THE DANGERS OF AVIATION.

Northern Advocate, 26 January 1911, Page 3

THE DANGERS OF AVIATION.

Aviation does not become any safer as it progresses. The death-roll and the casuality-list have been so striking of late, remarks an exchange, that an investigation is being held in America into the recent fatalities at New Orleans, where two of the most famous airmen of the time—Hoxsey and Moissant—were killed in one day. In the case of Moissant, who made his name by a flight with a passenger from Paris to Kent, it is definately stated that the disaster was not due to any inperfection of the machine. Probably Moissant lost control in an eddy, and could not regain his balance. But the majority of accidents have been due to the snapping of some vital parts of the machine under some excessive stress. As is well known the fine piano wire used to stay an aeroplane is liable to deterioration with use. There conies a time when it can no longer meet the strain, and one wire broken is like the snapping of the spinal cord; it means almost invariably death.

There appear to be two ways of combating these two perils—the peril of balance and the peril of structural weakness. For the first an automatic instantaneous stabiliser would solve the problem. Mr J. Hammond, the New Zealand airman, who has put up some fine performances at Perth, gives hope in a local invention he has inspected. He is credited with saying that it will revolutionise aviation. Let us hope it will. It deserves a trial, at any rate. The other way of preventing structural collapses is to strengthen the frame on different lines than by wire stays. Moissant himself, before his untimely end .designed an all metal aeroplane, and Louis Paulhan, who, like the chief survivors of aeroplane perils, the Wrights, Glen Curtiss, Farman, and Bleriot, has gone into the lucrative business of aeroplane manufacture, exhibited a novel machine at the recent aero show at Paris. It is of vastly increased strength in the frame and flexibility in the planes, here following nature's plan in the bird. A full description would be out of place here. On these lines probably the flying machine will find its truest and safeest development. At present the man i.< infinitely more than the machine in the art of flight. The time may come when the responsibilities will be more equal.