From what I understand, they were flying on a down slope with the wind
coming strait on. In radio control modeling you call that slope
soaring. The power to sustain flight is put into the system by the
moving mass of air (wind) against the force of gravity (up hill). In
my misguided past I've flown gliders for hours on end over slopes,
without ANY power at all. People (including the Wright Brothers) had
flown gliders before.

The steeper the slope you use for a given wind speed, the more assist
you have given the engine. It would seem that the first flight off
LEVEL ground would really be the meaningful one. I'm not sure when
THAT was. There had been unsucessful attempts earlier due to lack of
wind. A truly self powered airplane wouldn't care what the wind was,
provided enough takeoff roll.

p.s. I've "sloped" power models, power off, and seen people fly models
made out of toilet paper tubes and cardboard. With enough wind on a
steep enough slope, you can fly just about anything with wings.





"Steve Beaver" wrote in message ...
While pondering the fact that 57 seconds is a long time to go 850 ft (best
and third flight on Dec 17th) it occured to me that it was very windy at the
time.
I believe the bros. reported in the telegram home to dad that it was 21 mph.

850 ft in 57 seconds is 894 ft per minute or about 10 mph. Add that to the
21 and you get an average airspeed of 31 mph.

31 mph for 57 seconds means they actually travelled through the air for just
about half a mile!

I wish I'd though of that before.

Using this rough logic, even the very first hop was equivalent to more than
350 ft.