did, leave the ground. At the same time, there were few who
were sufficiently hardy to say certainly that this or that
innovation was wrong; and consequently dozens of inventors in
every country were conducting isolated experiments on both good
and bad lines. All kinds of devices, mechanical and otherwise,
were claimed as the solution of the problem of stability, and
there was even controversy as to whether any measure of
stability was not undesirable; one school maintaining that the
only safety lay in the pilot having the sole say in the attitude
of the machine at any given moment, and fearing danger from the
machine having any mind of its own, so to speak. There was, as
in most controversies, some right on both sides, and when we
come to consider the more settled period from 1912 to the
outbreak of the War in 1914 we shall find how a compromise was
gradually effected.

At the same time, however, though it was at the time difficult
to pick out, there was very real progress being made, and,
though a number of 'freak' machines fell out by the wayside, the
pioneer designers of those days learnt by a process of trial and
error the right principles to follow and gradually succeeded in
getting their ideas crystallised.

In connection with stability mention must be made of a machine
which was evolved in the utmost secrecy by Mr J. W. Dunne in a
remote part of Scotland under subsidy from the War office. This
type, which was constructed in both monoplane and biplane form,
showed that it was in fact possible in 1910 and 1911 to design an
aeroplane which could definitely be left to fly itself in the
air. One of the Dunne machines was, for example flown from