of skill than ever before.
It has awakened people to aviation possibilities.

[Illustration: Stringfellow's Airplane.]

"Just like the automobile, it will become more and more
fool-proof, easier to handle and safer. There is no reason why it
should not take the place of special trains where there is urgent
need of great speed.

"The airplane has never really come into its own as a sporting
proposition. Of late years the tendency has been to develop a
high rate of speed rather than to build machines that may be
operated safely at a comparatively low speed. You see, a machine
adapted to make from seventy to one hundred miles an hour cannot
run at all except at a pretty rapid clip, and this means
difficulty in getting down. One must have a good, smooth piece of
ground to land on and plenty of it. When we get an airplane that
will fly along at twenty miles an hour, one can land almost any
place,--on a roof, if necessary,--and then people will begin to
take an interest in owning an airplane for the enjoyment of
flying."

"Is it true that you and your brother had a compact not to fly
together?"

"Yes, we felt that until the records of our work could be made
complete it was a wise precaution not to take a chance on both of
us getting killed at the same time. We never flew together but
once. From 1900 to 1908 the total time in the air for both Wilbur
and myself, all put together, was only about four hours."

Mr. Wright's statement of the brevity of the time spent in actual
flying in order to learn the art will astonish many people. Few
novices would be so rash as to undertake to steer an automobile
alone after only four hours' practice, and despite the fact that the
aviator always has plenty of space to himself the airplane can
hardly yet be regarded as simple a machine to handle as the
automobile. Nevertheless the ease with which the method of its
actual manipulation is acquired is surprising. More work is done in
the classroom and on the ground to make the fighting pilot than in
the air. As we have traced the development of both dirigible and
airplane from the first nascent germ of their creation to the point
at which they were sufficiently developed to play a large part in
the greatest of all wars, let us now consider how hosts of young
men, boys in truth, were trained to fly like eagles and to giv