In my little book, An Approach to Winged Flight, published in 1928, I advanced the view that the flight of all human gliders might fairly be regarded as a winged flight with locked wings.

I suppose that if the wings were unlocked they would flap upwards and the aviator would come down; but that if they could be unlocked and yet restrained by springs so strong that, until any other force were applied, they would retain their horizorital position, then it seemed credible that their movement would be under the control of the aviator and that, as soon as he knew how to exercise that control to his own advantage, he would actually be flying.