igid system
of superposed surfaces, invented by Wenham, and improved by
Stringfellow and Chanute, could be warped in a most unexpected
way, so that the aeroplanes could be presented on the right and
left sides at different angles to the wind. This, with an adjustable,
horizontal front rudder, formed the main feature of our first glider.

The period from 1885 to 1900 was one of unexampled activity in
aeronautics, and for a time there was high hope that the age of flying
was at hand. But Maxim, after spending $100,000, abandoned the work;
the Ader machine, built at the expense of the French Government, was a
failure; Lilienthal and Pilcher were killed in experiments; and Chanute
and many others, from one cause or another, had relaxed their efforts,
though it subsequently became known that Professor Langley was still
secretly at work on a machine for the United States Government. The
public, discouraged by the failures and tragedies just witnessed,
considered flight beyond the reach of man, and classed its adherents
with the inventors of perpetual motion.

We began our active experiments at the close of this period, in October,
1900, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Our machine was designed to be
flown as a kite, with a man on board, in winds from 15 to 20 miles an
hour. But, upon trial, it was found that much stronger winds were
required to lift it. Suitable winds not being plentiful, we found it
necessary, in order to test the new balancing system, to fly the machine
as a kite without a man on board, operating the levers through cords
from the ground. This did not give the practice anticipated, but it
inspired confidence in the new system of balance.

In the summer of 1901 we became personally acquainted with Mr. Chanute.
When he learned that we were interested in flying as a sport, and not
with any expectation of recovering the money we were expending on it, he
gave us much encouragement. At our invitation, he spent several weeks
with us at our camp at Kill Devil Hill, four miles south of Kitty Hawk,
during our experiments of that and the two succeeding years. He also
witnessed one flight of the power machine near Dayton, Ohio, in October,
1904.

The machine of 1901 was built with the shape of surface used by
Lilienthal, curved from front to rear like the segment of a parabola,
with a curvature 1/12 the depth of its cord; but to make doubly sure
that it would have sufficient lifting capacity when flown as a kite in
1