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We may assume that the two brothers had closely studied the engines patented by Daimler and Levassor, and, being of a mechanical turn of mind themselves, they were able to build their own motor, with which they could make experiments in power-driven flight. Before we study the gradual progress of these experiments it would be well to describe the Wright biplane.

Hal was not hit; he had merely let go of the controls. It was part of the plan to let the machine fall out of control. But, for a moment, it was too much as if Hal had been hit. The biplane side-slipped, "went off the wing," sickeningly, dropping down spinning.

Among the little group of French experimenters in these first years of practical flight, Santos-Dumont takes high rank. He built his 'No. 14 bis' aeroplane in biplane form, with two superposed main plane surfaces, and fitted it with an eight-cylinder Antoinette motor driving a two-bladed aluminium propeller, of which the blades were 6 feet only from tip to tip.

One can best compare them to bicycles having no cranks, but on which one could learn to balance by coming down an incline. It was in 1895 that Lilienthal passed from experiment with the monoplane type of glider to the construction of a biplane glider which, according to his own account, gave better results than his previous machines.

"Give a hand to get this wreck into the shed," said Parks. "You fellows are all right now. The old man knows well enough you boys have been doing well. That is just his way. You had better find out what your folks are going to say." Each of the boys felt confident that the news would be well received at home. They fell to with a will and soon had the biplane moved into the shed.

The engineer speeded up; the engine puffed out vast feathery plumes of dull black smoke. But he drew away from the train as he neared South Norwalk. He was ascending again when he noted something that seemed to be a biplane standing in a field a mile away. He came down and circled the field. It was Titherington's Farman biplane. He hoped that the kindly Englishman had not been injured.

"I don't know if anything is the matter with her, but that is the old biplane they call the 'bad bus. She has given more than one man a spill, sir. Everything goes well with her for a while and then she plays a trick on someone. Last time I saw her cutup she side-slipped without any explanation for it. Some of us have got the idea that she has always got to be watched for sideslip.

When Ashton was reached Sam and Dick found that the automobile and its party had gotten there ahead of them. "I've found a place where we can store the biplane or what's left of it," said Tom. "In that barn," and he pointed to a structure directly beside the tracks. "Good enough!" cried Dick. "That will save the trouble and expense of hauling it any distance."

Punch offered a similar sum to the first man who should swim the Atlantic and also for the first flight to Mars and back within a week, but in the spring of 1910 Claude Grahame White and Paulhan, the famous French pilot, entered for the 183 mile run on which the prize depended. Both these competitors flew the Farman biplane with the 50 horse-power Gnome motor as propulsive power.

But its use was confined to the larger machines as a rule, particularly the Voisin biplane, the machine gun being favored by many airmen because of its lightness and the ease with which it could be handled. The beginning of May, 1915, found aerial warfare in full progress again.