Handles, Wheels, and Pedals

Before the Wright brothers demonstrated their airmanship, little thought had been given to handles, wheels, and pedals for steering flying machines. Cayley provided his reluctant coachman-aviator with an oar having cruciform bladesto “influence” the horizontal and vertical paths of his man-carrying glider. Langley provided Manley, his pilot and engine builder, with a cruciform tail that could be deflected vertically to control pitch attitude and horizontally to turn. Langley expected the dihedral angle of the tandem wings to keep them level, as they had done on his free-flying scale models.

Lilienthal shifted his weight sideways or fore-and-aft on his hang glider to control roll and pitch. This works, but it has limited effectiveness. A roll angle established by a hang glider pilot will make the machine turn if it has weathervane stability, that is, a fixed vertical tail. Hiram Maxim provided his steam-powered airplane with a gyroscopically controlled foreplane to regulate pitch attitude and thought of steering horizontally with differential power to its two independently driven pusher propellers. Fortunately he never had to try this arrangement in flight.