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.
We laid the track on a smooth stretch of ground about one hundred feet north of the new building.
One of the Life Saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine had reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about two feet.
In just six weeks from the time the design was started, we had the motor on the block testing its power.
With all the knowledge and skill acquired in thousands of flights in the last ten years, I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a twenty-seven mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe.
With twelve horse power at our command, we considered that we could permit the weight of the machine with operator to rise to 750 or 800 pounds, and still have as much surplus power as we had originally allowed for in the first estimate of 550 pounds.
