GENESIS OF THE AEROPLANE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 108, 8 May 1909, Page 10

GENESIS OF THE AEROPLANE.

"One day," said Mr. Wilbur Wright, in an- interview with a London journalist last month, "we were reading about flying-machines, and we thought we would try and make one. First of all we made paper gliders, setting them afloat in the little machine shop. One day we discovered how to make gliders always glide, and we then made .gliders to scale, with weights representing a man and a motor. Finally we made one of full size. With this practicable model wo went to the sandhill country in North Carolina. The first test was unfortunate. The machine, swooping from the hill top into the sand, was smashed, but I myself escaped with a few sprains. The trials which we conducted next summer taught us how to fly, the aeronaut lying face downwards and gradually acquiring the necessary balance for riding in the air." The next problem was the motor. There were none made then that gave the requisite power, but an automobile motor was adapted by the Wrights till the requisite strength per pound weight was obtained. This, however, necessitated a change in the form of the "glider," but the inventors managed to devise a machine that would fly. The Wrights have now convinced everybody that they have produced a practicable <ieavier-than-air aeroplane. In their new machine the operator can sit up as^ vi a motor-car. They have built ai>d worked successfully a twopassenger machine. They do not think an airship is at present a practicable means of transportation, the^ margin of carrying power over the weight of the machinery being too slight to permit taking a cargo of persons or freight, but they think there is no reason why any one should not keep an airship like a motor-car. The cost of construction is the same, and the operator is in less rather than more danger after learning to fly, since tho Wright machines simply glide down to earth. It is unnecessary to soar high, except to find a smoother stratum ol air.