The difficulties Lilienthal had looked for he experienced in large measure. It was no easy thing to attempt to fly in this crude apparatus, but day after day he went out upon the road, turned to face the breeze as he had seen the baby birds do, ran swiftly a short distance, and then inclined the wings upward so that they might catch the current of air. For a long time he was unsuccessful, but imagine his joy when he actually did one day feel himself lifted off his feet, carried forward a few feet and set down. It was scarcely more than a tiny jump, but Lilienthal knew he had commenced to fly. From that time on his efforts were ceaseless. He succeeded in being lifted a number of feet off the ground and carried for some distance. But try as he would he could not get high in the air. He realized that what he lacked was any form of motive power, and for want of a better, determined to make use of the force of gravity to start him through the air at greater speed. Accordingly he had built for him a hill with a smooth incline, and from the top of this he jumped in his flying machine. The wings he had first constructed he had since improved on, adding two tail planes at the rear which gave greater stability and decreased the tendency to turn over in the air. As he sprang from the hilltop in this curious apparatus, he turned the wings upward slightly to catch the breeze, which supported him exactly as if he had been a kite while he glided out gracefully and finally came gently to earth. This spectacle of a man gliding through the air attracted large crowds. People assembled from far and wide to behold the flying man, and his achievements were greeted with wild cheering. On his huge winged glider he floated calmly over the heads of the astounded multitude, often landing far behind them in the fields. In the difficult matter of balancing himself in mid-air he became exceedingly skilful. Every slight gust of wind had a tendency to overturn him, but Lilienthal constantly shifted the weight of his body in such a manner as to balance himself. As he gained confidence he began practising in stronger winds. His great longing was to soar like a bird up into the sky, and so when he felt a rising air current, he inclined his wings slightly upward to take advantage of it. Often he did rise far above the hilltop from which he had sprung, but he never succeeded in actually flying like a bird. His glider had not the motive power to drive it against the breeze with sufficient velocity to send it up into the air, and his wings were but crude imitations of the wonderful mechanism on which the bird soars into the sky. Undaunted by his failure he set to work on a double set of wings, very similar to a modern biplane. He thought these would have greater lifting power, but when he came to try them he found them exceedingly unwieldy and hard to control. For where the biplane has an intricate control system, Lilienthal relied entirely upon his own body to operate his glider.