A Sky-Cycle.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7270, 26 July 1893, Page 2

A Sky-Cycle.

An inventive American (whoso imagination, it is to be suspected, runs free in the moral as well as the mechanical line), claims to have invented, and made, and ridden, a sky< cycle, a firing machine operated after the manner of a bicycle. “We have already,” he says, ‘‘ used a heavy machine made of wood, ascendo-f thirty feet above the ground, ridden 200 yards, made curves, and desribed a circle of 103 feet in diameter, alighting safely. The machine, all of aluminium, we intend to have, will weigh less than 40 pounds. As I o speed wo intend to average 30 to 40 miles an hour, and with the wind favourable at least 50 miles an hour can easily be made The machine is propelled by the ordinary motion of the feet as with a bicycle on the ground. The gearing attached operates the wings, and the steering is by the boodle, which moves a fan-tail or rudder. All other machines for aerial navigation require either steam or electricity for motive power, and thus adding materially to the weight, require a larger and more cumbersome machine. We dispense with that, as the motive power ia furnished by the rider, and oar machine is consequently much lighter than any other invented. The wings and rudder are steered or changed in position by the bands of the operator, and he is at perfect liberty to look over the country above which be is travelling, simply keeping bis feet in motion. When high up in the air and desirous of sloping downwards, he can cease pedalling, and turn the wings in such a manner that with the momentum already attained he gracefully comes sailing down, like a bird that stops fluttering and floats with extended wings."