Can an automatic vane-based stabilizer really work?
Yes, this vane-based stabilizer really did work. In fact the pendulum system for direction control also worked as it was used to sense yaw in a slip, just like the ball in a turn and bank indicator.
The entire system worked so well that Orville Wright received the 1913 Collier Trophy &quot;For development of the automatic stabilizer&quot; after demonstrating it for the judges.
The Wright Bros work in automatically controlled flight was overshadowed the following year when Elmer A. Sperry won the 1913 Collier Trophy &quot;For gyroscopic control&quot;.
WRIGHTS DEVELOP AUTOMATIC STABILIZER

In the fall of 1913, Orville installed the stabilizer on a special Wright Model E airplane that utilized a single pusher propeller. He kept the details of the stabilizer secret even from the Wright Company. He purposely waited until the last day of the year to fly for the prize.
He invited the Aero Club’s judges to Huffman Prairie to see a demonstration of his new device on a cold snowy day, December 31st.
He turned up his coat collar, put on a pair of goggles and took off. He made a total of 17 flights.
His most spectacular flight consisted of 7 full circles of the field with both hands held in the air. The automatic stabilizer kept the same angle of bank and almost the same altitude. He wowed the judges and was awarded the prize on February 5, 1914.
The stabilizer was then offered as an option for use with the sale of Wright 1910-1911 Model B flyers.
However, it saw little use, because on June 18, 1914, a young Lawrence Sperry, as part of a great safety competition, unveiled a totally new type of stabilizer to the world. The safety competition was jointly sponsored by the Aero-Club de France and the French War Department.
In his demonstration flight, Sperry took off from the Seine in a Curtiss C-2, climbed to altitude and flew back down the river. At the appropriate moment, his mechanic, Emile Cachin, crawled 7 feet out on the wing as Sperry lifted his hands from the controls and stood up in the cockpit. The plane sped by the judges as the crowd went wild.
What Sperry had done was adapt a balancing mechanism invented by his father, Elmer, for counteracting the rolling of ships, to an airplane. The device employed two gyroscopes that performed the function of the pendulum and vanes in the Wrights’ device.