the glider again
rose easily to about thirty feet, when one of the guy wires of the tail
broke, and the tail collapsed; the machine fell to the ground, turning
over, and Pilcher was unconscious when he was freed from the wreckage.

Hopes were entertained of his recovery, but he died on Monday, October
2nd, 1899, aged only thirty-four. His work in the cause of flying
lasted only four years, but in that time his actual accomplishments were
sufficient to place his name beside that of Lilienthal, with whom he
ranks as one of the greatest exponents of gliding flight.

VIII. AMERICAN GLIDING EXPERIMENTS

While Pilcher was carrying on Lilienthal's work in England, the great
German had also a follower in America; one Octave Chanute, who, in one
of the statements which he has left on the subject of his experiments
acknowledges forty years' interest in the problem of flight, did more
to develop the glider in America than--with the possible exception
of Montgomery--any other man. Chanute had all the practicality of an
American; he began his work, so far as actual gliding was concerned,
with a full-sized glider of the Lilienthal type, just before Lilienthal
was killed. In a rather rare monograph, entitled Experiments in Flying,
Chanute states that he found the Lilienthal glider hazardous and decided
to test the value of an idea of his own; in this he followed the same
general method, but reversed the principle upon which Lilienthal had
depended for maintaining his equilibrium in the air. Lilienthal had
shifted the weight of his body, under immovable wings, as fast and as
far as the sustaining pressure varied under his surfaces; this shifting
was mainly done by moving the feet, as the actions required were small
except when alighting. Chanute's idea was to have the operator remain
seated in the machine in the air, and to intervene only to steer or to
alight; moving mechanism was provided to adjust the wings automatically
in order to restore balance when necessary.

Chanute realised that experiments with models were of little use; in
order to be fully instructive, these experiments should be made with
a full-sized machine which carried its operator, for models seldom fly
twice alike in the open air, and no relation can be gained from them of
the divergent air currents which they have experienced. Chanute's idea
was that any flying machine which might be constructed must be able to
operate in a wind; hence the necessity for a