Wednesday, September 10. Worked about 51/2 hours each, tacking and sewing on cloth. . . . Surface complete except part of covering to rear spar.
Thursday, September 11. Completed covering of rear spar. Erected poles for testing angles at various velocities of wind. . . . Began work on lower surface in afternoon. Spliced spars, and fastened on end bows, ready for attaching ribs.
Friday, September 12. Worked eight hours each on machine. Put on ribs and cloth. Took upper surface on Big [Kill Devil] Hill a little before noon. Find that much better results are found by walking the machine.
Saturday, September 13. Finished lower surface. . . .
Monday, September 15. Worked 10 hours each. . . .
With each wing, or “surface,” measuring 32 by 5 feet this time, and a total wingspan therefore of 320 square feet, it was by far the largest glider yet built and, as Wilbur also told George Spratt, “an immense improvement over last year’s machine.”
On September 19, they took it to a small hill and began flying it first as a kite and with “very satisfactory” results. After moving to Kill Devil Hills they made nearly fifty glides in three days—including manned flights—but cautiously. Even the longest flights were not much over 200 feet.
Orville, too, was now gliding for the first time, and proudly so. Then only days later, he suddenly lost control and crashed. Luckily, he got out “without a bruise or a scratch,” but it was a clear reminder of just how dangerous it all was, and how suddenly things could go wrong.
My brother [wrote Wilbur to Octave Chanute], after too brief practice with the use of the front rudder, tried to add the use of the wing-twisting [wing-warping] arrangement also, with the result that, while he was correcting a slight rise in one wing, he completely forgot to attend to the front rudder, and the machine reared up and rose some twenty-five feet and sidled off and struck the ground. . . . We hope to have repairs made in a few days.
Close to the end of September brother Lorin Wright walked into camp for an unexpected visit, and George Spratt appeared soon after. At the same time came a rare lull in the wind lasting several days.
With all tests postponed, Lorin and Spratt went fishing, while Wilbur and Orville kept busy as usual, Wilbur also taking time to write an exuberant letter to his father to report how extremely well things were going. “We are in splendid health and having a fine time.” And yes, they were being “very careful.” Beyond that, he was proud to report, their new machine was a “very great improvement over anything anyone has built. . . . Everything is so much more satisfactory that we now believe that the flying problem is really nearing its solution.”
The letter was dated October 2. That night, as Orville later told the story, discussion in camp on aeronautical theory went on at such length that he indulged himself in more coffee than usual. Unable to sleep, he lay awake thinking about ways to achieve an even better system of control when suddenly he had an idea: the rear rudder, instead of being in a fixed position, should be hinged—movable.
In the morning at breakfast, he proposed the change, but not before giving Lorin a wink, a signal to watch Wilbur for one of his customary critical responses. Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was “always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody,” ready to “jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up.” And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in “a good scrap.” It brought out “new ways of looking at things,” helped “round off the corners.” It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything. This was not always a “desirable quality,” he added, “as it makes us too conservative for successful business men, and limits our friendships to a very limited circle.”
This time, however, after a moment when no one spoke, Wilbur declared he liked the idea, then surprised Orville even more: Why not simplify the pilot’s job by connecting control of the rudder with those of the wing warping?
Work began on the change that same day.
Rather than a fixed rudder of 2-foot vertical fins, as it had been until now, the glider hereafter would have a single movable rudder 5 feet high, and the operator, stretched on his stomach, would operate both the rudder and the warping of the wings by means of a new wooden “hip cradle.” Thus no hands were needed, only movement of the hips, not coincidentally like the use of the hips in maneuvering a bicycle.