Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . than this only caused loss ofstability. Landing was also a difficult operation; he said thathe was often obliged to perform a kind of wild dance in order tokeep his equilibrium. Still he generally came without accidentto the ground, though he felt to have very imperfect control overhis movements. He started by thinking he could do what wasnecessary by shifting the position of his body, and in this wayhe altered the position of the centre of gravity. This
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . than this only caused loss ofstability. Landing was also a difficult operation; he said thathe was often obliged to perform a kind of wild dance in order tokeep his equilibrium. Still he generally came without accidentto the ground, though he felt to have very imperfect control overhis movements. He started by thinking he could do what wasnecessary by shifting the position of his body, and in this wayhe altered the position of the centre of gravity. This worked 108 AIKSHIPS PAST AND PEESENT. well so long as the sails were small, but he was driven to increasetheir size. He therefore made an apparatus, which had a sailboth on the left and on the right; the area of each was 97 squarefeet, and the span from tip to tip was 18 ft. In this case, theold method of shifting the position of the centre of gravityworked well. If the wind lifted the wing on the left side, aslight change in the position of the body at once restored it toits original position. He was also able to rise to much greater. Fig-. 62.—Lilienthal starting from the hill on his flying machine. heights, and to float over the spot from which he had started,if the speed of the wind was greater than 30 ft. per order to land in a gentle breeze, the machine was pointedupwards by allowing the body to fall backwards. Just beforereaching the ground, the legs were thrown out, as if about tomake a spring. In this way a very unpleasant shock wasgenerally avoided, but if the wind was stronger, the apparatuswould fall to the ground gently of its own On his many trips Lilienthal always noticed the decidedtendency of the wind to raise his machine. He also believed FLYING MACHINES. 109 that the wind induced an eddying motion, similar to that noticedin the flight of birds, but the hill from which he started was tooclose to allow him to indulge in the execution of an
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