University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD. the world ' s philosophers, and that Aristotle ' s assertion that falling bodies would descend with a velocity propor- tionate to their weight (a stone weigh- ing ten pounds falling ten times as fast as a stone weighing one pound) had been proven false by Galileo ' s actual experiment of dropping a heavy weight and a light weight at the same instant, side by side, from the tower of Pisa. Even when the weights were heard to strike the gromid together there were some who, in spite of the evidence of their senses, still clung to the doctrine of Aristotle. Montgomery declared that, given the time and the means, he would prove his theories by experi- ments. It was not until 1904 that his matured studies were applied to ma- chines in a conclusive demonstration of l)otli equilibrium and control under the guidance of a rider, and those machines were constructed under patent office protection, so far as that goes, and in- volved, among other tlnngs, the warp- ing of wing surfaces. Through years of struggle Montgom- ery had reached the threshold of suc- cess, and it was the irony of fate that the merited reward should be literally snatched from his hands. He had once experimented with a soaring apparatus Avhicli consisted of true (flat) planes, and failure in the use of the planes had led him to the adoption of curved surfaces. His experiences in the eigh- ties convinced him that the laws of aerodynamics and the formation and adjustment of the proper wing surfaces for flight were not understood, and that it was foolhardy for anyone to at- tempt the navigation of the air while uncertain as to whether or not his ma- chine contained in itself the property of inherent equilibrium. To be ex- plicit, there are two classes of ma- chines, one in which the equilibrium depends ui on the skill of the rider, as in the ease of the bicycle, and one in which the machine has in itself the ele- ments of equilibrium, as in the auto- mobile, the operator of which has merely to use his judgment in directing its course. The materialization of his master-study in 1904 was the prelude to the triumph of April 29th, 1905, and the year 1905, I venture to predict, will be known to the future as something akin to the annus mirabilis of the aeroplane. In his examination of the wings of hawks, buzzards, eagles, seagulls, peli- cans, wild geese and other birds. Profes- sor Montgomery found the under-sur- faee of the wing from the front to the rear edge a true parabola, varying in its curviture, both according to the re- lation between the weight of the bird and its wing surface, and the propor- tion of length and breadth of the wing ; but, although his minute observations and mathematical deductions would fill volumes, suffice it to say that from such observations he reached the con- elusion that the surface best suited to receiving and utilizing the aerial movements and forces is one having a gradually increasing curviture from the rear to the front edge, and that the curviture of this is dependent on the

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THE REDWOOD. In America and in France — and America and France led the world in the new science — successful gliding flights were numerous in the year 1905, but the dates of those successful flights run from June to the end of the year. Bleriot, Archdeacon and the Voisius glided over the Seine in June and July, 1905, and the remarkable sustained flights of the Wright brothers over Huffman Prairie took place between September 26th and October 5th, 1905. I mention the Wright brothers par- ticularly in this connection, for the reason that in the Federal Courts, some years ago, they sought to enjoin every skillful aviator using other than a Wright aeroplane from making public flights in this country on the general ground of infi ' ingement of the Wright patent. Let me put this statement clearly: The Wright Company in all its flying-machines is using curved sur- faces in combination with wing-warp- ing. The Wright brothers invented this combination or they did not invent it. If they did invent it, they omitted all mention of it in their letters patent. The Wright brothers ' patent is is- sued for a combination of a normally- flat aeroplane with a type of wing- warping which had figured previously in numerous French tests ; but as an in- controvertible fact all of the Wright flying-machines, as well as the Cur- tiss, Bleriot, and many other aero- planes, use today, and have been using since the Spring of 1905, curved sur- faces combined with wing- warping , and that combination was introduced to the world on April 29th, 1905, and is described in the minutest detail in the Montgomery patents, and the com- bination was described in the press im- mediately following the epochal eight- mile flight at Santa Clara. Montgomery was a profound student of aeronautics, and he reasoned out his theory of the curved surface thus : The plane surface and the curved surface are distinctive, just as the flat surface and the vessel are distinctive, and, as a flat surface has its application in re- lation to solids while a vessel is suited to matter in its fluid form, so, there- fore, surfaces which are designed to operate upon the air, which is a fluid, must be constructed in a manner to suit the fluid condition rather than upon the lines of a plane suited to sol- ids only. A simple, though homely, il- lustration of this principle is the fact that any one may throw a pile of books upon a table and the table will hold the books, but if a quantity of water be thrown upon the surface of the ta- ble, the water will not remain there. In a nutshell, Montgomery contended that the fundamental principles for success in aerial flight lie in the warp- ing of the wing-surfaces as a balancing and controlling element. When his original theories were op- posed by men who, like Professor Langley, held decided opinions with reference to the art of flying, Mont- gomery freely admitted that his crit- ics were able and praiseworthy experi- menters, but he cabnly observed that Aristotle was one of the greatest of

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THE REDWOOD. relation of weight to the surface and the length of the surface to its breadth . To be still more explicit, Montgom- ery ' s study of bird-flight showed him a reciprocal action between bird and air, and the idea of reciprocal action informed him that the problem of aer- ial flight would be solved through the principle that the bird and the sur- rounding air form a system . After approximating the surface-shape of the wing, he obtained an intimate acquaint- ance with the action and re-action of the air, and from his experiments in fluid movements he drew these conclu- sions : 1st, That a surface to act upon the air and to be acted upon by the air, in such a manner as to sustain a human body, must be so formed and adjusted that it will produce certain rotary movements in the air. 2nd, That the parts of the surface must be co-ordinate, so that a change in one part will produce a corresponding change in other parts, and consequent- ly act upon the air so as to induce va- rious modifications of the air move- ment. On these principles, then, Mont- gomery built his aeroplane — two wing- surfaces so placed as to form a para- bolic surface from the front to the rear edge ; the tail-piece consisting of a vertical and horizontal plane. The wings were divided so as to produce a general rotation in the air, the rear portion being so arranged as to be free to change position, either automatical- ly, when under excessive atmospheric pressure, or devisedly when the aero- naut was directing its course. When on one side the wing was tilted, on the other it would take an opposite posi- tion, so that in consequence there would be on either side an opposite but reciprocal change. As to the tail- piece, which had an influence on the entire mechanism, the vertical portion served to secure side equilibrium and to meet antagonistic pressures from above and below the surfaces ; while the hori- zontal was used to assure fore and aft equilibrium and as a necessary element for downward or upward or horizontal motion. This mechanism was briefly described, with illustrations in Le Magasin Pittoresque (Paris), as early as March, 1905, the correspondent, Henry Coupin, eagerly directing the attention of his progressive country- men to Montgomery ' s successful exper- iments in flying-craft. In a recent issue of an aeronautical magazine appeared an advertisement with the boldface topline suggestion: ' ' Build your own aeroplane ! ' ' and thereunder was the statement: We supply blue prints with exact and de- tailed measurements of nearly all fly- ing-machines ; plain and easy to build from! And the public was further advised in the same advertisement: Anyone can build an aeroplane from our blue prints ! ' ' Nobody will doubt that, legally or otherwise, Blue prints and exact detailed measurements of nearly all flying-machines can be supplied, as the advertisement indi- cates, and nobody will doubt that aero- planes can be readily built from the