This was intended to give increased strength and permitted of a greater wing-spread and consequently improved aspect ratio. The same system of construction was adopted in the British Martinsyde monoplanes of two or three years later. [Illustration: Latham’s Antoinette 29.] This period also saw the production of the first triplane, which was built by A. V. Roe in England and was fitted with a J.A.P. engine of only 9 horse-power--an amazing performance which remains to this day unequalled. Mr Roe’s triplane was chiefly interesting otherwise for the method of maintaining longitudinal control, which was achieved by pivoting the whole of the three main planes so that their angle of incidence could be altered. This was the direct converse of the universal practice of elevating by means of a subsidiary surface either in front or rear of the main planes. Recollection of the various flying meetings and exhibitions which one attended during the years from 1909 to 1911, or even 1912, are chiefly notable for the fact that the first thought on seeing any new type of machine was not as to what its ‘performance’--in speed, lift, or what not--would be; but speculation as to whether it would leave the ground at all when eventually tried. This is perhaps the best indication of the outstanding characteristic of that interim period between the time of the first actual flights and the later period, commencing about 1912, when ideas had become settled and it was at last becoming possible to forecast on the drawing-board the performance of the completed machine in the air. Without going into details, for which there is no space here, it is difficult to convey the correct impression of the chaotic state which existed as to even the elementary principles of aeroplane design. All the exhibitions contained large numbers--one had almost written a majority--of machines which embodied the most unusual features and which never could, and in practice never did, leave the ground. At the same time, there were few who were sufficiently hardy to say certainly that this or that innovation was wrong; and consequently dozens of inventors in every country were conducting isolated experiments on both good and bad lines. All kinds of devices, mechanical and otherwise, were claimed as the solution of the problem of stability, and there was even controversy as to whether any measure of stability was not undesirable; one school maintaining that the only safety lay in the pilot having the sole say in the attitude of the machine at any given moment, and fearing danger from the machine having any mind of its own, so to speak. There was, as in most controversies, some right on both sides, and when we come to consider the more settled period from 1912 to the outbreak of the War in 1914 we shall find how a compromise was gradually effected.