BIRD FLIGHT AND AIR NAVIGATION

Evening Star, Issue 14420, 16 July 1910, Page 10

BIRD FLIGHT AND AIR NAVIGATION

Air navigation has made its greatest advance towards actual mastery of the elements through a discovery by Professor Buchner, the German naturalist, that migrating birds “ never cross the seas and oceans except on storm-currents, and sometimes on the storms themselves.” His investigations also show that the bird determines front the wind’s direction when to start on its single flight over water. A remarkable article in the ‘Century’ shows how the Germans are making use of these discoveries in their study of air navigation. It is believed, sdys ihe writer, that air craft will soon navigate with the aid of the storm’s force, which before had been thought necessarily to interfere with air travel. In other words, while seaships are delayed by storms, airships will make use of them; The airship has the advantage of being immersed in the element that it is ■ navigating; therefore its wireless equipment, which furnishes news of the winds, should be more serviceable at times than even its own high-powered motors. That the redbreast arrives at its destination on the cyclone shows that such a frail creature's motive energy enables it to avoid being spun around in the centre of the storm's eddies. A balloon, without engine or rudder, cannot be prevented from travelling in a circle or a semicircle, and coming back on its course, unless directed by a master pilot. Yet the air-navigator’s near mastery of the cyclone is foreshadowed by the fact that a few balloon pilots- already understand the meteorological laws of the air. While in these and other ways air navigation is being per*acted, the Germans are studying means of destroying balloons. The article is illustrated iiy photographs of marine gune and field pieces for firing at airships. Onf of these photograplis shows a balloon hit by a shell, which leaves a trail of smoke, ” u that the aim of the gun may be corrected, if necessary, at the next fire—a device which is expected to facilitate sec-mate fire in a fight between airships." Another photograph, taken from an airs bin, shows that a regiment of soldiers marching in close order will prove an'easy mark for airship artillery.