While Mr. Chanute was with us, a good deal of time was spent in
discussion of the mathematical calculations upon which we had based our
machine. He informed us that, in designing machinery, about 20 per cent.
was usually allowed for the loss in the transmission of power. As we had
allowed only 5 per cent., a figure we had arrived at by some crude
measurements of the friction of one of the chains when carrying only a
very light load, we were much alarmed. More than the whole surplus in
power allowed in our calculations would, according to Mr. Chanute's
estimate, be consumed in friction in the driving chains. After Mr.
Chanute's departure, we suspended one of the drive chains over a
sprocket, hanging bags of sand on either side of the sprocket of a
weight approximately equal to the pull that would be exerted on the
chains when driving the propellers. By measuring the extra amount of
weight needed on one side to lift the weight on the other, we calculated
the loss in transmission. This indicated that the loss of power from
this source would be only 5 per cent., as we originally estimated. But
while we could see no serious error in this method of determining the
loss, we were very uneasy until we had a chance to run the propellers
with the motor to see whether we could get the estimated number of
turns.
The first run of the motor on the machine developed a flaw in one of the
propeller shafts which had not been discovered in the test at Dayton.
The shafts were sent at once to Dayton for repair, and were not received
again until November 20, having been gone two weeks. We immediately put
them in the machine and made another test. A new trouble developed. The
sprockets which were screwed on the shafts, and locked with nuts of
opposite thread, persisted in coming loose. After many futile attempts
to get them fast, we had to give it up for that day, and went to bed
much discouraged. However, after a night's rest, we got up the next
morning in better spirits and resolved to try again.
While in the bicycle business we had become well acquainted with the use
of hard tire cement for fastening tires on the rims. We had once used it
successfully in repairing a stop watch after several watchsmiths had
told us it could not be repaired. If tire cement was good for fastening
the hands on a stop watch, why should it not be good for fastening the
sprockets on the propeller shaft of a flying machine? We decided to try
it. We heated the shafts and sprockets, melted cement into the threads,
and screwed them together again. This trouble was over. The sprockets
stayed fast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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