Practically all glides gave the same result, and in one the machine
rose higher and higher until it lost all headway. ‘This was the
position from which Lilienthal had always found difficulty in
extricating himself, as his machine then, in spite of his greatest
exertions, manifested a tendency to dive downward almost vertically
and strike the ground head on with frightful velocity. In this case
a warning cry from the ground caused the operator to turn the rudder
to its full extent and also to move his body slightly forward. The
machine then settled slowly to the ground, maintaining its horizontal
position almost perfectly, and landed without any injury at all. This
was very encouraging, as it showed that one of the very greatest
dangers in machines with horizontal tails had been overcome by the
use of the front rudder. Several glides later the same experience was
repeated with the same result. In the latter case the machine had even
commenced to move backward, but was nevertheless brought safely to the
ground in a horizontal position. On the whole this day’s experiments
were encouraging, for while the action of the rudder did not seem
at all like that of our 1900 machine, yet we had escaped without
difficulty from positions which had proved very dangerous to preceding
experimenters, and after less than one minute’s actual practice had
made a glide of more than 300 feet, at an angle of descent of ten
degrees, and with a machine nearly twice as large as had previously
been considered safe. The trouble with its control, which has been
mentioned, we believed could be corrected when we should have located
its cause.’
It was finally ascertained that the defect could be remedied by
trussing down the ribs of the whole machine so as to reduce the depth
of curvature. When this had been done gliding was resumed, and after a
few trials glides of 366 and 389 feet were made with prompt response
on the part of the machine, even to small movements of the rudder.
The rest of the story of the gliding experiments of 1901 cannot be
better told than in Wilbur Wright’s own words, as uttered by him in the
lecture from which the foregoing excerpts have been made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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