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Ef I sees any oh 'em, I suah will pinch 'em!" cried the colored man, as he clicked the pliers. But there was no further disturbance that night, and, when Tom and Ned ceased work, they had made good progress toward finishing the air glider.
The four ribs of each wing, enclosed in pockets in the fabric, radiated fanwise from the centre, and were each stayed by three steel piano-wires to the top of the triangular mast, and similarly to its base. These ribs were bolted down to the triangle at their roots, and could be easily folded back on to the body when the glider was not in use.
In fact it did considerable damage in Shopton, as Tom learned later. It certainly was a strong wind. An ordinary aeroplane never could have sailed in it, and Tom was doubtful of the ability of even his big airship to navigate in it. But he was not going to try that. "And maybe my air glider won't work," he remarked to himself as he was on his way to the shed where it had been constructed.
Gliders are sensitive and "moody" things, so that first experiments may be attended by failure; but a little persistence will bring its reward, and at the end of a few hours you will, unless very unlucky, be the possessor of a good specimen or two. The three distinguishing features of a good glider are stability, straightness of flight, and a small gliding angle.
On their last Sunday in the town they assembled the glider, single-surfaced, like a monoplane, twenty-two feet in span, with a tail, and with a double bar beneath the plane, by which the pilot was to hang, his hands holding cords attached to the entering edge of the plane, balancing the glider by movements of his body.
I'd give my life to save my brother from the awful, living death to which he is consigned!" "And we're with you!" cried Tom, offering the Russian his hand. "We'll turn the trick yet. Now don't forget to come and see us. Come along, Ned. If I'm going to build an air glider I've got to get busy."
I became therefore a student of theory and literature for a time; I hit upon the string of considerations that led me to what is called Ponderevo's Principle and my F.R.S., and I worked this out in three long papers. Meanwhile I made a lot of turn-table and glider models and started in upon an idea of combining gas-bags and gliders. Balloon work was new to me.
Otherwise the general construction and operation of the machine was to be similar to that of the 1902 glider. When the motor was completed and tested, we found that it would develop 16 horse-power for a few seconds, but that the power rapidly dropped till, at the end of a minute, it was only 12 horse-power.
But Joe Mauser cut him off, equally briskly. "Aircraft were first used in combat by Pancho Villa's forces a few years previous to World War I. They were also used in the Balkan Wars of about the same period. But those were powered craft. This is a glider, invented and in use before the year 1900 and hence open to utilization."
The wings in this machine were actually on a higher level than the operator's head; the centre of gravity was, consequently, very low, a fact which, according to Pilcher's own account, made the glider very difficult to handle.
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