The speed test came on the day following the endurance flight. This was to be made over a measured course of five miles from Fort Myer to Alexandria, and back, making a total flight of ten miles over trees, railroads, and rough country. Aviators declared this a more difficult course than the crossing of the English Channel, owing to the great rises and drops of the land, which made it almost impossible to maintain a level course. Speed was a very important factor in the government’s specifications for a successful airship, and the price to be paid depended on this, which had been calculated to be forty miles an hour. The government was to pay the Wrights $25,000 for the airship, and a bonus of ten per cent., or $2,500, for every mile made above the forty. For every mile less, to the minimum limit of thirty-six miles an hour, the government was to deduct the same percentage. The machine that was making these tests was very similar to the one that had been used at Fort Myer the year before. The amount of supporting surface had been reduced by about eighty square feet, and a change had been made in the lever that turned the rudder and controlled the equilibrating device. This had originally consisted of two levers, placed side by side. Now the top of one lever was jointed, so that a sideways movement of the wrist was sufficient to move the rudder for steering in the horizontal plane. Simultaneously the lever could be pushed forward and pulled back to lift or lower the opposite tips of the wings. In this way one hand could control both the steering and the balancing of the planes.