t was built was built
by the Government. Almost every pioneer of flight in England sooner or
later came into touch with the Government, and did work for the nation.
As early as 1904 Mr. S. F. Cody, who had been connected in early life
with the theatrical profession in America, and had made many experiments
in aeronautics, was supplying kites to the balloon factory. In 1906 he
was appointed chief instructor in kiting, and in 1908 he built for
himself an aeroplane, similar in type to the machine of Mr. Glenn H.
Curtiss, and made many experimental flights over Laffan's Plain. He was
a picturesque and hardy individualist of the old school; though he had
had no technical training as an engineer, his wide practical knowledge,
his courage, and his exuberant vitality made him a man of mark, and
engaged the admiration of the public. Most of his work was official; he
was killed by the breaking of his machine in the air while flying over
Laffan's Plain, in August 1913. Another early inventor, Lieutenant J. W.
Dunne, joined the balloon factory in 1906, and at once began to carry
out systematic trials with gliders. Encouraged by Colonel J. E. Capper,
who was in charge of the factory, and assisted by Sir Hiram Maxim, he
devised a biplane glider with a box-kite tail, which when it was
suspended from a kind of revolving gallows at the Crystal Palace
attained a speed in the air of seventy miles an hour and rose to a
height of seventy feet. Later on the experiments were transferred to
Blair Atholl in Perthshire, where the power-driven Dunne aeroplane was
produced and flown. It had backward sloping wings which performed the
function of a stabilizing tail. Most aeroplanes are modelled more or
less closely on flying animals; the Dunne aeroplane took hints from the
zannonia leaf, which, being weighted in front by the seed-pod, and
curved back on either side, becomes, as the tips of the leaf wither and
curl, a perfectly stable aerofoil for conveying the seed to a distance.
The gliding powers of the zannonia leaf were first noticed by Ahlborn of
Berlin, and several foreign aeroplanes were modelled on it. The
stability of the Dunne machine was surprising, and it performed many
good flights before the war, but it sacrificed speed and lifting power
to stability, so that its history in the war is a blank. Stability
spells safety, and safety is not the first condition insisted on by war.
An obstinately stable machine is good for trudging along in the