Details of propulsion and control being arranged, there remained the question of how the machine should be launched into the air. In their gliding tests, it will be remembered, the Wrights employed assistants, who held the machine by the wing-tips and ran forward with it. But the weight of the power-driven machine, and its greater size, prevented such a plan as this. They decided, therefore, to launch it from a rail, and to aid its forward speed, at the moment of taking the air, by a derrick and a falling weight. This method is illustrated in Fig. 37. The biplane is seen mounted upon a truck, or under-carriage, which runs upon wheels along a rail. To the front of the aeroplane is fixed a rope, which passes round a pulley some distance ahead of it, and is then carried back to the derrick, from which can be seen hanging a heavy weight. Before making a flight the engine was set in motion, whirling the two propellers; then, at a given signal, the weight upon the derrick was released. Drawn forward by the pull of this weight, and aided by the thrust of its propellers, the biplane moved rapidly along the rail, and soon attained a speed of more than thirty miles an hour. Then, just before the end of the rail was reached, the pilot released a catch which freed the aeroplane from its trolley, tilted up his elevating plane and the machine, now moving fast enough for its planes to sustain it in flight, glided from earth to air, flying low at first but gradually increasing his altitude. CHAPTER IX DAWN OF FLIGHT The Wrights complete their conquest--First trials of the power-driven machine--Their negotiations with Governments--How these hung fire and caused delay--Activity in France--Santos-Dumont, Farman, and Delagrange. Now, as they stood upon the threshold of success, the method and patience of the Wrights came strikingly to their aid. Their machine was not strange to them--not a monster they had no notion of controlling, as the first of the large machines had been to those who built them. They had flown almost precisely similar craft in their gliding tests; they knew the system of control; knew how to make a landing after flight. All this experience they had gained before attempting to drive a machine with a motor; and herein lay the secret of their success. They were not superhuman; they were instead talented, patient, assiduously-careful men; and their triumph goes to prove what can be done if a man will work in the right way, is quietly and persistently enthusiastic, and ignores all disappointments and rebuffs. It was in December 1903 that the power-driven machine was piloted in its first flights, the longest of which lasted for one second less than a minute. But the ascents from the earth were made without mishap, the machine was under control while it flew, and it landed without injury. [Illustration: _Photo, “Daily Mirror.”_ PLATE IV.--LATHAM’S FALL INTO THE SEA.