The Time the US Tried To Buy Greenland

     In 1946 the United states tried to purchase Greenland from Denmark but the Danes refused the $100 million offer. 
     Initially, the US was flirting with the idea of swapping land in the Point Barrow district of Alaska for those portions of Greenland that the United States considered of military value. 
     Under this plan, the Danes would have received the rights to any oil discovered in the district and would have had to sell the oil to the United States. Discovery of the documents, which have been declassified since the early 1970s, was first reported Sunday by the Copenhagen newspaper Jyllands-Posten. 
     It was probably a good thing that plan was scrapped. The richest oil strike in U. history was made in 1967 in the Prudhoe Bay area, 200 miles east of Point Barrow. The Point Barrow area now is part of the National Petroleum Reserve, which are oil fields reserved for national defense. 
     The proposed purchase seems to have first came up in November 1945, when Senator Owen Brewster of Maine said American military and naval authorities favored it and he considered it ″a military necessity.″ 
     As a result, in April 1946, State Department official John Hickerson attended a meeting of the planning and strategy committee of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff and reported that ″practically every member ... said that our real objective as regards to Greenland should be to acquire it by purchase from Denmark.″ It was felt that at the time money was plentiful and Greenland was “completely worthless to Denmark (and) that the control of Greenland is indispensable to the safety of the United States.″ 
     On May 24, 1946, William C. Trimble, assistant chief of the State Department’s division of northern European affairs, suggested that the United States offer $100 million in gold for the island. Trimble believed that there were few people in Denmark who had any interest in Greenland, economic, political or financial. He believed the purchase of Greenland would be an asset from which to launch an air counteroffensive over the Arctic area in the event of attack by Russia. 
     So, on December 14, 1946 Secretary of State James Byrnes made the offer to visiting Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen in New York City. The offer came as a shock to Rasmussen, but he did not flatly reject the suggestion and said that he would study the offer. The $100 million was to be in gold. 
     Even though the sale did not go through, the United States ended up with the military bases it wanted anyway. The US Air Force currently maintains two bases in Greenland, Thule and Sondestrom. 

     The Thule base was made possible by a defense treaty signed by the United States and Denmark in 1951. Originally designed as a refueling base for long-range bombing missions, it has been a ballistic missile early warning site and satellite telemetry station since 1961. Sondestrom’s mission is in support of the base at Thule. 
     The US military presence is not something that the local population welcomes with open arms, but considering the United States pays rent, which makes up to 20 percent of Greenland’s budget they tolerate their presence. 
     The 2013 estimated population of Greenland was 56,370 of whom 88 percent are Greenlandic Inuit, with the remaining being mainly Greenland Danes. 
     Nearly all Greenlanders live along the fjords in the south-west of the main island, which has a relatively mild climate, with more than 17,000 people residing in Nuuk, the capital city. 
     The island is about 1,650 miles long and up to 620 miles wide. The biggest part is covered by ice. This layer of ice is the second biggest connected mass of ice in the world and has an average thickness of over 4,900 feet. In some places it's over 11.000 feet thick! 
     It has cool summers and very cold winters. For example its capital, Nuuk has an average January low temperature 14 degrees F and an average July high of just 50 degrees F. During the summer months it is warmest and driest on land closest to the ice sheet. 
     In all parts of the country the weather is locally changeable and can vary from fjord to fjord and from one valley to the next. The air is generally very dry in Greenland in relation to many other countries, and because of this low humidity the low temperatures do not feel as cold as you might expect. On the other hand, the dry air means that you must drink more water than normal. The low humidity also means that you can see further than you are probably used to. Mountain crests that appear to be close are usually further away than you think. 

Greenland Glacier Melt Actually Warped Earth's Crust  
Facts about Greenland for beginners  
What Its Like To Live At The US's Most Remote Air Base

Abreva for Cold Sores

    Cold sores, also called fever blisters, are a common viral infection. As a child I remember having had cold sores, but a couple of weeks ago for the first time in decades one showed up.
     There are a number of home remedies available. In my case, soaking it down regularly with camphor spirits worked quite well, but it took about four days for the thing to disappear. 
     I felt another one coming on a week or two later and this time I tried Abreva.  The stuff was a miracle! But, it must be used at the first sign; if you wait it may be too late. 
     Abreva is pretty expensive...$15-20 for a small pump that puts out a little more than you need causing some waste. However, if you are VERY careful you can get a tiny dab which is all it takes. You smear the stuff on the area 4-5 times a day. There was improvement in one day.  Highly recommended!

Identifying Newspaper Editions

    This may not seem like a big deal, but it is important to be aware of the fact that when large newspapers publish more than one edition a day, they often use dots or stars to indicate the time of day the paper was published. For example, The Wall Street Journal shows the stars just in front of the price.
     Why is this important? Knowing this will prevent you from believing stupid stuff like the following meme appearing on Facebook: 

     The claim is that the WSJ published the paper with the same date that was sold in different areas depending on what political parties were in the majority in that area. The meme also claims the media is “training your brain” and warning us to open our eyes before it's too late.
      It's probably true that you can't believe everything printed in any newspaper, but the odds are that a Facebook meme is far more unreliable. The people who need to open their eyes and who are having their brains trained are the people who believe Facebook memes that are designed to cater to their confirmation bias. 

     In the case of The Wall Street Journal, the early edition on the left (two stars) was published after President Trump met with the president of Mexico and was about the cooperative tone of their meeting. The later edition on the right (4 stars) referenced his speech later in the day concerning immigration and his stance that Mexico should pay for “The Wall.” 

 

     I also read some comments by people who stated the news they read in thier part of the country was slanted differently than the same news that was printed in a different part of the county. Why is this surprising? 
     While there are national daily newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, most Americans get their news from a local newspaper. The vast majority of these papers are controlled by five companies (Tronc, Gannett, McClatchy, GateHouse Media and Digital First Media). 
     Digital First Media is owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which is owned and controlled by New York investor Randall Smith.   It's not exactly clear who owns GateHouse which owns small-town dailies and weeklies in 36 states, but it's believed that it is also controlled by a New York hedge fund. 
     Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the US, is a publicly traded company and does not appear to be heavily involved in politics. McClatchy is also publicly traded and likewise does not appear heavily involved in politics. Tronc seems to save a fairly equal mix of Republicans and Democrats. 
     The point is, depending on who controls the papers and to a certain extent the personal views of those writing the stories, there is bound to be some bias depending on what corporation owns your newspaper. Nevertheless, do you really want to base your opinions on Facebook memes?

Want To Get Away From It All? Here's Where To Go.

Auricular Hypertrichosis aka Ear Hair

     Before you were born, your body had soft hair all over, including your ears. This is called lanugo. It can sometimes take a few weeks for it to go away, especially for babies who are born early. But, when you get old, at least if you are a man, ear hair can come back with a vengeance. 
     It’s rare, but babies born to women with diabetes can have hairy ears. Studies show that the better a woman controls it while pregnant, the less likely the baby is to have it. 
     But, what about ear hair you see on old men...rampant tufts of hair springing out of their nose and ears and eyebrows that look like a caterpillar? It can be comical, but it can also cause problems. 
     Ear hair generally refers to the terminal hair arising from folliculary cartilage inside the external auditory meatus in humans, but it can also include the fine vellus hair covering much of the ear. 

Ear geometry

     Hair growth within the ear canal is often observed to increase in older men...together with increased growth of nose hair. Excessive hair growth within or on the ear is known medically as auricular hypertrichosis. 

# Hair that migrates so that it touches the eardrum may cause tinnitus. 
# Folliculitis of ear hair may cause acute and localized infections. 
# Severe hypertrichosis of the external ear during minoxidil therapy, where excessive hair covers the ears, may cause ear canal occlusion, potentially resulting in partial or complete deafness. 

     Scientists don't exactly know what causes excessive hair to sprout like weeds from places like the ears and nostrils but Dr. David Liebovitz, an associate professor of Medicine at Northwestern University, guesses that it has to do with hormones and the life cycle of hair. 
     Hairs grow in three stages: anagen - head hair naturally remains in the anagen phase for an extended period of time, up to several years. Catagen - hair on your arms moves on to the phase in a matter of weeks. This stage is when hair stops growing and transitions to the… dormant telogen phase - hair stops lengthening and eventually falls out naturally through shedding or external trauma such as pulling. 
    Dr. Liebovitz says some types of hair develop anagen sensitivity as we grow older. The long term exposure of hair follicles to hormones such as testosterone will disrupt and lengthen their growing period. That's why nose, ear, and eyebrow hair can grow like weeds as we age. 
     Testosterone is produced in hair follicles and different areas of hair on the body respond to testosterone differently. Testosterone causes hair to grow in the beard, pubic, and underarm area, and it causes hair to shrink on the scalp, which develops into thinning hair or hair loss. 
     When young, this manly substance fills a man's whole body, but it evaporates with age. The result is hair grows on the ears and out the nose, but not on the head. 
     There used to be a lot of beliefs about ear hair that have been proven to be false. It used to be thought that hairy ears were an inherited trait that was passed along on the Y (male) chromosomes, but nobody believes that anymore.
     Back in 1984, a couple of doctors announced that hair in the ear canal plus a crease in the ear lobe were signs that you were susceptible to heart attack. In 1985 the doctors conceded that hairy, creased ears were pretty useless as a predictor of a heart attack. In the 1984 study it was found 74 percent of the men had hairy ears, but you couldn't tell how old they were based solely on volume. 
     Generally hairy ears won’t cause any serious health problems, but most men want it removed. This can be accomplished by... 
Shaving. The results won’t last long; it will grow back in 1–3 days. 
Plucking. Use tweezers to grab the base and yank it out. Since it will come out by the root, it can take 1–8 weeks for it to grow back. 
Waxing. The results will last for 2–8 weeks. After you spread the wax on, it hardens, then pull the wax off quickly, which also pulls out the hair. 
Hair removal cream (depilatories) Use them only on the outer part of your ear. 
Laser hair removal. It take s a pro, it's expensive and can take 6–8 sessions, but it gets rid of the hair forever. 

     Let's talk about nose hair. First, a lot of nerves are routed through nose hair follicles which explains why yanking them out can hurt. 
     The thick, black hairs usually start to creep out of the nostrils around the age of thirty and it keeps getting worse and it can grow as much as one third of an inch per month. It can grow as much as 1/3 of an inch per month! 
     Many experts assert that nose hair growth is linked to an increase in the hormone dihytestosterone (DHT), which is more prevalent in men than women, and is the hormone responsible for causing male pattern baldness. 
     We have nose hair for several reasons. It acts as a barrier against bacteria and germs floating in the air, invisible to the naked eye. Secondly nose hair warms and moistens the air we breathe. 

Why you shouldn't pluck your nose hair.

The Last Flight of the Airship USS Shenandoah

    On September 3, 1925, the airship USS Shenandoah crashed in the hills of Southeast Ohio. Fourteen crew members were killed, the wreckage was torn apart by local looters, and the whole disaster foreshadowed the beginning of the end for dirigibles.
      The Shenandoah was the first of four Navy rigid airships. It was constructed during 1922–23 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, and first flew in September 1923. It made the first crossing of North America by airship. On the 57th flight Shenandoah was destroyed in a squall line over Ohio in September of 1925. 
     In the 1920s, dirigibles and airships populated the skies alongside airplanes. European countries had long used airships for military purposes, so in 1923 the US Navy launched the nation’s first rigid dirigible, the USS Shenandoah. The Shenandoah would be the first dirigible in the world to use helium, instead of dangerous and highly volatile hydrogen. When completed, the Shenandoah was housed in Lakehurst, New Jersey. 
     The Shenandoah gained notability in 1924 when it completed a transcontinental flight. Due to this well-publicized adventure, the airship, once conceived as a scouting vessel, quickly became more useful to the Navy as a promotional tool. The Shenandoah was scheduled to spend the late summer of 1925 visiting state fairs in the Midwest. It was a mission that apparently did not sit well with the airship’s commanding officer. 

     Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowne was from Greenville, Ohio and was aware that late summer brought sudden, severe and unpredictable weather to the Great Lakes region, and when he icded his concerns to his superior officers, they were only partially heeded; the Navy delayed the flight to September, but refused to cancel it. 
     On September 3, 1925, as the Shenandoah started on the publicity tour, it ran into a powerful squall line that tore it in half. Due to the violent destruction of the Shenandoah while it was still airborne, the ship’s crash site is actually three crash sites. The stern section crashed near Ava, Ohio, the bow section was blown along the wind until it landed near Sharon, Ohio over 2 miles away. The ship’s control car fell near Ava on what is now Ohio State Route 821. Forty-three officers and men were aboard. Fourteen died. 


     Almost immediately after the crash locals started looting the crash site. Two weeks after the crash, Justice Department agents and prohibition agents conducted a series of raids in West Virginia and Ohio to recover stolen artifacts from the Shenandoah. Among the recovered article were personal luggage of several members of the ship’s crew and a cap said to have been worn by Commander Zachary Lansdowne. 

     The Shenandoah crash would be the first of several crashes that would ultimately push the United States, and the world, away from lighter-than-air flight and toward sole reliance on planes for air travel. In 1933, the USS Akron, another navy airship, crashed in a storm off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 people. Two years later, another storm crashed Akron’s sister ship USS Macon, killing two crew members. Two years after that, the Hindenburg exploded over New Jersey, killing 36 people and effectively ending the common use of airships.
     At 3:30 am on September 3, 1925, Lieutenant Commander Lansdowne, was worried because it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the 690-foot airship steady in the mounting turbulence over southeastern Ohio. 
     Charles B. Rosendahl, who had just come on duty as navigator, asked their position, but Lansdowne didn't because he was watching the altimeter and the bubble on the inclination scale bouncing back and forth crazily as the dirigible rose and fell in gigantic columns of air. After checking the chart, Rosendahl was surprised at how little progress they had made during the stormy night. Their position was somewhere near Cambridge, Ohio. Their airspeed was 65 miles per hour, but the estimated ground speed was zero! 
     Aviation Pilot Franklin Masters was on duty and was fighting the control wheel that controlled the giant tail fin. Masters informed Rosendahl that they had encountered the squall line an hour earlier and were still in it. 
     Rosendahl knew Lansdowne was the Navy’s most experienced officer in lighter-than-air craft and how he had done his utmost for more than a year to discourage the secretary of the Navy from foolishly scheduling dirigible flights over the American Midwest, where they were frequently at the mercy of unpredictable local storms just like this one. He also sensed that the Captain was worried about this storm 
     In the radio shack, Chief Radio Engineer George C. Schnitzer had the best radio equipment available; it had a range of 3.000 miles, but trying to pick up weather reports was useless because of the static in the atmosphere. 
     For the next hour Lansdowne and Rosendahl tried to keep the ship on the proper heading at an altitude of approximately 3,000 feet, but it was useless. Even with its six 300-hp engines at full throttle, the Shenandoah barely responded to the controls. It's fabric-covered frame, aluminum girders and equipment came loose and was making a terrible racket. 
     At 4:30 am Pilot Masters was relieved and as he made his way to the bunk room he saw that the interior framework twisting and straining so violently that the dirigible’s silk skin was alternately tight as a drum, then wrinkled . Meanwhile, fuel drums had snapped their cables and were rolling against the delicate skeleton. From his post in the gondola of engine No. 3, Aviation Machinist’s Mate Ralph Jones sensed trouble mostly because of the constant erratic signals coming from the control car. 
     They should have been over mid-Pennsylvania, but instead, they were battling terrific winds over farmland in Noble County, Ohio that belonged to Andy Gamara and his neighbors. 
     At 5 am Gamara’s wife woke him to say she thought she had been hearing airplane engines overhead for the last half hour. Gamara expected the sound top fade away, but when it didn't he and his wife got dressed and went outside to have a look. During lightning flashes they could barely make out the Shenandoah. 
     In the control cabin at 5:25 am the ship was between 2,600 and 2,700 feet when, without warning, it ran into a gigantic current of warm air rising and the altimeter registered an ascent of 2,100 feet. The dirigible was careening heavily to the port side with its nose pointing skyward until it looked as though it might soon stand on its tail. The ship kept climbing out of control, then for about three minutes they were at around 4,600 feet and were almost on an even keel.
     By 4,800 feet they were slowly climbing, but everything looked under control.  Then they started climbing again and they couldn’t check the vertical ascent. When the air inside the control cabin suddenly changed from cold to warm, moist and heavy, Rosendahl realized they were caught in a powerful mass of rising air. 
     By this time they were at 6,200 feet. And, their control valves that bled off hydrogen began getting stuck. Rosendahl shouted that they had to get the nose down or they would break up. 
     The aluminum girders that made up the frame had already started to twist out of shape from the strain. The Cpatain gave orders to jettison all water and fuel possible to lighten their tail. As Rosendahl ventured inside of the dirigible he heard unbelievable noise: a sound like the roar of surf, sharp snapping noises, straining and squeals. It was then he realized they were doomed. 
     At 7,200 feet the airship showed no signs of responding to any control inputs. Lansdowne then ordered that all men turn to and start manually turning valves releasing hydrogen to get the nose down. Once outside the cabin he heard the helmsman shout that the control cable had snapped and then there was a tearing, snapping noise and when he looked back, he saw the control cabin had fallen off the ship and plunging to earth. 
     The aluminum girders started buckling and there was a high-pitched, ripping scream as the fabric started tearing to shreds and the airship was simply torn apart. As Rosendahl and another crewman watched, the entire bow section in which they clinging broke away from the rest of the airship and started to float away. 
     At 5:35 am Aviation Machinist’s Mate Ralph Jones sensed the entire ship was falling. Opening the hatch on the engine gondola where he was stationed, he was greeted with a terrible sight...entire nose of the dirigible had completely disappeared and above the aircraft was in shreds. It was light enough for him to see patches of farmland as the ground rushed up at great speed. 
     At the same time, other crew member also realized the ship had disintegrated and the also could see the ground rushing up; all the could do was hope there was enough gas left in the bags to let them down safely. 
     Thirteen men had been killed in the control cabin, eight were floating in space in the cleanly sheared off bow section and 17 more were in the main part of the ship. 
     That main part of the ship was dropping fast, blown along by the wind at about 20 knots as it began to skim the treetops. On the ground Gamara and his wife had watched the gondola separate and the rest of the ship start falling.
     Trapped in the gondola which was still attached to the main framework Jones had no way to escape. But, the engine was still running and he hoped the forward motion might give some lift to the doomed ship. Then the gondola glided over some bushes, plowed into the ground and somehow Jones miraculously survived. 
     Those aft had a harder time. They hung on tightly and watched trees whizzing past and when the dangling engines struck the ground and wrenched loose, the momentarily lightened main section rose 100 feet into the air and drifted down through a clump of trees. 
     It was 6 am, cold and rainy when the survivors, none of them badly injured limped onto a knoll where farmer Gamara arrived and advised them where the gondola had landed. Lieutenant Richardson then headed for the control car knowing what he would find. 
     While all this was going on, the nose section was still about 1,500 or 2,000 feet up with eight people in it, including Rosendahl who ordered that the gas be bled off by hand and that the crew rig trailing lines that would, hopefully, catch hold of something on the ground. He estimated their forward speed to be around 30 miles per hour. 
     By 6:10 am they were only 200 feet above the ground and what was left of the ship was bucking like crazy. Looking down at the trailing lines, Rosendahl saw saw what he thought to be a piece of equipmen,t but it was a man swinging not more than 50 feet above the ground.  Then the whole nose section flipped upward in an air current, gyrating wildly, and the man at the end of the line began spinning in ever-tightening circles. It was one of the lieutenants who thought maybe he could get low enough to skid to the ground and snag the trailing end of the line around a tree trunk. Then the line broke and the lieutenant was flung to his death. 
     At 6:32 am two walking along the road near the town of Sharon two miners saw what seemed like a dirigible coming in for a landing, but then they noticed that most of the ship was missing. For a minute the ship slowed, hovered directly over them at about 75 feet. A man shouted downward telling them to secure the trailing lines to anything they could. The miners failed, got tangled in the ropes and were drug along the ground for 200 yards before they got loose.
     A farmer finally managed to seize one of the trailing lines after the section smashed into his out buildings and ran around a large tree with it. When they finally landed, one man broke his leg and shoulder; the others were uninjured.
     The date was September 3. Captain Lansdowne was to transfer to sea duty on the 15th. Navy officials were strongly censured for their irresponsibility in risking lives and equipment in dangerous weather conditions. Army Lt. Col. Billy Mitchell — already in trouble because of his criticism of military leaders — made a statement claiming the Navy and War departments were guilty of ‘incompetency, criminal neglect and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense; he would face a court-martial as a result of his comment).

Maps Are Deceiving

Old Magazines

Cover of February 1920

     Old magazines are always interesting. Back in my military days while stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, I visited the library one Sunday and discovered a pile of Life magazines from the 1940s. They made fascinating reading because I could read about World War II in “real time”, before the outcome was known. 
     Another time at the flea market I bought a stack of Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1920s for $20. If you didn't mind the musty smell, they were captivating reading. I remember seeing a new invention… 

Yes, it's a coat hook. 

     Radio was coming into its own and there were a lot of articles on them, and cars, too. In the letters to the editor section there was one letter from a college physics professor that particularly stood out. He explained why space travel would never be possible. 
     Google "Life Magazine Google" and you will discover many old issues that you can click on and read.  If you Google “Popular Science Google” you will get a lot of pages of early issues. Here is a partial list of the contents of the February, 1920 issue: 
Aeronautics 
Two All-Metal Airplanes 
Feather Weight Air Mail 
Cranking the Airplanes 

Industrial Progress 
Cutting Steel Bars With Giant Scissors 
The Machine With a Dipper That Digs and Dumps 
Taking Shorthand on a Machine 
An Electric Divining Rod 

Motor Vehicles and Accessories 
An Automobile Ambulance for Injured Cars 
A Special Hitch for Pulling Wagons and Trailers 

Natural Science 
Is Yellow Light Best 
How Fast Does a Bird Fly? 
Wood That Competes With Steel 
Meet the Cattalo, a New American Half Breed 

Here's an idea that didn't fly...an airplane with folding wings. It flew later, but not with so many folds!

Muckleheads

     These harmless, but annoying, boogers are also known as midges, lake flies, sand flies, muffleheads, Canadian soldiers or American soldiers. Many species superficially resemble mosquitoes, but they lack the wing scales and elongated mouth parts. They don't bite and are harmless. 
     In their adult stage, they have no mouth and they are only alive for about 24-48 hours. Larval stages can be found in almost any aquatic or semiaquatic habitat, including tree holes, vegetation, soil and in sewage and artificial containers. In this neck of the woods they are found around Lake Erie, beginning in early June. 
     While a pest to humans, they are a primary food source for walleye, perch and bass and on shore birds eat them. 
     They have about a two-year life span, most of which they spend in the sediment at the bottom of Lake Erie. The larvae swim ashore, shed their outer layer and sprout wings and a long tail and that's when the fun begins. They are annoying. They can damage paint, brick, and other surfaces with their droppings. When large numbers of adults die, they can build up into malodorous piles, sometimes a couple of inches thick and they crunch when you walk on them. They can provoke allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. 
     Swarms can be so big that they show up on radar as seen on this screenshot of radar near Toledo, Ohio.

 Muckleheads swarming over Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland weatherman Andre Bernier and muckleheads.

Scratch-Built 1903 Wright Flyer

    Here is a fun project for anyone who enjoys building models, especially airplanes. This site has plans for a simple, scratch-built 1903 Wright Flyer that was developed by Roger Storm at the NASA Glenn Research Center.
     The model uses foam meat trays for the wings, toothpicks for most of the wooden parts and a small piece of balsa wood or bamboo  skewers for longer wooden parts. You canprobably get everything you need at the grocery store.
     There are also plans for the rigging and you are shown how to make a model pilot using parts from three plastic soldiers. Templates can be printed out in pdf format. The best 12 page instructions can be downloaded at Teacher Link. 

   The 1903 Wright Flyer was a strange bundle of wire and cables that had little in common with today’s planes, but the Wrights’ ingenuity in identifying and controlling the complex forces that act on an aircraft in flight are still amazing.
     The pilot laid prone facing the two-surface horizontal elevator. On modern aircraft the elevator and rudder are combined in the tail, but on the Flyer the elevator was in front and the rudder behind. 
     The two elevator surfaces generated lift and provide a reference point to the horizon. They also served to give the pilot some protection if he crashed. The reason for the pilot lying prone was create slightly less drag than a seated pilot.
     The half a gallon of fuel on board was calculated to be enough to fly for 20 minutes. They engine, at the pilot's right, was started by moving a horizontal lever using the pilot's right hand to the center position. This opened the cock connecting the fuel line to the engine. Assistants then pulled the propellers, mounted in the rear and rotating I opposite direction, through in unison. The rotation in opposite directions canceled torque which tends to pull an airplane in the opposite direction of its propeller’s rotation. 
     Once the engine was running an assistant released the restraining wires and the plane rolled on the two hubs made from bicycle wheels along a single rail. Once the airspeed reached 20 knots, which took about 40 feet, the pilot, using his left hand pulled back very slightly on the elevator which increased lift enough to get the plane airborne. 
     Aviation pioneers attempted to control flight in only two axes: pitch—nose up and down, and yaw—nose side-to-side, but the Wrights were the first to understand the third: roll. They used a wing-warping system controlled the aircraft's movement around its longitudinal axis by use of a sliding hip cradle. The hip cradle deflected the edges of the wings’ outboard sections and caused the airplane to bank while the center section stayed rigid to support the propeller shafts and transmission chains. 

     By sliding his hips, the pilot could tip one wing up and the other down causing the plane to roll in the desired direction. In the roll one wing produces slightly more lift while the other produces a slight drag. This causes the plane to roll. Today this is accomplished by ailerons. This creates an adverse yaw...the plane's nose is pointed away from the turn. The Wrights corrected for this by connecting the rear rudder to the wing-warping system. 
     As the airplane rolled, say to the right, the cables pivot the rudder so that its trailing edge points right. The rudder resists the yaw caused by the slowed left wing, holding the airplane so that the nose points into the turn. Even today when making a coordinated turn it is necessary for the pilot to coordinate the turn using both the rudder and ailerons.
     At the end of the flight the plane landed on the sand using skids which usually ended up breaking something. The ash-and-spruce frame then had to be repaired.