Orville Wright had been conducting their experi-
ments. And, let it be known, their success was ‘‘not
the lucky outcome of haphazard tinkering and
carpentering by two simple mechanics who knew
nothing of science and engineering, but of hard-
headed, practical research, much of it conducted
with measuring instruments in a wind-tunnel to
test the truth of theories and formule that repre-
sented the accumulated dreaming, studying, and
experimenting of centuries, and that proved to be
wrong for the most part.”
I.EARNING FROM THE BIRDS
HEN they set out to learn what the Bible calls
“the way of an eagle in the air,” and in motorless
biplanes, or gliders, took at least 2,000 air trips to
attain poise and skill in the art of balancing and
navigating. They also learned that a plane must be
constructed with a definite center of gravity, and
with each wing separately adjustable to be raised,
lowered, or inclined as the moment's need may
dictate. Then they were ready to build and install
the motor.
Finally, with everything in readiness, on the
morning of Dec. 17, 1903, they signaled the crew of
a near-by life-saving station as spectators, started
the motor, taxied down the little runway, and flew
120 feet in twelve seconds. The fourth flight on
that same eventful day lasted fifty-nine seconds and
covered a distance of 852 feet. Epoch-making as it
really was, the Wright brothers declared it to be “a
flight very modest compared with that of birds.”
International Newsreel
After twenty-five years a monument to the first successful flight of an airplane was dedicated at Kitty Hawk, N. C., the scene
of the feat. At the left of the tablet stands Orville Wright, who, with his brother Wilbur, made the now-famous attempts
PAGE FOUR
Subsequently, when a newspaper reporter coined
the name ‘birdmen,” applying it to the Wrights,
he little realized its fitness. In the beginning, the
Creator understood the requisites for flying and had
produced living airplanes in countless numbers and
multiplicity of models, yet all operating upon the
same general principle. This principle the brothers -
from Dayton were the first to ‘““discover’’; and al-
though it is a far cry from the crude, frail little
craft of Kitty Hawk to the mighty monoplane of
today, the fundamentals of construction are the
same. With but few exceptions the refinements and
improvements have altered the contour and con-
struction to conform more and more to the semblance
of a bird with graceful wings and bluff, breastlike,
well-rounded bodies tapering off gracefully toward
the rudder or tail. Science has shown that, mil-
lenniums before man learned to fly, the Omnipotent
constructed the best design for parting the air
smoothly and attaining the highest speeds.
TweNTY-FIVE YEARS OF MARVELS
N THIS marvelous quarter of a century since
aviation had its birth, what splendid achieve-
ment has been made! Birdmen have crossed the
Atlantic and the Pacific, have circumnavigated the
globe, have “flown over the icy Arctic in the teeth
of a gale that would have dismayed the crew of a
whaler,” and are today battling their way to triumph
in the frozen regions about the south pole; they have
remained aloft for six and a fourth days to establish
an endurance record, and are now talking of non-
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE