AIRCRAFT OF 1670

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 17, 14 October 1933, Page 18

AIRCRAFT OF 1670

Seen at Recent Exhibition

An aircraft designed in 1670 is the oldest flying (or would-be flying) machine shown in a collection of models being sent to Helsingfors for exhibition by the Air Ministry and the Department of Overseas Trade. The 1670 machine is a flying boat. It looks rather like a baby perambulator hitched to a complicated autogyro. According to the old prints, a wooden boat-shaped hull was to be suspended from globes of thin copper. It was hoped that when exhausted of air these globes would weigh less than the surrounding atmosphere. Motive power was to be supplied by the wind acting on a centre sail; The collection, which demonstrates the development of aviation from the seventeenth century to the present day, is the only thing of its kind in the world. There are altogether about 90 models, but only 60 of them will go to Finland. They include all types of aeronautical machines—gliders, monoplanes, biplanes, navigable balloons, flying boats, seaplanes and so on, covering the wide range of civil and military aviation.

The earliest models have been made from old prints in the collection owned by Dr. J. E. Hodgson, the authority on tins subject. Models of some of the machines made as recently as twentyfive years ago have been constructed from notes jotted down in pocket-books by their designers, for the actual machines themselves have long since been destroyed. Among the latest models is one of the fast mail carrier built for the Air Ministry this year, and now undergoing tests. Specially designed for long distance non-stop work, this machine will transport 1,000 lbs. of mail and has a non-stop cruising range of 1,000 miles and a cruising speed of 172 miles per hour. Reuter. Special to “The Dominion.”