed, but We feel confident of delivering to : the word in no great stretch of lime & 3 completely practical flying machine for everyday use.