AN AEROPLANE MARVEL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19760, 10 April 1926, Page 13

AN AEROPLANE MARVEL.

WILL ELY BY ITSELF. AUTOMATIC STABILITY. a gigantic air express, which, though it weighs more than eight tons and flies at more than 100 miles an hour, is able to flv itself, without a human hand upon its controls, is to be used flights bv Imperial Airways between London ~ Paris *(says the London Daily Chromclej. Gyroscopes will do what hitherto the ainnan has had to do. A gyroscope consists of a heavy flywheel, which, rotating at great speed, tends, by its resistance to a change of axis, its own plane, and the plane of anything to which it is feed. Familiar first as a toy, it has been used to preserve the balance of single-rail 1 'rnedoes. There will be gyro-control of the rudder and of the “ailerons,” or hinged balancing planes, at the tips of the wings. The gyroscope will control the ailerons so that should a wind-gust threaten to tilt the machine sideways, they will automatically bring it back upon an even keel. After he has ascended and made an allowance for the wind, hte pilot will set the cyroseope in motion, and the big ma chine driven by engines of more than 1000 li n„ will they fly for hour after hour upon the indicated coarse. All he will have to do then will be to control the height of the machine above the ground. Apart from this the gi&ns craft will steer and balance itself.