[Illustration: FIG. 49.--The Curtiss aileron control. A. Pilot’s seat; B. Wheel for operating elevator; C. Shoulder-pieces and vertical rod for aileron control.] Of famous aeroplanes at Rheims, five types stood out by themselves--the Farman, the Voisin, the Wright, the Bleriot, and the Antoinette, all of which have been described. But there was one other, which few people had heard of before it appeared here. This was the Curtiss biplane, built by an American named Glenn H. Curtiss, and engined with a motor which also bore his name. Curtiss had experimented with many power-driven machines--motor-cycles, motor-cars, airships, and aeroplanes--and had won a prize in America with a small, light biplane, and it was a craft of this type--as seen in Fig. 48--that he brought with him to Rheims, his idea being to compete for the speed prize. The machine had a front elevator and tail-planes, according to the practice in biplane construction; but an innovation was the setting of the ailerons midway between the main-planes--a position that will be noted in the sketch; another novelty was the way these ailerons operated. At the pilot’s back, as he sat in his driving seat, was an upright rod with two shoulder-pieces--by means of which, should he shift his body, he could swing the rod from side to side. Wires ran from the rod to the ailerons; and if the pilot leaned over, say, to the right, he drew down the ailerons on the left side of the machine. The merit of such a control was that it was instinctive; that is to say, should the biplane tip down on one side, it was natural for the pilot to lean away from the plane-ends that were sinking; and he operated the ailerons automatically, as he did this, and so brought the machine level again. This ingenious system is illustrated in Fig. 49. [Illustration: _Photo, F. N. Birkett._ PLATE VIII.--THE GNOME MOTOR. This engine--of which Mr. Grahame-White is testing an exhaust valve--is here seen fitted to a Farman biplane, the three tanks above it containing petrol and oil.] Features of the Curtiss biplane were its smallness and lightness. The span of its main-planes was only 28 feet 9 inches--no more than the span of the Bleriot; and it weighed, with its pilot on board, a total of only 710 lbs. Driving the machine was an 8-cylindered 30-h.p. motor; therefore it was expected to be fast in flight. The speed contest, as a matter of fact, became a duel between Curtiss--who flew his machine himself--and Bleriot, who piloted his fastest monoplane; and in the end Curtiss won, attaining a speed of a little more than 47 miles an hour. Bleriot had built for the contest a new racing monoplane, which had a motor of 80 h.p., and in which the pilot sat below the wings. The photograph on Plate IX shows the appearance of this type of craft.