Soon after publication of Jose Weiss’s flexible wing patent (No. 17150) on 14 August, 1908, Handley Page began building his canard glider, with the help of his first employee, Tucker, and his first two premium pupils, Cyril W. Meredith and Arthur Dukinfield Jones.
With this apparatus he hoped to emulate the Wright brothers by teaching himself to fly. His attempts to take off from the sloping dykes adjoining Barking Creek were unsuccessful, but at least he learned the necessity for a long skid to bridge the many ditches lying in wait to trip and break an unprotected wheeled chassis; these would have been fatal to an unguarded airscrew.
All Aero 