While the provisions for automatic equilibrium and manual control were not entirely ideal, even for the quiet atmospheric conditions under which it [p217] was proposed to make the first tests, nevertheless it was and still is believed that the provisions for such conditions were sufficient to enable a successful flight of a few miles to be obtained. It was thought to be very certain that, once a successful flight could be made, the funds for the further prosecution of the work would be readily forthcoming, and that when these funds were obtained the many problems of control, rising and alighting, could be undertaken. [p218] CHAPTER VIII THE EXPERIMENTAL ENGINE It will be recalled that the contract for the engine for the large aerodrome, which had been entered into on December 12, 1898, called for its completion on February 28, 1899. Between the time when the engine should have been completed and May, 1900, the engine builder had been engaged in a continuous series of changes on it, all connected with what might be briefly called its proper functioning. The actual mechanical construction of the more important parts had been admirably executed, and this main portion of the constructional work had been completed within the time called for by the contract. The trouble was that the engine, which was of the rotary cylinder type, would not furnish anything like the power which had been expected of it, and which the size and number of its cylinders indicated that it should furnish. No one who has not had practical experience in the development of gasoline engines, can understand or appreciate how fourteen months could be spent in changes in the minor details of the engine with the expectation that each contemplated change would bring success; and to anyone who has had experience in the matter, an attempt to explain the delays would merely seem like a history of his own experiences. It is, therefore, sufficient to say that the delay on the engine had now reached a point where it was necessary to bring it to a successful completion immediately or to abandon it definitely, and either find a competent builder who had already built engines which, while not necessarily light, were successful, and who would undertake to construct a light one on the same principles, or, as a last resort, to turn to steam; and even the contemplation of this was appalling.