FLYING MACHINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14218, 15 November 1909, Page 6

FLYING MACHINES.

THE NEW SPORT.

AN AVIATOR'S PREDICTIONS. You can have your own flying machine for £1750, f.0.b.; Paris. But unless you have plenty of spare ground wherein to keep it, and to exercise from, it will be more of a white elephant than a bird, and the cost of your occasional flying trip will soon total a, great deal more than the original cost. So says Mr. Colin De Fries,- expert- aviator, who arrived in Sydney last week. ' " When will we be able to have them about overhead as familiar a sight as the motor cars in 'the street?" he was asked by a Sydney Morning Herald interviewer, ; " Never. You can't keep an aeroplane in your back yard, you know." : "Well, but for those who have room for them?" ; . .-. ; y '■;-'_ ' ' ,:; -; " You have to start in the open country, and come down in the open country." You can't come down in the middle of the city, for instance." • . So the dream of the air filled with aeros, and an alighting tower-station for the Aerial Transport Company's passengers somewhere about the centre of , Sydney, is, according to the expert, not likely to occur. "But they will become plentiful?" .' " I think there's an enormous future for the sale of machines to squatters, who have lots of money, and lots of country. Racing? Yes ; it will be one of the big sports. You'll never get women to go up in them. It's not safe enough." ■■'-£ ' . He proceeded to demonstrate how also it's not cheap enough present, at least. .He has a Wright machine, upon which he- has implanted improvements of his own coming out in the Otranto. Later there" is a Bleriot, similar to the one in which the inventor whose name it bears crossed the' English Channel. He 'has two mechanics, experienced in aerial navigation, and eight others — staff of 10. Then on the other score of the risk, he mentioned r that the machines weigh about 9£cwt. : So that with the man on - board there is over half a tone slashing through the air. " The great thing wanted is to get the speed down," he observed. "If we could go slowly we could go with much more certainty. The thing is your motor. If it stops you're in trouble. During the Rheims week they had a height competition. Would you believe it, they couldn't get anyone to go in for it.' And I ■ don't blame them. What's the good? One little mishap, and you've a return ticket that i you can't use." ' ' ' ■'■'".;■•-.'. v ;,-.:'>■ V

This reminded the aviator iof an incident at the Rheims carnival. " People could nob start in the;: races together; there wasn't room. . Everyone had his schedule time. !He was given a certain allowance, and if j he didn't ' get started .•■ he was out of it. M/ Bleriot had lost his start in several « races.. The chairman of the committee, the Mar- ; quis de. Polignac, came up arid told him that if he didn't get off this time \he would, be scratched for all the races. Bleriot wu§ the hero of the Channel fly, the man of the hour. ■ This from the chairman! Just imagine the excitement. 1 -: There was a good five minutes of gesticulating and shrugging of shoulders. Bleriot and his wife— was, t also ;f there—were furious. I Bleriot jumped into his seat in a terrific rage.' He yelled to his mechanicians to start, and he dashed off still shouting and waving his hands. There weoe a couple of haystacks in the field, and not noticing them ini his excitement.': he went " bang z into i them, T the machine turned , over, - and j poor Bleriot was pitched into the hay." Mr. De ; Fries is a young, Londoner. It was. the natural sequence of motor racing, as he put it, that he took to aviation. He motored in France,' ; England; arid. Germany.; The aeroplanes ' came aToricr. "and" he .said, "it comes natural to take an interest in them." ; His longest distance on the " great big birds" five miles. . > His opinion as to the flying machine of the future is. that it will-be a sort of mixture of r balloon and aeroplane— the one to provide the necessary sustaining of weight in the air, and the other to do the propelling. Bleriot when he crossed the Channel, he remarked, carried a reservoir of air* so that if he" fell' into the sea he would float. That Mr. De Fries looks upon as •a ' forerunner of the future. When he lands his machines, and puts %em - together, he may add <to his ' experiments by a long-distance flight. "I was looking at the harbour to-' day," he said. "I could fly across < it, but there is nowhere to start from ; its all trees. I may do it, starting from inland." Altogether, to sum up the voice of some amount of experience, v there is nothing that can be looked upon as ; assured when you are about to take a fly on an aeroplane. The voice put it tersely thus: " There's a lot :of luck about it. ~ You're in the hands of fate."