Chanute provided his multiple glider with a seat, but, since each glide only occupied between eight and twelve seconds, there was little possibility of the operator seating himself. With the multiple glider a pair of horizontal bars provided rest for the arms, and beyond these was a pair of vertical bars which the operator grasped with his hands; beyond this, the operator was in no way attached to the machine. He took, at the most, four running steps into the wind, which launched him in the air, and thereupon he sailed into the wind on a generally descending course. In the matter of descent Chanute observed the sparrow and decided to imitate it. 'When the latter,' he says, 'approaches the street, he throws his body back, tilts his outspread wings nearly square to the course, and on the cushion of air thus encountered he stops his speed and drops lightly to the ground. So do all birds. We tried it with misgivings, but found it perfectly effective. The soft sand was a great advantage, and even when the experts were racing there was not a single sprained ankle.'