Then, after testing more than 200 wing designs and plane surfaces in their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers found out how to figure correctly the amount of curve, or camber, that was essential to weight-carrying wings. They discovered, too, that before man could be flown through the air, he must have his wings attached firmly to a body or platform which was firm and controllable. The Wrights in their earliest experiments had realized that to be practical their machine must be built not only to fly in a straight line, but also in order that it could be steered to the right or to the left. One day, Orville was twisting a cardboard box in his hand when Wilbur noticed it. Immediately he saw the solution to the problem of steering their airplane. The result was a design which changed the lift of either end of the wing by warping its surface. If one end of the wing was warped to give it more lift, the machine would lift on that side and fall off into a turn. Thus the problem of steering was solved by the Wrights.

FIRST FLIGHT

After a year of exhaustive study and experiments with models in their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers were ready to experiment with a man-carrying glider. With the thoroughness that was typical of every move of the Wrights, the brothers asked the government to let them have information on meteorological conditions all over the country. By studying the weather charts they were able to find a locality where there was a continual flow of wind. This would be nature’s wind tunnel where they could test their glider day after day. Through their study of the charts they found that the wind conditions at Kitty Hawk, on the North Carolina coast, seemed to offer the best possibilities for their glider test.

Orville and Wilbur Wright began their experiments with a small man-carrying glider at Kitty Hawk in 1900. From that time until 1903 they made hundreds of successful glider flights and kept accurate records of each flight. They recorded wind velocity, angle of flight, duration of flight, time of day, temperature, humidity, and sky conditions overhead with the typical Wright attention to detail. Each year the Wrights constructed new gliders which embodied principles they had discovered for themselves during their flights at Kitty Hawk. Each glider was larger and had longer and narrower wings than the one before. During the fall of 1902 the brothers recorded nearly a thousand flights in a glider with a wingspan of thirty-two feet. It had a front elevator and a vertical tail which helped to maintain lateral stability.

By 1903 the Wright Brothers were ready to build a powered man-carrying flying machine. Their experiments had shown them just how much moving air was necessary to create lift in such a machine. To create the needed thrust, an engine having eight horsepower and weighing not over 200 pounds had to be fitted into the machine. Such an engine was not available, so the Wrights built one in their shop at Dayton, Ohio. They were ready to ship their airplane to Kitty Hawk, N. C., in the fall of 1903.

A cold wind whipped across those buff stretches of Kitty Hawk on Thursday, December 17. A coin was tossed into the air between Orville and Wilbur Wright. Orville won the toss, climbed up and stretched prone on the wing of the flying machine. He clutched the controls.

There were no cheering crowds; a mere handful of people were there. Running along its launching track, the 750 pounds of plane, engine, and passenger shot up into the air so fast that Wilbur, at the wing-tip, could not keep up. For three and one-half seconds the plane was in the air. It came to rest 105 feet from the take-off. Powered flight was born!

WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRPLANE

Three more flights were made on that epochal day at Kitty Hawk. The last flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, proved to be a breath-taking adventure. For fifty-nine seconds the roaring, white-winged craft pitched and rolled in the fitful wind. Flying low with its pilot tense at the controls, it covered a distance of 852 feet. There was no question now in the minds of Orville and Wilbur. They had proved conclusively their theory and were anxious to get back to their shop to continue improving their first flying machine.

Except for the handful of spectators who were present, the world treated the first powered flight coldly. Only a few days before the first flight of the Wright Brothers the highly publicized Langley Aerodrome had crashed into the Potomac for the second time. People just would not believe that the Wrights actually had flown. The newspapers refused even to print the story. Had not most newspaper editors just proved conclusively from Langley’s disaster that the heavier-than-air flying machine could never work? Most scientists agreed with the newspaper editors, and the Wright Brothers were ignored by both press and public.

Immediately after their initial flight, the Wrights offered their invention to the government. The criticism aroused by the government’s investment of $50,000 in the disastrous Langley experiment was too fresh in the minds of the authorities, and no encouragement was given to the brothers’ offer. The Wrights returned to Dayton, where they housed their machine in a closed barn on the flat land a few miles east of the city. They admitted that they had flown, but they were among the first to state that they had only uncovered the barest physical facts associated with flight.

The brothers continued to make flights over the flat lands. They made 105 flights during the year 1904 and gained a considerable amount of experience and skill. They mastered the art of flying in a complete circle and landing the plane in the same field from which it had taken off.

Early in the winter of 1905 the Wrights began work on a new machine, incorporating many improvements resulting from their flying experience. They continued to work quietly, and the only news of them that reached the world came from the reports of farmers who lived near the flat-land flying field. Confirmed reports showed that the Wrights had now covered a distance of twenty-four miles in thirty-eight minutes.

THE FIRST AIRPLANE

Many people speak of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane as a flimsy contraption of sticks, cloth, and wire. Although it was indeed built of wood, cloth and wire, it was, like everything else the Wrights built, thoughtfully and painstakingly constructed. Its wings were efficient lifting surfaces and the entire airplane was sound structurally. The main force that went into it was the result of years of sound research in aëronautical science. Orville and Wilbur Wright had solved all the fundamental problems of flight before they built their first powered, man-carrying airplane. They discovered the basic forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Today, little more than forty years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk, those four forces discovered by the Wright Brothers still control the design of every airplane built.

Equally important was their solution of the problem of controlled flight. Their knowledge of the effect of air on the surfaces of the wings helped the Wrights solve the problem of control. By warping the wings they were able to turn the plane to the right or to the left. When a wing-tip was warped downward it increased the lift of the wing, causing it to rise. The opposite wing-tip warped upward lost lift and the plane would fall off toward the low side. The effect was that of dragging one oar of a boat in the water. To aid in turning the plane, the machine was provided with a vertical rudder attached to the lateral control. When the wings were warped, the rudder automatically swung to enforce the turn.

The pilot’s right hand was on the lever which controlled the wing warping and rudder. His left was on the lever which raised and lowered the elevators. The lever at the extreme left also was attached to the elevators, providing dual control. All movements of the controls were in the direction of the desired attitude of the plane.

The story of American aviation began in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. It continued in the shop of a daredevil motorcycle racer and gasoline engine builder at Hammondsport, New York.

While the Wright Brothers were quietly flying their plane on the flat lands in Ohio, another self-taught, young Yankee was combining bicycles and gasoline engines to create speedy motorcycles. Speed fascinated this young man. He had started to build motorcycle engines of his own design in order to win races and break speed records.

It was not long before the name of this young mechanic began to appear repeatedly in connection with new motorcycle speed records. His name was Glenn H. Curtiss, and he won race after race. His prize money was not spent foolishly, but put into his experiments with gasoline engines.

In 1904, the pioneer American dirigible balloon builder, Captain Tom Baldwin, saw a Curtiss motorcycle in California. One look at the engine sent him scurrying to Hammondsport, New York, where he begged Glenn Curtiss to build him an engine for a new dirigible he was building. Curtiss built the engine, the first Curtiss engine to function in the skies. He also flew Tom Baldwin’s dirigible, but he was not enthusiastic over the idea of flying. “Not bad sport,” he remarked the first time he flew the dirigible, “but there’s no place to go.” Curtiss had heard of the flights of the Wright Brothers, but he was skeptical.

Before long Glenn Curtiss had another visitor. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had long been interested in the problems of flight, and had organized the Aërial Experiments Association to encourage aëronautical efforts in this country. After talking for hours, Dr. Bell converted Curtiss to a belief in the future of flying and persuaded him to join the experimental group.

In November, 1907, Glenn H. Curtiss, in company with two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy of Dr. Bell’s group, and an official Army observer, Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, started to work on a new airplane. Using all of the available existing flight research and the ingenuity of Glenn H. Curtiss, the group finished their first plane in March, 1908. On March 12 Baldwin flew it 300 feet. Curtiss then designed an improved plane, the June Bug. With it he won the Scientific American contest by flying over a measured kilometer course on July 4.

AMERICA’S SECOND PLANE

In 1909, Glenn H. Curtiss, in a plane of his own design, again won the Scientific American award, by flying 24.7 miles over a closed course. The plane he flew was built on order for the New York Aëronautical Society. This was the first airplane order ever received by an American aircraft manufacturer.

On July 25, 1909, a Frenchman, Louis Bleriot, flew his monoplane twenty-five miles to cross the English Channel. Immediately there was furor in Europe and golden prizes were posted for new airplane developments and designs. The first big air race, the James Gordon Bennett Cup race, was held at Rheims, France, in 1909. Glenn Curtiss flew his machine against the pick of foreign pilots including Bleriot, whom he beat by six seconds to win the Cup. His speed was forty-six miles an hour.

Glenn Curtiss had the benefit of the aëronautical research of the Wright Brothers to aid him in designing his first airplanes, but he could not use the wing warping method of control invented by them. This was thoroughly protected by patents. As a result, Curtiss was forced to work out a new system of lateral controls. He developed the aileron method of control for use in turns or circular flight. He did this by mounting small winglike planes on the rear struts of the plane, between the upper and lower wings. These ailerons were hinged to swing up or down and were attached by cables to a yoke which encircled the pilot’s shoulders. The banking of the plane was produced by the movement of the flier as he leaned against the yoke, pushing it in the direction of the desired bank. Vertical motion was achieved by a fore and aft pressure on the control column by the flier. The wheel on the control column was attached to the vertical rudder by cables. Right or left steering was produced by turning the wheel in the desired direction. To make a climbing turn to the right, the flier would lean against the yoke, pushing to the right. At the same time he would turn his wheel gently to the right and pull the control slightly toward himself. Curtiss’ method of control led the way to the modern type of wing aileron and the general system of control was basically the same as that in use today.

POWER FOR THE AIRPLANE

Going back to the four forces that govern the flight of a plane, we find thrust pulling the plane forward. Thrust is the force that keeps the plane in the air; without it the airplane could not leave the ground for sustained flight. Thrust is created by the propeller. The propeller blades function in the same manner as the wings. Just as the wing of a plane bites into the air to cause lift, the propeller blades, patterned after wing camber, bite into the air to create thrust. Their action on the air is similar to a screw biting its way into wood.

The propeller is whirled by the engine. Without the engine to whirl it the propeller is useless, for without thrust we would have no lift. That makes the engine the governing factor in flight. Weight also is a serious force in flight, and the Wrights and Curtiss found from the beginning that the four-cycle gasoline engine would give greater power for its weight than would a steam or electric engine.

The principle of the airplane engine is the same as the one used in the automobile engine. However, weight always has been a problem to aircraft designers. The automobile engine always has been too heavy for use in a plane. When the Wrights built their first plane, automobile engines weighed 25 to 35 pounds per horsepower. The Wrights built one that weighed 13 pounds per horsepower and produced 12 horsepower. They used this engine in 1903 to power their first plane. Since that time all practical airplanes have been powered with gasoline engines, designed specifically for use in heavier-than-air machines. Since the first flight, engineers constantly have strived to produce engines with greater power and less weight per horsepower. How well they have succeeded is proved by the progress of the airplane.

It was in 1905 that the Wright Brothers had first offered to the Army a license to use their patents; but nothing came of it. Reports coming from Dayton during the next two years, concerning their flying activities, caused the newspapers to publish a number of articles about them.

Theodore Roosevelt, then our President, was a diligent reader, and several articles about the Wrights attracted his attention. One day he clipped one of these articles from a newspaper and scribbled across it one word: “Investigate!” He passed it along to his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. In a short time the almost forgotten Wright Brothers had a call from Brigadier General James Allen, U. S. Army Signal Corps. In the autumn of 1907 Wilbur Wright appeared in Washington to confer with the War Department.

A few months later, in July, 1907, an aëronautical division was established in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army. In December of that year the Army asked for bids on the construction of an airplane. The specifications called for a machine that could carry a weight of 350 pounds. It had to be able to remain in the air continuously for one hour with two passengers. During the flight the machine was required to remain under perfect control and to be capable of being steered in all directions. Its speed should be 40 miles per hour. The machine had to be built so that it could be taken apart and packed for transportation in army wagons. Then it had to be reassembled and put in flying condition in one hour.

By this time inventors everywhere were working on flying machines, but the Wright Brothers were the only ones who put in an appearance with an airplane for the Army trials in September, 1908.

Unfortunately the trial was a failure. The huge crowd gathered at Fort Meyer, Virginia, was horrified to see a propeller fly off and the machine crash, killing Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, the Army observer, and injuring Orville Wright. Tom Selfridge thus became the first American air martyr, and the future dimmed for the Wright Brothers and the airplane.

FIRST ARMY AIRPLANE

Fortunately, the Army considered the crash a result of material failure rather than a basic fault of the airplane. A year later, in July, 1909, Army trials again were held at Fort Meyer, with only the Wrights appearing on the scene. On July 30, Orville Wright, accompanied by Lieutenant (now Brigadier-General, retired) Frank Lahm, as the Army’s observer, flew around the course, and fulfilled with ease the Army’s speed and endurance specifications. The Army had its first plane, and on August 2 formal acceptance was made—just six years after man had first flown in a heavier-than-air machine. Thus the U. S. Army was the first in the world to own a military airplane.

AMERICA BECOMES AIR-MINDED

The United States Navy also had been giving an occasional glance toward the airplane. It had been represented at the Army trials by Lieutenant G. C. Sweet and Naval Constructor William McIntee. These observers were enthusiastic and reported: “The Navy must have airplanes.”

Another interested spectator was a young midshipman who had robbed his savings bank in order to witness the Army airplane trials. The young man was Donald Douglas. He, too, was most enthusiastic, but he left the trials with a vision, not of Army planes, but of giant passenger planes flying all over the world. We will hear more of him later.

On the day after the Army trials at Fort Meyer another young man far away in California headed his homemade airplane into the wind and took off on his first flight. This young fellow was Glenn L. Martin who, with the help and encouragement of his mother, had built a plane in an abandoned church in Santa Ana, California. He not only designed and built his airplane but, in addition, taught himself to fly. We will also hear more of Glenn.

As the summer of 1910 rolled around, the flights of F. W. Baldwin and Glenn Curtiss, as well as the recognition accorded the Wrights by the Army, kindled at last the public imagination. All over the country people started clamoring for a chance to see an airplane in action. As a result the Wrights and Curtiss were swamped by requests from daring young men who wanted to fly. People even wanted to buy airplanes for sport.

For the first time in its history, America had become air-minded.

The conservative Wright Brothers at last realized that the only way in which the public could be taught to understand the possibilities of the airplane was through seeing it perform. They picked a group of intelligent young daredevils and formed a flying team. This Wright flying team and a similar group under the banner of Glenn Curtiss toured the county fairs and brought aviation to the American public. In California, the twenty-year-old Glenn Martin was giving flying exhibitions to earn money with which to build bigger and better airplanes. Truly 1910 was a great year for aviation.

On May 29, 1910, Glenn Curtiss won the New York World prize of $10,000 for the first flight from Albany to New York City. He flew 137 miles at a speed of 54.8 miles per hour. In August another chapter in aërial history was written by the sending of a wireless message to the ground from an airplane in flight.

In September, 1910, 20,000 Bostonians had their first sight of the airplane in action when the Harvard Aëronautical Society sponsored a great aviation exhibition at Squantum, Massachusetts. The prizes, amounting to $100,000, attracted the largest group of pilots and planes ever to assemble in the United States. Claude Graham-White, the Englishman, flew a French Farman biplane and a speedy Bleriot monoplane. Another Englishman, A. V. Roe, who today builds the Avro-Lancaster, exhibited his big triplane, and the spectators were thrilled as the daring Wright and Curtiss pilots demonstrated America’s best planes.

The Boston air meet was followed by an equally successful one at Belmont Park, N. Y., in October, 1910. Here daring pilots flew their planes in rain and wind, and tried many new stunts.

Ralph Johnstone, a daring Wright pilot, thrilled the crowds when he turned his plane sidewise to an almost vertical angle and then descended in a tight spiral. Walter Brookins, another Wright flier, performed his famous “short turn” in which he stood his plane vertically in the air and revolved about one wing as on a pivot. Though these pilots constantly endeavored to create new thrills for the crowds, they unconsciously were testing the capabilities of their airplanes. They also were creating the technique of flying. These early meets were the testing laboratories of aviation.

The meetings at Boston and Belmont Park served another purpose in addition to thrilling the crowds and testing the airplanes. They paved the way for the beginning of United States naval aviation. Lieutenant Charles A. Blakely, U.S.N., was ordered by the Navy Department to attend the Boston meet as an official observer. He not only observed, but he flew with Charles Willard in a Curtiss airplane. His report on the possibilities of the airplane was so enthusiastic that the Navy ordered Captain Washington Irving Chambers to keep the Navy Department informed concerning the progress of aviation in relation to its use in naval tactics.

Many of the older naval officers of that period were aligned against the airplane. They could not visualize a land airplane being used in connection with a sea-going Navy. Captain Chambers was interested in engineering and, furthermore, he was somewhat of a dreamer. But his dreams were practical. He came away from the Belmont Park air meet with the firm conviction that the airplane was satisfactory once it was in the air, and that it could be of great value to the Navy for scouting, gunfire observation, and bombing. However, to be of any great value, the airplanes must go to sea with the fleet. The airplane would offer the captain of a ship or the admiral of the fleet a magic power capable of revealing to them what lay beyond the horizon. This was Captain Chambers’ dream. The Navy was fortunate in having such a farseeing officer.

As there was available at that time no airplane capable of operating from the water, the Navy was forced to adopt the idea of using a landplane. There had been considerable talk in 1910 of flying a landplane off the deck of an ocean liner for the purpose of speeding transoceanic mail delivery. In fact, arrangements were then being completed for such a test from a Hamburg-American ocean liner in New York. But Captain Chambers was not a man to allow the United States Navy to come in second in such an experiment. If an airplane could be flown from the deck of a vessel, let it be a Navy ship. The cruiser U. S. S. Birmingham was placed at the Captain’s disposal and he went to work immediately preparing for the first attempt to fly an airplane from the deck of a ship. He had a temporary platform erected on the fore deck of the Birmingham. It was built of planks, was eighty-three feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, and sloped downward toward the bow of the ship.

As the Navy had no pilots, a civilian flier, Eugene Ely, was lent for the test by Glenn Curtiss, whose plane was being used. On Monday, November 14, 1910, in the most unfavorable weather, Ely rolled across the platform into the rain and mist. At the end of the platform his plane dived toward the water. Ely pulled up on his elevators and flew on. He landed on a sand bar after a flight of two and one-half miles, and another chapter in naval history was made.

THE ARMY AND NAVY SPREAD THEIR WINGS

Although successful, Eugene Ely’s flight from the deck of the Birmingham had little effect on the Navy’s conservative attitude toward aviation. At times, as the skeptical comments of naval officers continued, it appeared that Captain Chambers was being dared to prove the value of the airplane to the Navy. It was fortunate for the United States that the Captain was an officer willing to accept the challenge.

Captain Chambers asked for funds to purchase several of the existing types of airplanes for the purpose of training navy personnel in the art of flying. As no money was available, the Captain had to continue his experiments in co-operation with aircraft manufacturers and civilian fliers. Spurred by the successful flight of Ely, Glenn Curtiss willingly aided Captain Chambers. Curtiss was so enthusiastic about the future of naval aviation that he approached the Navy Department with the offer to train, without cost to the service, an officer to fly. After considerable discussion in the Department, Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson, U. S. Navy, was ordered to join Curtiss.

Curtiss moved his flying activities to San Diego, California, in 1910, and it was there that Lieutenant Ellyson became the first American naval officer to learn to fly. This was eight years after the first flights of the Wright Brothers.

Curtiss had collected a group of skilled pilots to fly under his direction. In this group were McCurdy, Willard, Witmer, Ely, and the famous Lincoln Beachey. With this assemblage Curtiss was able to make great strides in the progress of flying and aircraft development. Curtiss and Captain Chambers, working closely together, laid their plans for proving to the Navy Department the capabilities of the airplane. Both men were convinced thoroughly that it was possible to take off in an airplane from the deck of a ship, fly to a designated spot, fly back, and land on the deck. There was a great amount of ridicule at this idea, but Curtiss and Chambers went ahead with their plans and erected a 120-foot platform on the deck of the cruiser U. S. S. Pennsylvania. On January 18, 1911, a Curtiss landplane, with Eugene Ely at the controls, soared from the deck, circled out over the water, and approached the cruiser. Twenty-two pairs of fifty-pound sandbags were attached to lines drawn taut across the deck platform. The plane was equipped with steel hooks for use in catching the deck lines. Ely flew in at the speed of thirty-nine miles an hour. Sailors aboard the Pennsylvania ducked for cover, expecting the plane to overshoot the platform. Just as he reached the end of the platform, Ely pulled up the nose of his ship, and cut off the engine. The plane settled to the deck. Then and there were the beginnings of what eventually was to become the most effective weapon of the United States Navy—the aircraft carrier.

During the winter of 1911, Curtiss designed the first American seaplane, or hydroplane as it was then called. On January 26th, he made a flight of thirty-one seconds and landed smoothly on the water. That afternoon he made a number of flights, to the delight of the crowds that lined the Coronado shores of the Spanish Bight off San Diego. Little did the onlookers dream that years later flying boats of the United States Navy would fly over the Seven Seas, even remaining aloft for a day at a time.

In addition to Lieutenant Ellyson, Captain Chambers succeeded in having Lieutenants John H. Towers and John Rogers ordered to report for flight instruction. These three men became Navy Pilots One, Two and Three. Pilot Number 3 was Lieutenant (now Vice Admiral) John H. Towers, who ever since has made his name synonymous with the progress of naval aviation. In July, 1911, the United States Navy took delivery of its first airplanes, one Wright and two Curtiss landplanes. Later that year the Navy established its first aviation camp on the banks of Severn River just across from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.

During this time the United States Army was making some progress with military aviation. In March, 1911, Congress was prevailed upon to appropriate $125,000 for aëronautics. The Army bought three more airplanes, the first since the purchase of one Wright airplane in 1909. In July, 1911, the first military aviation school was established at College Park, Maryland. The Army’s first instructor was Army Pilot Number 1, Lieutenant Frank Lahm. The first students were Lieutenants Benjamin Foulois, Thomas DeW. Milling, and the man who was destined, thirty-two years later, to lead the world’s greatest air force, Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, Commanding General, United States Army Air Forces during World War II.

Flying in two Wright and one Curtiss biplanes, the fledgling Army fliers conducted experimental work in aërial photography and radio. But these forward-looking young men, even then, saw the airplane as a weapon and began seeking ways of dealing out destruction to an enemy. They fired machine guns at ground targets, tested a bomb sight, and dropped small bombs from their planes.

In 1905 a newspaper in Salina, Kansas, had carried a story of two brothers named Wright. This story robbed the budding “auto” industry of a promising young mechanic, Glenn L. Martin by name.

As a boy, Glenn Martin built and flew the very best kites in Salina. As he grew older he was thrilled by the appearance of the horseless carriage. As soon as he was old enough he took a job in Dave Methven’s garage, convinced that there was a future in the noisy “gas-buggies.”

In the surge of interest in automobiles, Glenn Martin had all but forgotten the stories of Chanute and Lilienthal and the old urge of the winds in his kites. In 1905, after reading the newspaper story concerning the Wrights, he excitedly told his mother, “I am going to fly, too!” And he did.

A short time after he made that remark, Glenn’s family moved to California and he soon became a successful automobile salesman. But he did not forget his decision to fly. With his mother’s support, he began to build his plane by night, after selling cars all day. With his mother holding a lantern for him, he often worked most of the night in the abandoned church that served as his workshop. In spite of neighborly criticism, Glenn finished his plane and flew it from a Santa Ana cow pasture, on August 1, 1909.

As soon as he had successfully flown his first airplane, Martin began to plan better machines. He gave flying exhibitions all over southern California to earn the money to build more Martin planes. In January, 1912, he flew the first mail from Dominguez, California, to Compton, California. In April of that year he flew twenty-four miles in twenty-five minutes, to deliver newspapers from Fresno, California, to a neighboring town. On May 10, 1910, Martin flew thirty-three miles over the ocean from Newport Harbor, California, to Catalina Island. This first trans-Pacific flight was made in a hydroplane of Martin’s own design.

UNITED STATES MILITARY AND NAVAL AVIATION WORLD WAR I

Although America was actually the birthplace of the airplane, many years passed after the first flight of the Wright Brothers before there was any real consideration of the military or civil values of aviation. That aviation did progress at all in its early years was due to the efforts of a few fledgling military fliers, a group of barnstormers, and a handful of aircraft builders.

Working closely together, these men flew and experimented with our first flying machines. They risked their lives time and again in order to learn everything possible about flying and the flying machine. As a result of crashes and hairbreadth escapes, these men discovered many faults and set about correcting them.

Each make of plane had a different control system, and an all-around flier had to master several varieties of levers and wheels in order to be able to fly all types of machines. A pilot originally was forced to fly his plane while sitting on an exposed and uncomfortable perch at the edge of the wing. Just back of his seat was mounted the heavy engine ready to topple over on him in case of a crash.

The first step in correcting some of the faults of the early airplane came with the development of a body, or fuselage. The first fuselages were built of spruce frames covered with fabric and strengthened with wire. They were mounted between the wings and braced to them. The engine and propeller were housed in the front of the fuselage. Farther back an enclosed compartment, or cockpit, was provided for the pilot. Thus he was moved from his perch on the wing with the engine at his back into a safer and more comfortable location.

The development of the fuselage caused the elevators to be taken away from the front of the machine. These were combined with the stabilizer and rudder attached to the rear of the fuselage. The Wright method of wing warping to produce lateral control was dispensed with and the Curtiss type of aileron was moved up from the wing struts and hinged to the trailing edge of the wings. This established the ailerons as part of the lift surfaces of the wings, giving them a more direct influence on the lateral movements of the airplane.

With the new positions of the control surfaces came the second important step, the standard control system. This system made use of a single control column, or stick, and a rudder bar. The stick was attached by means of cables and pulleys to both the ailerons and the elevators. A hinged arrangement allowed the stick to be moved forward and backward, and to the right or to the left. The forward and backward movement of the stick controlled the up and down position of the elevators. The right and left movement of the stick raised or lowered the ailerons. Steering to right or left was accomplished by pressure of the pilot’s feet on a bar that was attached to the rudder by cables. All positions of the airplane were caused by gently pressing the control stick and rudder bar in the direction of the flight movement desired by the pilot.

By 1915, American airplane builders had adopted a standard biplane design with an enclosed fuselage and a two-wheel and tail-skid landing gear, typified by the Curtiss Jenny at the left.

The beginning of World War I, in Europe, saw the first use of the airplane by the military. At first, warring pilots flying over the battle lines actually exchanged friendly waves in passing. This was the expression of brotherly feeling among men who already had risked their lives to conquer the flying machine.

But this knightly feeling did not last long. One belligerent flier carried a rifle aloft. This rifle inspired the thought of the machine gun, and war in the air, as in the trenches, became a survival of the fittest.

In the United States, the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U. S. Army, was just two weeks old. When it was created on July 18, 1914, the Aviation Section had an authorized personnel of 60 officers and 260 enlisted men, and a few airplanes. In Europe, every major power boasted of hundreds of planes.

The year 1916, two years after the start of World War I, saw Army aviation in its first offensive action. Eight low-powered planes engaged in a punitive expedition against Mexican bandits. The chief result of this expedition was the severe newspaper criticism of the poor showing made by our fliers and America’s lack of improved types of combat planes.

As the result of the criticism created by the Mexican expedition, Congress, in June, 1916, voted funds for the expansion of Army aviation. But aviation development required time and, actually, when the United States went into World War I on April 6, 1917, Army aviation consisted of but 65 officers (including only 35 fliers), 1,087 enlisted men, and 55 airplanes. All of the planes were obsolete and none carried machine guns.

Thus, with no military planes suitable for use against a well-equipped enemy, no fliers trained in the use of high-powered fighting planes and aërial machine guns, and with few factories that had had any previous experience in the production of airplanes, America plunged into the midst of World War I.

Although a little late, America went to work. Having no good combat designs of our own, our fliers fought in British and French airplanes. We developed the best training plane in the world, the Curtiss JN-Jenny (page 32), and trained 15,000 flying cadets. By March, 1918, our Army Aviation strength was 11,000 officers and 120,000 enlisted men. At the time of the Armistice we had 757 pilots, 481 observers, with 740 planes at the front and 1,402 pilots and 769 airplanes in the Zone of Advance, ready for combat. Our pilots were credited with the destruction of 491 enemy airplanes, of which 462 were accounted for by 63 airmen. We had produced 26 aces, each of whom had destroyed five or more enemy aircraft.