The wind tunnel tests, made from October to December 1901, were described by biographer Fred Howard as "the most crucial and fruitful aeronautical experiments ever conducted in so short a time with so few materials and at so little expense". In their September 1908 "Century Magazine" article, the Wrights explained, "The calculations on which all flying machines had been based were unreliable, and...every experiment was simply groping in the dark...We cast it all aside and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations."