Another change that improved control of the 1905 machine was in giving the wings considerably less angle at the tips than in the central part. By this arrangement, the tips stalled later than other parts of the wings and some lateral control remained even after the central part of the wings were in a stalled condition. After the Wrights had made the blades of their propellers much wider and thinner than the original ones, they discovered that the performance of the propellers in flight did not agree closely with their calculations, as in the earlier propellers. They could see only one reason for this, and that was that the propeller blades twisted from their normal shape under pressure in flight. To find out quickly if this was the real reason, they fastened to each blade a small surface, like an elevator, out behind the blades, set at an angle to balance the pressures that were distorting the blades. They called the surfaces “little jokers.” When they found that the “little jokers” cured the trouble, they dispensed with them and began to give the blades a backward sweep, which served the same purpose. In the flying season of 1905, the control of the machine was much improved by increasing the area of the front rudder from 50 to 85 square feet, and by moving it to nearly twice the distance from the wings. This added distance made response to the movement of the rudder slower, and control of the machine much easier. The lateral control also was improved by enlarging the rear rudder from 20 to 34 square feet, and by moving it to a position three feet farther back of the wings. On account of frequent rains, the soggy condition of the field, and other weather conditions, only nine attempts to fly were made in the first two months of experiments in 1905, and only three of these lasted for as much as ten seconds. But after the first of September progress was rapid. During all this time, the newspapers had continued to let the Wrights alone. Indeed, the failure of the newspapers in Dayton and elsewhere to say much about the history-making experiments at Huffman field was often used as an argument to prove that there couldn’t be any truth in the rumors that men had actually contrived a successful flying-machine. “You couldn’t have kept a thing like that _secret_. Some reporter surely would have _heard_ about it!” Dan Kumler, who was city editor of James M. Cox’s _Daily News_, in Dayton, during those early years of flying, recalled in 1940, not long before his death, that many people who had been on interurban cars passing the Huffman field and seen the Wrights in the air used to come to the _Daily News_ office to inquire why there was nothing in the paper about the flights. “Such callers,” said Kumler, “got to be a nuisance.” “And why wasn’t there anything in the paper?” Kumler was asked. “We just didn’t believe it,” he said. “Of course you remember that the Wrights at that time were terribly secretive.”