his has to be done instantly, for neither wings nor gravity will wait
on meditation. At a height of three hundred or four hundred feet the
regulating mechanism would probably take care of these wind-gusts, as it
does, in fact, for their minor variations. The speed of the machine
is generally about seventeen miles an hour over the ground, and from
twenty-two to thirty miles an hour relative to the air. Constant effort
was directed to keep down the velocity, which was at times fifty-two
miles an hour. This is the purpose of the starting and gliding against
the wind, which thus furnishes an initial velocity without there being
undue speed at the landing. The highest wind we dared to experiment in
blew at thirty-one miles an hour; when the wind was stronger, we waited
and watched the birds.'

Chanute details an amusing little incident which occurred in the course
of experiment with the biplane glider. He says that 'We had taken one
of the machines to the top of the hill, and loaded its lower wings with
sand to hold it while we e went to lunch. A gull came strolling inland,
and flapped full-winged to inspect. He swept several circles above the
machine, stretched his neck, gave a squawk and went off. Presently he
returned with eleven other gulls, and they seemed to hold a conclave
about one hundred feet above the big new white bird which they had
discovered on the sand. They circled round after round, and once in a
while there was a series of loud peeps, like those of a rusty gate, as
if in conference, with sudden flutterings, as if a terrifying suggestion
had been made. The bolder birds occasionally swooped downwards to
inspect the monster more closely; they twisted their heads around to
bring first one eye and then the other to bear, and then they rose
again. After some seven or eight minutes of this performance, they
evidently concluded either that the stranger was too formidable to
tackle, if alive, or that he was not good to eat, if dead, and they flew
off to resume fishing, for the weak point about a bird is his stomach.'

The gliders were found so stable, more especially the biplane form, that
in the end Chanute permitted amateurs to make trials under guidance,
and throughout the whole series of experiments not a single accident
occurred. Chanute came to the conclusion that any young, quick, and
handy man could master a gliding machine almost as soon as he could get
the hang of a bicycle, although the penalty for any m