urned with
a much larger machine; and in 1902 they continued their experiments with
a model still further improved from their first design. Having tested
their theories and become convinced that they were definitely on the
right track, they were no longer satisfied merely to glide. They set
about constructing a power machine. Here a new problem met them. They
had decided on two screw propellers rotating in opposite directions on
the principle of wings in flight; but the proper diameter, pitch, and
area of blade were not easily arrived at.

On December 17, 1903, the first Wright biplane was ready to navigate the
air and made four brief successful flights. Subsequent flights in 1904
demonstrated that the problem of equilibrium had not been fully solved;
but the experiments of 1905 banished this difficulty.

The responsibility which the Wrights placed upon the aviator for
maintaining his equilibrium, and the tailless design of their machine,
caused much headshaking among foreign flying men when Wilbur Wright
appeared at the great aviation meet in France in 1908. But he won the
Michelin Prize of eight hundred pounds by beating previous records for
speed and for the time which any machine had remained in the air. He
gave exhibitions also in Germany and Italy and instructed Italian army
officers in the flying of Wright machines. At this time Orville was
giving similar demonstrations in America. Transverse control, the
warping device invented by the Wright brothers for the preservation of
lateral balance and for artificial inclination in making turns, has
been employed in a similar or modified form in most airplanes since
constructed.

There was no "mine" or "thine" in the diction of the Wright brothers;
only "we" and "ours." They were joint inventors; they shared their fame
equally and all their honors and prizes also until the death of Wilbur
in 1912. They were the first inventors to make the ancient dream of
flying man a reality and to demonstrate that reality to the practical
world.

When the NC flying boats of the United States navy lined up at Trepassey
in May, 1919, for their Atlantic venture, and the press was full of
pictures of them, how many hasty readers, eager only for news of the
start, stopped to think what the initials NC stood for?

The seaplane is the chief contribution of Glenn Hammond Curtiss to
aviation, and the Navy Curtiss Number Four, which made the first
transatlantic flight in history, was des