The 1904 Glider
November 9, 1904 a new glider was able to fly for 2 and ¾ miles! That was an outstanding improvement! This glider flew over Huffman prairie, and was able to fly in complete circles. The 1904 glider was the experimental craft to try to fly in turns, because back then, all of the gliders that weren’t piloted could only fly straight. From 1899-1903 the Wright Brothers only performed straight, and short flight. They had achieved powered flight, but they didn’t have practical flight. In order to fix one of the “mysterious Problems”, The Wright Brothers had to add weight to the front of their glider; this adjustment fixed the “Mysterious Problem” of instability. The other addition to the glider to fix another “Mysterious Problem” was the over sensitive elevator, which they fixed by moving elevator farther ahead of the wings. On October 20th 1904, on the 1904 Glider’s 49th flight, it made a complete circle. This flight only took 1 minute and 36 seconds, but they had made a complete circle and also covered 4,808 Feet!
