Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/471

Rh of 1901, and were of much more power than those originally designed; but nearly a year and a half had been spent not only in their completion, but in properly coordinating the various parts of the frame carrying them, repairing the various breakages, assembling, dismounting and reassembling the various parts of the appliances, and in general rebuilding the frame and appurtenances to correspond in strength to the new engines.

There are innumerable other details, for the whole question is one of details. I may, however, particularly mention the carburetors, which form an essential part of every gas engine, and such giving fair satisfaction for use in automobiles were on the market at the time, yet all of them failed to properly generate gas when used in the tests of the engine working in the aerodrome frame, chiefly because of the fact that the movement of the engine in this light frame must be constant and regular or the transmission appliances are certain of distortion. It was, therefore, necessary to devise carburetors for the aerodrome engines which would meet the required conditions, and more than half a dozen were constructed which were in advance of anything then on the market, and yet were not good enough to use in the aerodrome, before a satisfactory one was made. These experiments were made in the shop, but with an imitation of all the disturbing influences which would be met with in the actual use of the machine in the air, so as to make certain, as far as possible, that the first test of the machine in free flight would not be marred by mishaps or unseen contingencies in connection with the generation and use of power.

It is impossible for any one who has not had experience with such matters to appreciate the great amount of delay which experience has shown is to be expected in such experiments. Only in the spring of 1903, and after two unforeseen years of assiduous labor, were these new engines and their appurtenances, weighing altogether less than 5 pounds to the horsepower and far lighter than any known to be then existing, so coordinated and adjusted that successive shop tests could be made without causing injury to the frame, its bearings, shafts or propellers.

And now everything seemed to be as nearly ready for an experiment, as could be, until the aerodrome was at the location at which the experiments were to take place. The large machine and its quarter-size counterpart were accordingly placed on board the large house boat, which had been completed some time before and had been kept in Washington as an auxiliary shop for use in the construction work, and the whole outfit was towed to a point in the Potomac River, here three miles wide, directly opposite Widewater, Va., and about forty miles below Washington and midway between the Maryland and Virginia