It will at once occur to you that there were disadvantages in this system of commencing a flight. One was that the launching apparatus was more or less a fixture. At any rate it could not be carried about from place to place very readily: Supposing the biplane could not return to its starting-point, and the pilot was forced to descend, say, 10 or 12 miles away: in such a case it would be necessary to tow the machine back to the launching ways, an obviously inconvenient arrangement, especially in unfavourable country. For some time the "wheeled" chassis has been in universal use, but in a few cases it has been thought desirable to adopt a combination of runners and wheels. A moderately firm surface is necessary for the machine to run along the ground; if the ground be soft or marly the wheels would sink in the soil, and serious accidents have resulted from the sudden stoppage of the forward motion due to this cause. With their first power-driven machine the Wrights made a series of very fine flights, at first in a straight line. In 1904 they effected their first turn. By the following year they had made such rapid progress that they were able to exceed a distance of 20 miles in one flight, and keep up in the air for over half an hour at a time. Their manager now gave their experiments great publicity, both in the American and European Press, and in 1908 the brothers, feeling quite sure of their success, emerged from a self-imposed obscurity, and astonished the world with some wonderful flights, both in America and on the French flying ground at Issy. A great loss to aviation occurred on 30th May, 1912, when Wilbur Wright died from an attack of typhoid fever. His work is officially commemorated in Britain by an annual Premium Lecture, given under the auspices of the Aeronautical Society. CHAPTER XXVII. The First Man to Fly in Europe In November, 1906, nearly the whole civilized world was astonished to read that a rich young Brazilian aeronaut, residing in France, had actually succeeded in making a short flight, or, shall we say, an enormous "hop", in a heavier-than-air machine. This pioneer of aviation was M. Santos Dumont. For five or six years before his experiments with the aeroplane he had made a great many flights in balloons, and also in dirigible balloons. He was the son of well-to-do parents--his father was a successful coffee planter--and he had ample means to carry on his costly experiments. Flying was Santos Dumont's great hobby. Even in boyhood, when far away in Brazil, he had been keenly interested in the work of Spencer, Green, and other famous aeronauts, and aeronautics became almost a passion with him.