A NEW FLYING MACHINE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 28

A NEW FLYING MACHINE.

Some interest has been created among scientific men (says the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald) by a flying-machine which was tried the other day in a field near Harrow. It is a curionslooking contrivance, and what it does is not on an heroic scale, but it is undoubtedly genuine as far as it goes — which cannot be said of many flying-machines — and it looks as if it might have in it the germs of future success. It consists of a huge wooden grating, looking Jike a Venetian blind, in front of which are two fans driven by a steamengine at the rate of 400 revolutions a minute. The engine, the grating, and the carriage with the shot which was pub in as a dummy load weighed about 4001b, and the whole of .the machine for nearly two-thirds o£ the circular track rose about 3£t from the ground. It rises in this way, indeed, so lorg as it in any way faces the wind, and with the wind behind it it travels at the rate of about 25 miles an hour on the wheels with which it is provided. Ifc is the invention of a working mechanician, who has spent about 30 years of his life on aeronautical problems. Prom what I can gather of the opinions cf the technical experts at present, they appear to think that the principle is a sound one, and that more powerful fans and a proportionate lightening of the machine as compared with the size of the sustainers, might lead to a considerable advance in the results obtained. At all events, a practical contribution has been made toward the solution of a problem which exercises a great fascination over the minds of all men interested in mechanical questions.