y that strikes with astonishment, but
rather the marvelous skill with which they are used. It is true that
I have seen birds perform soaring feats of almost incredible nature in
positions where it was not possible to measure the speed and trend
of the wind, but whenever it was possible to determine by actual
measurements the conditions under which the soaring was performed it
was easy to account for it on the basis of the results obtained with
artificial wings. The soaring problem is apparently not so much one of
better wings as of better operators."*

* Cited in Turner, "The Romance of Aeronautics".

When the Wrights determined to fly, two problems which had beset earlier
experimenters had been partially solved. Experience had brought out
certain facts regarding the wings; and invention had supplied an engine.
But the laws governing the balancing and steering of the machine were
unknown. The way of a man in the air had yet to be discovered.

The starting point of their theory of flight seems to have been that
man was endowed with an intelligence at least equal to that of the bird;
and, that with practice he could learn to balance himself in the air as
naturally and instinctively as on the ground. He must and could be, like
the bird, the controlling intelligence of his machine. To quote Wilbur
Wright again:

"It seemed to us that the main reason why the problem had remained
so long unsolved was that no one had been able to obtain any adequate
practice. Lilienthal in five years of time had spent only five hours in
actual gliding through the air. The wonder was not that he had done so
little but that he had accomplished so much. It would not be considered
at all safe for a bicycle rider to attempt to ride through a crowded
city street after only five hours' practice spread out in bits of ten
seconds each over a period of five years, yet Lilienthal with his brief
practice was remarkably successful in meeting the fluctuations and
eddies of wind gusts. We thought that if some method could be found by
which it would be possible to practice by the hour instead of by the
second, there would be a hope of advancing the solution of a very
difficult problem."

The brothers found that winds of the velocity they desired for their
experiments were common on the coast of North Carolina. They pitched
their camp at Kitty Hawk in October, 1900, and made a brief and
successful trial of their gliding machine. Next year, they ret