Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-05

method of steering to engage his at
tention. He sends his machine to
right or left and that is all there Is to
it. The aviator must constantly be in
control of three sets of apparatus, and
a momentary neglect of any one OF the
three means wreck. He must steer up
and down, TO right or left, and must
keep his horizontal balance in the air.
The automobile does not require the
latter two. Yet they are the ones
which put the greatest strain upon the
man in the air.
Roughly. the strain of flying can be
divided into three kinds-the physical.
the mental and the nervous. With the
man who attempts to break any of the
records established today these three be-
come, in a great measure. interdependent
and inseparable. l mean by that that
when a mans brain becomes tired, his
body becomes tired with ii, and that
when his nerves are shattered or worn
his body and brain give way, too / re-
call one experience of my own which il
uStrateS this very clearly and which is
simply typical of what every aviator
must endure, not once, but time after
time. as long as he continues to figure
in public meets.
This was during the trials I'm the Cor
uon b6nneIC cup race at the Belmont
Park meet, near New York, last October
l had had built for my Bleriot a special
Set of racing wings and had hoped to be
able to try them out before the contests
in this country, but had been unable TO
do so. They were the smallest surfaces
it was possible to fly with even at, the
maximum speed, and were made with
little span from tip to tip as was abso-
lutely necessary. so that there should be
the smallest conceivable head resistance
when the machine was in motion. Every
detail and mea Surement was reduced to
minimum and the machine looked like
Il mere toy beside the broad-winged pas
Senger-carrying types with their wide
span, suggesting great stability in the
air and ease of control while in flight
On the day when the Gordon Bennett
trials took place / had had these little
wings put or. I had never flown with
them, but l knew that it would be use
less, with the regulation-sized wings, to
try to compete against the two 1OO-horse-
power engines that were entered, be-
cause mine was only a fifty horsepower.
So / had to trust to luck everything
would go right and that the smallness
of my planes and the minimum head re-
siStance which they offered would in
measure compensate for my lack OF
horsepower.
In flying an aeroplane. the greatest
danger comes from the constant tendency
of the machine to tip over to one side
or the other. A gust of wind, move
ment Of the aviators body-anything and
everything tends to throw it off it's bal
ance, and the minute it begins to tip
downward on one side it must be righted.
There are two ways OF doing this. A
mechanism Is provided by which the rear
edges of the ends of the planes can be
pulled down a few inches. thus offering
on that side where this depressing or
'warp:ng'' is done a greater impact
against the air, and consequently de-
veloping greater lifting power. When
the right wing is warped or pulled
down at its rear edge it makes the ma
chine rise on that side, and the mech
anism at the same time pulls up the rear
edge of the left plane thus lessening the
impact on that side and causing 1t to
fall 1t is in this way that the aviator
controls his balance, warpfng his wings
as he dips one way or the other and
keeping himself on an even keel. After
he has become thoroughly experienced he
learns to balance without warping under
ordinary conditions, for it has been found