For those readers whose acquaintance with aeronautics is limited to the last few years, this account of our recent experiments in North Carolina is prefaced with a short account of our previous work.
Up to the year 1900, our interest in the subject had been confined mostly to reading and theorizing. But in the Fall of that year we began out-door experiments on the coast of North Carolina, near Kitty Hawk. Here we attempted, at first, to fly our machine as a kite; but later made some short glides on the slopes of the Kill Devil Hill.
The gliding experiments were continued in the years 1901 and 1902. A number of flights were made of over a minute’s duration. The rate of descent was reduced to an angle of 7 degrees.
The account of these experiments given by Mr. Chanute in talks before scientific societies in Europe, and in articles contributed to technical papers, created some interest. A number of persons took up experiments in France with machines built on the drawings and descriptions furnished in Mr. Chanute’s articles. Among these were the well-known aviators Archdeacon, Esnault-Pelterie and the Voisin Brothers, builders of the Farman and Delagrange aeroplanes. Captain Ferber had already been experimenting for some months with what he termed a “Chanute-Wright” machine.2
Schedule of Flights during May, 1908.
In 1903 we added a motor to our machine, and on the 17th of December made four flights with it. The longest of these covered a distance of 852 feet in 59 seconds against a 20 mile wind.
In 1904 we continued the experiments on a new ground near Dayton, Ohio. The longest flights of that year were two of five minutes each, covering distances of 3 miles.
Experiments were resumed in the summer of 1905 at our grounds near Dayton. Five flights were made in September and October of that year, covering distances of from 11 to 24 miles. The account of these flights, published in l’Aerophile, of Paris, in December, 1905, created a sensation in France, and many more persons took up experiments with enthusiasm. Among these were Santos-Dumont, Delagrange, and later, Farman.3 The news of these flights was received by the daily press as a “clap of thunder out of a clear sky,” and some discussion arose as to the truthfulness of the report. A number of persons from France, England and Germany, as well as from different parts of our own country, made trips to Dayton to make personal investigation of the matter. Though many came incredulous, not one returned in doubt.
Our recent experiments were conducted upon the grounds, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where we experimented in 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1903. The flyer used in these experiments was the one with which we made the flights in September and October, 1905, near Dayton, Ohio. The means of control remained the same as in those flights, but the position of the controlling levers and their directions of motion had to be altered in order to permit the operator to take a sitting position. A seat for a passenger was added. The engine used in 1905 was replaced by a later model, one of which was exhibited at the Aero Club Show at New York in 1906.4 Larger gasoline reservoirs and radiators were also installed.
We undertook these experiments in order to test the carrying capacity of the machine, and to ascertain its speed with two men on board, as well as to regain familiarity in the handling of the machine after a period of almost three years without practice. No attempt was made to beat our record of distance, made in 1905.5
The first flights were made over a straight course against winds of 8 to 18 miles an hour. The equilibrium of the machine proving satisfactory in these flights, we began to describe circles, returning and landing at the starting point. These flights covered distances of from 1 to 2½ miles.
On the 14th of May a passenger was taken on board.6 In the first flight the motor was shut off at the end of 29 seconds to prevent running into a sand hill, towards which the machine was started. But in a second, the machine carried the passenger and operator for a flight of three minutes and forty seconds, making a complete circle, and landing near the starting point. The wind, measured at a height of six feet from the ground while the machine was in flight, had a velocity of 18 to 19 miles an hour. The distance traveled through the air, as registered by an anemometer attached to the machine, was a little over four kilometers (2.50 miles), which indicated a speed of about 41 miles an hour. A speed as high as 44 miles an hour was reached in an earlier flight, with only one man on board.
In a later flight, on May 14th, a false movement of a controlling lever caused the machine to plunge into the ground when traveling with the wind at a speed of about 55 miles an hour. The repairs of the machine would have necessitated a delay of five or six days, and as that would have consumed more time than we had allowed for the experiments, we discontinued them for the present.