HALFPENNY A MILE FLYING.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17748, 27 April 1923, Page 7

HALFPENNY A MILE FLYING.

MOTOR CYCLE WITH WINGS. "Flying for all!" Not flying for the few. Such has been the dream of air enthusiasts for thirteen years, writes Mr Harry Harper in the "Daily Mail." And now, at last, to-day they see themselves nearing their goal. For little winged machines are being evolved, and will soon be .in flight, ! which are to speed along the aei'tui I highways, carrying their owner-driver in luxurious ease, at a cost in fuel of only about one halfpenny a mile I That is what we are coming to. _ And it presages—those competent to judge deolare—a popular buying and using of small, simple, winged machines which will be the first phase of that great "air age'' in which flying becomes universal. Little aero engines, which are marvels of lightness, are now being built to install in the best and most stable types of motorless glider, and 50 convert wind-soarings-into purposeful aerial journeyings. It is, one should make clear, the wonderfully efficient wings developed for engine-less soaring, and the evolution of machines offering extraord.nr arily small resistance to their own progress through the air, which now brings us to the threshold of this era of , cheaper flying. j Developing no more power than the engine of a big motor-cycle, these little ''pocket air-motors," as they have been called, are to bear an air-rider in sustained flight. | In France, tor example, they have just productd a special two-cylinder "air-cycle'' engine which, giving from six to seven horse-power, weighs only about 171b. It is calculated, by the way, that, once l he is well aloft, the driver of a motor-glider will not require more than about five horse-power to keep him in movement, travelling in any direction he desires, and without losing altitude. The "motor-cycle with wings/' built for popular aerial touring, will, when it . can be perfected, standardised, and 1 produced in quantity, cost, experts estimate, little if any more than highj powered motor-cycles for touring on the roads.

And the power-cycle that flies, judging from experience with aeroplanes, will have a long working life, and will also have the unique advantage that, speeding through a medium as reeillmt as the air, it will 1>« running up no bills for its owner. By a use of pivoted wings, and other technical devices, not only will the power-driven air-cycle be given a stability when aloft which is automatic, but ascents from, and landings in, any quite small open space will become possible. We shall be approaching, indeed, that day—yearned for by a famous airman—when we can take out a little apparatus from the garage in which we house a car, unfold its wings, and soar skyward from the confines of an ordinary garden I