( ml Ilk ) V) \J ip Hw) \ / J mkM \ ZaA J|fj /jfip pW iI >k ~ ,t \\i m Will we yet fly through the air as! easily as we flash across the continent by rail to-day, many times more quickly, and far more profitably and economi cally. too? • \v : e •• he civilized portions IOW pretty generally 11. A few decades ago Since then, in the nat events, several things .•tied to cause them to face d it would surprise none to p to-morrow—next week—next to the certain knowledge that man is flying at last. "Impossible!" you exclaim in tones that savor of disgust at such a vision. That is the very word the great body of people employed when, at one time or another, a single man, or, at least, a small body of men, were firm in the belief that we would yet sail by steam, send messages by dots over wires, actually talk over wires, ride in horseless car riages, send and receive messages over thousands of miles of space without the aid, < veil, of intervening wires! And this is the word that a great many of lis let rise to our lips when we hear a learned man, orthodox in all things ehe, solemnly declare that we will yet lly. Fly, not float, mind you. W'e can float in the air now. The trick is nothing. W'e liave been float ing in the air, lo! these many decades past. The balloon is a floating bag. merely. This is true of both the dirigible and non-dirigible types. In each case the thing that gets the balloon up in the air and keeps it suspended there is gas. Gas, as every one knows, is a substance lighter than air, and so it is capable, when used in sufficient quantity, to float the silken cloth, the ropes, the woven basket, and whatever else goes into the make-up of the contraption we call a balloon. But the invention that is to give us the mastery of the now uncharted high ways of the air will travel along these very highways 011 its own initiative. It will be an active, not a passive, so journer in the realm nf overhead. In this feature it will he like unto the bird, and again, like the bird, it will be heavier, many times heavier, than the air itself. A vulture's body is a thou sand times heavier than the air it dis- The Cameron County Press. 1'» places; the machine in which man will prove to the world the complete prac ticability and utility of air travel will be—who knows how many hundred times heavier than the substance filling the un seen and boundless sea through which it will shoot with speed outrivalling the homing pigeon's, with the steadiness and docility of an old family horse? And our (light through space will be in conscious imitation of the flights of the birds. Every bird, every flying thing, flies be cause it-, flight is based upon the resist ance offered to the air by its wings, lu other words, we shall never attain llii'ht by merely displacing air, as we do when floating in the straight out b: 1 41 PICTORIAL,COLOR AND [AAGAZINL 2LCTION EMPORIUM, PA., SEPTEMBER 27, 1906. loon or the so-called airship of to-day. Further, we will fly as does the pigeon. It,"in full flight, raises itself' by each of its rapid wing beats, an almost im perceptible distance, and shoots forward between each flap along a plane of very slight inclination, downwards by just the amount the wing beat raises it, and for wards a considerable distance—the re sult being rapid flight."' Our flight, then, will be a gradual gliding down an inclined plane and a constant recovery by upshoots. In some forms of flight these two actions occur almost simultaneously. So will they 'in the perfected flying machine, insuring a delightful sense of safety to the passen ger, nonchalantly defiant of the law of gravitation, he knowing full well the ma chined ability constantly and arbitrarily to correct the position of the center of gravity, bird fashion, thus insuring permanent stability in the air. The wisest of men declare all this; still, you say, a dream—a phantasma goria of the brain? Surely not when man has already flown in or flown machines as the pigeon flies! Time after time' the aerodrome —air runner—invented by the late Prof. F. P. I-angley, of the Smithsonian Institution. glided on an inclined plane forward through the air, recovered itself and glided again. Though the public has not yet seen it in action, there are many trustworthy men who have testified to having beheld the flying machine of the Wright brothers, of Ohio, gliding through the air like a bird. Any scien tist who has paid any attention what ever to aeronautics will. tell you that Pilcher's gliding machine acts in the aii just like a bird in flight. And there are others. Like a bird in gliding flight have they traveled overhead for varying distances. No bag of gas lifted thein in the air and kept them suspended therein, while a motor or an engine of some sort fur nished driving power to a propeller, as in the case of the Santos Dumont and other airships. Like a bird they have sailed; remained in the air by reason of their own initiative, the power furnished by motors or engines causing the me chanisms to offer the necessary bird-like resistance to the air, with the result of actual flight. But, alas, because we do not yet pos sess the full knowledge of the principle of flight, as does the meanest of birds and flying insects, those flying machines which have justified their name, in part at least, have been wont to play queer tricks at the most inopportune moments on their inventors and an anxiously watching and waiting world. And so, though the greatest ambition of the world to-day seems to be to fly, many of us have come to say, with a regret ful shake of the head, "We will never fly." Right here, up steps the greatest wizard of his day, Thomas A. Edison, to say tliat man ought to be ashamed of himselif for not having solved the problem, in all its phases, long ago. "I was down in Florida, and one day I watched a big bird—l think it was a vulture—that floated about in the air a whole hour without moving its wings perceptibly. When God made, that bird He gave it a machine to fly with, but He didn't give it much else. He gave the bird a very small brain with which to direct the movements of the machine, but He gave toman a much larger brain in proportion to that of the bird." All this is paraphrased in the one word "Shame!" "Here," says Edison of the vulture, "is a natural flying machine which is a thousand times as heavy as the air it displaces. There is nothing but a ma chine and a small brain, and it is not a very remarkable machine, either." And then in self-evident disgust: "Why is it that man cannot make a flying machine as efficient as a bird? "A lot of people say that it was never meant that man should fly, that if na ture had intended such a thing man would have been provided with the necessary machinery in his body, such as is now possessed by the bird. But you might as well say that it was never intended that man should ever have any light aside from the sun and the moon and stars which were originally pro vided for him, or that he should not move about faster with the aid of wheels because no wheels were supplied to him by nature." Through further study of the bird and its method of flight man will discover how to fly, says Mr. Edison, and all others who have given the subject any serious thought agree with him fully. But, Mr. Edison adds, somewhat para doxically, he who solves the problem of flight "will find out nothing new. Pow erful motors of wonderful compactness will be applied to a framework of ex treme lightness, and that will be all there is to it. "Doubtless this • framework will be something similar to the physical struc ture of a bird. I do not believe it will be difficult, because we have many me chanical devices now which are superior l to the devices used by nature in human beings and animals, and I do not tee why we may not put together a con trivance which will at least be equal to the machine and brain of the bird.'" So, if man-flight is such an easy mat ter as Mr. Edison makes it out to be, why have we not been navigating the air these many years? For one thing, we have only recently, in our attempts to fly, left off trying to be original and endeavored to copy the bird, the handi work of nature. It is a significant fact that only since we have looked to the bird for the secret of flight has there been built a machine with an indisput able record of flying ever so small a distance. Only since we have begun to imitate the bird have the wise men be come convinced that we will yet fly. And some day—some day—ah, who would not like his name togo rolling : down the ages as the inventor of the first machine to demonstrate beyond the : shadow of a doubt the complete con quest of the air by man? Though man, when he flies, will fly like the birds, it does not necessarily follow that the flying machine, on ac count of its structure, might be taken for some long surviving antideluvian in habitant of the air. Indeed, not a few scientists who have been busy with aero nautics declare that, once man lias dis covered the principle of flight, his won derful ingenuity will enable him to con struct a machine that will incorporate the principle and at the same time have nothing about it resembling wings in the slightest degree. Propellors there will be, and a rudder, doing the work of wings and tail. But it will be flight without wings—and we have been taught from childhood that even the angels need wings to fly. Other scien tists, however, believe that there will be great planes, two or more, mechanically worked like wings, in conjunction with propellors and rudder. Again, in their perfected state, pro pellors and rudder will do more than to give flight. Once more man will im prove on nature, and the mechanisms of his ingenuity will drive the good air ma chine through gales that the strongest bird could not face, will keep it se renely on its course, while birds. | caught in the swirling, clashing, battling currents, will l><- hurtled miles out of their path, to be brought up bruised and torn in the friendly foliage of some 1 strange country- Will the shell of the machine be of ' steel? Certainly of that or some other material equally strong, and, like -.eel, ■ many times heavier than the air it dis , places. : The shape of the machine? Probably , that of a bird's body—a huge, torpedo i like structure, with one nose pointed and [ the other blunted somewhat. The artists, ■ taking their cue from the scientists, have been picturing it thus for several years now. What will drive it? Motors of well nigh miraculous power, and many times i lighter in weight than machinery cap i able of such power could now be built, ■ just as the automobile .motor of to-day . is infinitely lighter than the motor of > only a few years ago even, and the 112 mighty engines of the modern "ocean - greyhound" are lighter than the weak - lings of fifty odd years ago. And the motors will revolve the pro pellers so astonishingly fast that flight ' will be born of this very rapidity of ' motion, offering resistance' to the air; ■ and flight will be sustained by it, as in i the case of the bird, and as was the case • for a short time with Prof. Langley's ' aerodrome. How fast will we travel? The wild goose, with a brain much smaller in pro portion than man's, has a speed, in full flight, of from two hundred to three hundred miles an hour. Surely we will not journey through the air at less than this speed, we who arc the brains of the universe! A mile every sixteen 01 twelve seconds, the Atlantic crossed in a single night, an after-luncli and be fore-dinner trip between New York and Chicago, a run of minutes merely from the metropolis to the Hub! What will give life to the driving ma chinery? There is a wide diversity of opinion, but all are agreed that its bulk will be very small, its weight light, and a little will go a very long way. Per haps, say the most daring, man, as he flies, will snatch the necessary electric power from space, and in his air con veyances there will be nothing to re semble the giant fuel bunkers of the ocean greyhounds. When man flies our wars will be fought in the air: the victor will lay (Continued on Page 2)
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