Show t 6 WRIGHT AEROPLANE BLUFF J1 MAKES GOOD I By HOWARD S COLTER jjj f lUUU WniCWT has pioved W to the satisfaction of hundreds hun-dreds of persons In France that the pretensions of tho If II 1 Wright brothers that they 9 Y J had an aeroplane capable of Hying were founded on fact but for a long time they were under suspicion suspi-cion They merely kept on saying that Choir aeroplane had solved tho flying problem but they never showed the machine and they never discussed its makeup or plans This reticence had tho effect naturally of making the French Bay l Thats Just a bluff The Wrights Wilbur nnd Orvlllo always nave boon veiy secretive about their Invention As Is most generally known they took up tho flying industry In-dustry ab ju I eight gears ago As Is the case with many folks nil sorts of explanations foolish and otherwise were made of the way in which they happened to become Interested From thu start however these Dayton bl cycle manufacturers worn keen for aeroplanes They believed that the soaring and lying of birds could best ho Imitated by aeroplanes Tho nmiuier In which birds kept on utile after mile after vessels at sea merely moving their wings now and again Interested these brothers ns It has Interested thousands of persons per-sons who are not wrapped up In aero planes The brothers knew or learned that the birds occasionally Happed their wings In the midst of soaring because they bad to mount another or different air current lr icslstance Is a larder thing to tackle than water resistance There RIO more quirks and twists to the stream of air than there are In the Mississippi water All these things made dirigible balloon flying hard and It had killed absolutely aeroplane endeavor up to the time tho Wright brothers began The earlier aeroplan Ists had not boon able to work out n scheme whereby the air resistance could be accommodated so that It would help tho lying machine Instead of dashing It to the ground Tho Wrights too believed that a man could make a much better wing than Nature had done The resistance of feathers would not be present In awing wing made of silk Furthermore because be-cause a bird sometimes has to alight Nature has fixed tho wliigs so that they may bo folded With nn aero plane that has nothing o but Hy there need be no Ntlco for collapsing collaps-ing tho wings They may stay extended extend-ed all tho time Tho earlier attempts at aeroplanes Lllllcnthnrs JMIchcra Lungloys and Chniuitos nil lout something to tho Ideas of tho Wrlghts They studied aeroplanes for years before they evolved the idea It was in 1303 that after framing the machine of parallel box kites they got the Idea of putting In n gasoline engine to run the machine ma-chine and to force those changes of pIano that would bu Inevitable In unfavorable un-favorable windage They had a machine then that was merely n glider It was picked up at either extremity by two men who ran With It for n distance until finally It caught the air and started oft on Its gliding It was about this time that reports came east that there were two men In Ohio who had n lying rnachlno that would Hy Tho Wright neroplnno had glided for n distance over ground how great no ono know but the brothers and certain chosen friends That stalled the controversy over them a controversy that never was oven partly settled until when the recent public flights began In France Tho brothers made It a point that no unfriendly persons should seethe see-the aeroplanes and many successful models were destroyed because the brothers didnt want to rjsk having any ono steal their Ideas They started ott to France which has been and Is the foremost In avf spa atlon nnd tried there to enlist funds i for their enterprise They apparently apparent-ly wanted the French government to take their aeroplane mostly on trust As n Frenchman remarked long afterward r x after-ward If It were a fraudulent goldmine gold-mine every ono would have been willing will-ing to subscribe Hut this turns out to be an honest enterprise bo of 1 course thorn was no eagerness to possess pos-sess it for France It was their manner of conversation that aroused the antagonism of tbe Frenchmen who came In contact No t all but some of the aviators frankly did not believe the Wrights and thought It all a bunco scheme + to get money for nothing The Wrights kept close mouthed and let the discussion run on They started experiments down In a spot In North Carolina near a town called Klttyhnwk From this place day after day canto reports of flights accidents successes 1 |