MAN IN THE AIR. HOW HE LEARNED TO FLY.

THE STORY OF THE AEROPLANE. IT'S PAST, PRESENT^ AND FUTURE. (By, "Autos.") It is well in any anticipation of what the future will bring to keep a rein oa the imagination, and think of the past in it«s relation to the present. So it is in the story of human flight. , We all remember the airships in the stories of our youth — Jules Verne'e "Clipper of the Clouds," Collingwood'e "Flying Fish/ George Griffith's many aerial marvels in ' "The Angel of The Revolution,'" "The Syren of the Skies," and "The Outlaws of the Air,", and H. G. Welle's early conception in "When The Sleeper awakes" — just a few that recur on the spur of the moment. In each case the .inventor launched a wonderful machine — an air-liner or aerial man-of-war, co to epeak — right out of hie head into the broad empyrean. Here wae Robur, the silent captain of "The Clipper of the Clouds" pacing the solid quarter-deck of hie air-cruiser five thousand feet above the earth as calmly as the shipper of the Maori on the bridge during a calm trip down to Lyttelton. Above him revolved a. thousand air-screws on Mgb filim masts; at bow and stern were huge propellers spinning on horizontal shafts, and driving the leviathian of the air at express speed. There were no planes; the vertical screws held her up in the air; the horizontal sped her along. On board were all the luxuries of an- ocean liner, and weight seemed no object. She was a Zeppelin, but heavier than the air, and indifferent to all the breezes that blow. What boy, or what man even, would not have sailed with Robur? How many did sail with him in the regions of the imagination? WELLS THE NEAREST TO TRUTH. So it was with most of the airshipe of the mind. Griffith made his hero produce an aluminium air cruiser with a nice, long shining ram for ripping up the body of the passing foe. He, too, had his vertical screws for giving ' the airship a direct vertical lift from , the ground. 1 fancy, under the propulsion of triple screws, driven by some explosive motor of extraordinary power, ahe s did her 100 miles an hour with eaeo — it may have been 200 — I forget now. It was all co beautiful and entrancing, this conquest of the air in dreams. H. G. Wells came much nearer the actual facts of to-day and to-morrow in his asropile soaring over London a hundred years or so hence. He might very well in the light of what we know now have made it fifty years or even less. His was a one or two-man machine built much on the lines of the monoplane of to-day. Only he had a way of opening a panel in the planes to secure equilibrium, and of making his engine travel up and down to, counteract changes an the centre of gravity longitudinally. His engine was practically the petrol, engine now used, and in every way the conception was worthy of his wonderful genius. A further anticipation of a vast aeroplane-liner carrying a _ hundred or more pasesngers at 100 milea an hour was not so near the mark. It is far from realisation. 'Probably it will never be realised. Kipling in his "Midnight ■Mail," a short 6tory, published ' just 'about the time of the first actual flights, ie more—visionary still* - He brings in agents for annulling the force 6i gravity quite beyond our present conception., THE REAL. STOftY. - - -Let us come-down py a swift volplane to the real etory of mechanical -.flight. We shall find it far more humdrum^ It ia a story of failure, failure^ failure, and at last, by investigation of failure, the attainment of a moderate degree of ; success. It was only the laborious accu- ; mutation oi data as to the behaviour | of solid bodies in the air and 'the progress of invention ' towards "a light, but immensely powerful, motor that enabled men finally to fly. The story of human flight hails back to the legends of Icarus and Daedalus of Ancient Greece, . but it would be vain to- discuss them here. To Leonardo da Vinci, the great Florentine genius, belpnga the honour of having expounded' in writing the first rational ideas of human flight. He noted, for instance, the relation between the centre of pressure and the centre of gravity, the very essence of the problem of equilibrium in the air. He died in 1519. There was no real progress until the beginning of the 19th century, when Sir George Cayley, a gifted Englishman, published some very important observations on the gneat problem. In 1809 he actually made a machine which displayed fine stability. Unfortunately there was no light motor in those days, or Sir George might have gone very far. The French school of aviators recognise him now as the father of mechanical flight. BEFORE THE DAWN. It was not until the last decade of the 19th century that the science of flight made much progress. The period between Cayley, 1809, and Lilienthal, 1889, was singularly barren of any practical results. With Otto Lilienthal, a German engineer, began that close study and constant experiment which at last led to victory. Lilienthal did not live to see j the dawn. He pursued his gliding flights stage, by stage until, in August, 1896, he was caught by a descending .current in mid-air and fell to dea-th. He left behind him a monumental collection of data, from which the Brothers Wright succeeded with the addition of further experiments of their own !in " finally conquering the air. But it is to the intrepid German that the real glory of the pioneer in the unexplored element must belong. He had many pupils — Herring, who assisted Chanute, who assisted the Wrights ; Pileher, the gallant young Englishman who died like Lilienthal ; and Ferber, the Frenchman, who lived to fly mechanically and fall a martyr in la/ter years to his enthusiasm for the new ' science.' OTHER PIONEERS. - • In the meantime it is fitting to mention Lawrence Hargraves, the Australian, who invented the box kite and made models that flew by flapping m the early nineties ; Horatio Phillips, who discovered the principle of the dipping front odge of tne bird's wing ; pud Sir Hiram Maxim, who, in 1893, constructed a full-sized machine with a lift- j *ing surface of 6000 square feet — more than twenty times that of a modern I racing monoplane — and weighing no le&s than 80001b. The main aeroplane was 50ft wide and 47ft long. The machine lifted itself from its running rails to its guide rails, and smashed them. Tht> experiment proved too costly, but Maxim should be remembered not only as the inventor of the machine-gun that goes by his name, but aa one of the air- j pioneers. More Bo still should the name of Samuel (Pierpoint Langley, the American professor, be revered. He spent years on experiments at the Smithsonian Institute, and built a large model which did fly. It was like a butterfly, with ite four wings, two on each side, but in 1896 there were no light petrol motors, and Langley's machine, driven by steam, was really a failuie. He, too, died before the dawn, practically of a broken heart. He contributed most valuable data to aviation. Add to these names those of Chanute in America, and Ader and Archdeacon in Fraaoe 2 and you will

have the maui roll oi the glorious pioneesrs of. mechanical flight. Ader, indeed, did leave the ground .in a curious, bat-like machine in- 1897, but, when it came to a Government trial, the wind blew a gale, the aeroplane would not go, and Ader, discouraged after forty years' labour and the expenditure of two million francs, destroyed his machines, except one, now in the museum at Pam. He, too, died before the dawn. THE FAMOUS BROTHERS WRIGHT. And now we come to the famous Brothers Wright, the pair of cyclemechanice, hailing from Dayton, Ohio, the home of the cash register, who added the last finishing touches to the work of the early pioneers and achieved the actual conquest of air. Their story reads like one of high romance, though no two men in nature could be less romantic. ' They were just a pair of shrewd, keen, indomitable' Yankees, who came on the scene when the petrol motor had been brought to a degree of perfection that made it a feasible means of propulsion for aeroplanes. This is not to say that the Wrights simply designed and built an aeroplane, * installed a motor, and flew. They first spent hard years of experimenting with gliders on the sand-hills of North Carolina before ever they ventured to , build a powerdriven flyer. One would like to retell the story of these trials with gliders, but it would take too long here. One would like to quote at length their . maxims on flight, but the same reason is . prohibitive. Here is just one — the keynote of all' their work: "The soaring problem is apparently not so much one^ of, ibetter wings as of better operators." And it may be noted here jfchat tihere never were more genuinely skilful flyers than the- Wrights. There is only one serious accident recorded against them, and that is the fall by which Orville Wright broke his leg and Lieutenant Selfridge, his passenger, lost his life. That mishap was- due to the propeller severing a wire stay and causing the machine to collapse. It was not due to any fault of the pilot. A "SCOOP" THAT WAS MISSED. One of the strangest phases of the amazing career oi the Wrights is -that they flew scores of times before actually they were discovered to the world. And this in the home of enterprising journalism. There is a paddock quite close to that little town in the Middle West of the United States where they lived. Wilbur and Orville Wright used to go up in their machine and fly for half an hour at a time. This was in 1904 and 1905 — over a year before Saaitos-Dumomt excited the whole world by hopping off the • ground for TOydfc in his clumsy "14 Bis" on 23rd October, 1906, a* Paris. The Wrights weTe fully two years ahead of the French aviators. They did not shirk or shrink from publicity. They even invited the local reporters out to see a trial in that pad-_ dock at Dayton. The reporters came out, but the engine would not work, and -the gentlemen of the press went back never to return. "Those cyclfemeqhanics could fly, I don't think?" one' can imagine them saying. In this way they missed the biggest "scoop" of the century. It was only when Wilbur Wrignt went to Franc© in 1908 and carried all before him that the American public realised the greatness of their fellow-countrymen. It is unnecessary to follow the later career of the Wrights. They were " out after the dollar every time," and soon ceased to fly. They were content to -build machinee and prosecute in the law courts other men for alleged infringement of their patents — a sordid ending to a great romance. GREAT FLIGHTS. Since the sojourn of Wilbur Wright in France in 1908 the- conquest of the air hasDtoceeded apace. New -distances have been covered, new altitudes reached. Surely this is the limit, people say, agape with wonder. But it is not. jTo-day's achievement, is to-morrow's commonplace. Records are made but to be broken. Already men have flown within a few hundred feet of ths height of the highest mountain in New Zealand ; already they iave covered in distance nearly the length of the gap between Wellington and Auckland. But there are some feats that deserve to be remembered for all time. Not that, they have not since been surpassed ; but because) they stand as landma-rks in the progress of _ the art of human flight. First there is the crossing of the English Channel by Louis Bleriot on the 25th July, 1909. Then there is the flight of Paulhan from London to Manchester on the 27th April, 1910. Almost contemporaneous were the exploits of Curtiss and Hamilton in America, Curties flying from Albany to New York down the Hudson river, and Hamilton from New York to Philadelphia and back. Lastly, and the greatest of all, comes that wonderful leap over the Alps of Chavez the Peruvian, who in the moment of triumph fell to his death. These, when the aeroplane is a vehicle of everyday use, and flights across leagues of land and sea are of everyday achievement, will ever be remembered as the deeds of brave men, who fearlessly cast themselves into unknown regions of the unsubstantial air that the way might be safer for their fellows to follow. THE YEAR 1910 IN THE AIR. The year 1910 in the navigation of the air has shown' as great developments as any of its predecessors. The conquest, though not complete, has penetrated still farther into unknown regions. Chief of the features is the evolution of the high speed racing monoplane. By increasing engine power from 50 h.p. to 100 h.p. flying has risen from 50 miles, an hour 'to as much as 75. The effect of this enhanced specd 1 is to enable airmen to combat winds of far greater velocity than ever they would have ventured to face a year ago. Recently flights have been accomplished successfully in winds of 20, 25, and even 30 miles per hour. To gain the extra ten miles an hour, in speed something has been sacrificed in plane supporting surface, to the detriment of the gilding powers which a. breakdown of the engine would at once demand. Moreover, the high velocity with which these racing machines rise from the ground and descend renders their use impracticable, except on artificially smooth aerodromes. THE SPHERE OF THE BIPLANE. Flying began with the biplane. The Wright brothers were the first and the greatest exp6nents of the double-decker, and, unlike Farman, they have never gone back on it. They have discarded their front elevator— many think to the loss of righting power longitudinally, but they still adhere to the two main planes, superimposed one over the other in the form familiar to followers of flying. They have, however, considerably reduced the area of sustaining surface in their racing machine. But the biplane and the monoplane have become differentiated to 3erve separate purposes. The biplane can no longer compete with the monoplane for speed, but it does seem to be able to hold its own for reliability, long distance cross-country flights, and for the pleasure purposes of the amateur. It has been improved structurally, has better methods of control, and stronger landing gear. It seems also to be superior for military purposes, in that it permits the pilot to have an unimpeded view of the ground below. — something the monoplanist has not from his cabin seat. The biplane is so far the most successful all-round craft we have. AUSTRALASIA BEHIND THE FAIR. We have heard of the exploits of Farman, Paulhan, Bleriot, Legnagneaux, Le Blanc, Chavez, Latham, Wynmaler, and many others in France ; of Grace, Grahame .White, Lorraine, Sopwith,

Radley, the late lamented Hon. Stuart Rolls, and others in England ; of Curtiss, the Wrights, Hamilton, Drex&l, Hoxsey, Moisant, and Johnstone in America, Where does Australasia come in? The answer, unfortunately, is nowhere. It was not until the arrival of Mr. J. J. Hammond with a Bristol aeroplane *in Australia that anything that could be called flying has been done at all in the Commonwealth. As for New Zealand, except for fabulous air-ships and unauthenticated flights, there is simply a blank. We have had our inventors, but so far they have been building ' castles in the air, not flying machines. However, there are developments, as we shall see. The isolation of this quarter of the globe has placed us a little- out of the running, or flying, but we come in well at the finish. It should be mentioned, in apology for our poor efforts hitnerto, that there is little air-literature to be obtained in New Zealand ; that we have not the fine mechanical appliances to build' engines or the material to hand to make the aeroplanes, and, lastly, that there are few men here to afford the 'money for the initial expenses of building and testing machines. yOur inventors are handicapped. In Auckland only so far there appears to be any concerted movement towards success, and Auckland is sincerely to be congratulated in an enterprise which merited the approval of men like Dr. Graham Bell and Mr. Baldwin. THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. It would be futile here to cast far into the future for any developments in the aeroplane. It would be easy to imagine such air craft as have been the stock-in trad© of the novelist' who deals with the days to come. But the immediate future is a simpler problem. The present aeroplane has many faults. It has little margin of strength structurally ; ' it has wasteful engines and wasteful propellers j it offers far too much resistance to the air, and in general is not a wholly reliable machine. Development wall, therefore, be in these directions :—(1): — (1) Improvement of construction : The present arrangement of wood, wire, and canvas will have to go. All J metal aeroplanes have already flown, and ] efforts are being made to find satisfactory alloys of aluminium in order that strength may be secured with lightness. Robert Esnault Pelterie showed an excellent design of an all-metal monoplane at the last Paris Aero Exhibition. Stay wires were conspicuous by their absence, and head resistance was reduced to a minimum. (2) Variability of sustaining area : It would be a great advantage to the flying man if he could expand or contract his sail or plane aTea at will in the air. At high speeds very little surface is needed to support large ' weights, but at slow speeds this i 3 not so. Therefore, in rising and descending, or in case of accidents, it would be exceedingly useful to have some means of putting out further wings or planes. A bird has this power. Paulhan, the hero of the London to Manchester flight, has produced a machine which allows its sails to" be reefed, but only on the ground, where it is little use. He, too, has endeavoured by a more solid design of construction to do away with the ' dangerous pianowire stay. (3) Improvement of engine and propeller : Both engine and propeller are inefficient members of the aeroplane, The favourite engine,, the revolving Gnome, is frightfully extravagant in lubricating oil and petrol, and other motors have been tested under severe conditions and found wanting. The propeller itself is still a mystery, and improvements have hitherto proceeded by a sort of rule-of-thumb expensive "trial-and-error" method. The best propellers made come nowhere near theoretical efficiency. Therefore, with development and improvement proceeding alone these lines, the machine of the future will be strong structurally, with the minimum of head resistance, will have efficient and reliable engines with efficient propellers, and will have means for expanding or contracting its sail area, at will. It will also have strong landing chassis. These improvements are already being made, and' there is no doubt the end of the present year will see great developments in the aeroplane along these lines.