HISTORY OF FLIGHT—LOENING 353 
On the other side of the picture, many an airplane with little com- 
mercial or military value was for years accepted because the up- 
holstery and the windshield were well worked out, and because a lucky 
combination of slipstream and wing flow (totally unforseen by the 
designer) gave unusually good control on landing which made it easy 
for the pilot. 
AIRCRAFT OPERATION 
Let us now look at today’s aircraft operation for further lessons 
and possibly anticipate some future troubles, particularly as to safety. 
Today all aircraft can be spun and recovered with safety; 40 years 
ago, this was not so. Up to 1913 the “spinning nosedive” or the 
deadly “spiral dive from air pockets” was the disheartening cause of 
accident after accident. At Dayton in 1913 came a very important 
historical turning point in airplane operation. This was when Or- 
ville Wright, discouraged by the accidents that were happening to 
his exhibition fliers and to a whole series of Army fliers (Hazelhurst, 
Love, Kelly, and many others), determined to test out himself what 
was happening. It was not long before he came back from these 
test flights smiling instead of grim, because he had discovered what a 
“spin” is, and how to get out of it—by pushing forward on the con- 
trols; and why so many aviators had been killed—by pulling back 
on the controls at the wrong time, instead. 
Now, some 38 years later, when we begin to fly through the sound 
barrier, we discover that there is a brief moment when controls are 
reversed. And also today we are plagued by “pitchup” in the control 
of supersonic aircraft. Recently a jet airliner suddenly dove 29,000 
feet. Are these effects the manifestations of some new operational 
characteristic of sweptwing aircraft which may require some addi- 
tional or different controls other than the ones we have provided ? 
The operation of aircraft has become very complex, owing to the 
constant addition of more and more instruments and more and more 
traffic controls. We have gone a long, long way from our first 
instruments—the waving string for sideslip, wire whistling for speed, 
and the railroad track for navigation! Are our present instruments 
really the ones we should have? Has not the barometric altimeter 
caused us so many accidents that we should long ago have gone to 
something better? Our automatic pilots are all based on known 
flying procedures. Perhaps the new types require some new flying- 
control procedure, such as crossed controls to prevent “pitchup” or 
to prevent the sweptwing dive. 
It is in such areas that we are much too complacent and that we 
leave lying on our doorstep, without enough concern therefor, prob- 
lems that should alert us more quickly to determined inquiry. In 
1917 Lawrence Sperry invented and demonstrated the turn-and-bank 
