was next turned to gliding, but no hill suitable for the
purpose could be found near our camp at Kitty Hawk. This compelled us to
take the machine to a point four miles south, where the Kill Devil sand
hill rises from the flat sand to a height of more than 100 feet. Its
main slope is toward the northeast, and has an inclination of 10
degrees. On the day of our arrival the wind blew about 25 miles an hour,
and as we had had no experience at all in gliding, we deemed it unsafe
to attempt to leave the ground. But on the day following, the wind
having subsided to 14 miles per hour, we made about a dozen glides. It
had been the original intention that the operator should run with the
machine to obtain initial velocity, and assume the horizontal position
only after the machine was in free flight. When it came time to land he
was to resume the upright position and alight on his feet, after the
style of previous gliding experiments. But in actual trial we found it
much better to employ the help of two assistants in starting, which the
peculiar form of our machine enabled us readily to do; and in landing we
found that it was entirely practicable to land while still reclining in
a horizontal position upon the machine. Although the landings were made
while moving at speeds of more than 20 miles an hour, neither machine
nor operator suffered any injury. The slope of the hill was 9.5 deg., or
a drop of one foot in six. We found that after attaining a speed of
about 25 to 30 miles with reference to the wind, or 10 to 15 miles over
the ground, the machine not only glided parallel to the slope of the
hill, but greatly increased its speed, thus indicating its ability to
glide on a somewhat less angle than 9.5 deg., when we should feel it
safe to rise higher from the surface. The control of the machine proved
even better than we had dared to expect, responding quickly to the
slightest motion of the rudder. With these glides our experiments for
the year 1900 closed. Although the hours and hours of practice we had
hoped to obtain finally dwindled down to about two minutes, we were very
much pleased with the general results of the trip, for, setting out as
we did with almost revolutionary theories on many points and an entirely
untried form of machine, we considered it quite a point to be able to
return without having our pet theories completely knocked on the head
by the hard logic of experience, and our own brains dashed out in the
bargain.