The Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1911. AIR PROGRESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10175, 9 June 1911, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1911. AIR PROGRESS.

Judging by the prognostications of the experts, we may shortly look for some further rcmarka-blo clevelopiuen s in aeronautics. There is a feeling among the airmen that the machines at present under trial are not large enough to give the best results, and that tho future development will be in the direction of increasing the area of the pianos an<T the horse-power of the engines. A writer in the '' Cosmopolitan,'' for instance, condemns the aeroplanes of to-day an "aerial racing toys," of no commercial and very little scientific value. Attention is called to Major von Parseval s huge machine of steel: "Its two pilots, one engineer and one navigator—dividing the duties that have caused the single aviator s blunders—handle this craft eftfely, even in winds. A motor of 120 horse-power, the most powerful that has driven any aeroplane, sustains the two-ton machine on a single spread of wings hltjfive feet witie, larger than any that have lifted men on the air. The specified passenger capacity of Paraeval s big monoplane is four men, but, for a short time, it has easily transported eight, and, packed like the smaller Farman and Sommer machines, it could carry ten." Another German aeroplane has an enclosed cabin for the aviators, accommodation being provided for an engineer and a scout, and experiments with this aeroplane have proved that it is feasible to give the aviators a certain.amount of protection against hostile bullets and to equip the flying-machine with a quick-firing gun, manipulated by means of a pedal. We are told that in the near future aeroplanes 100 ft long, 120 ft wide and 15ft across tho planes will be quite common, and that within a few years aeroplanes will be carrying crews of four and nine passengers. Craft for thirty pasengers are projected, huge mechanical birds capable of crossing the Atlantic. Many aviators are working with the object of devising selfadjusting wings, which will automatically fix themselves at the proper angles for all wind pressures. Pressure gauges aro even now carried, on slender rods at the extremities of tho wings of some experimental craft, for the purpose of warning the aviator of the changes of air currents. For crossing the ocean an aeroplane of large dimensions would, of course, be needed, but as soon as it is practicable to build an aeroplane capable of carrying the equivalent of thirty passengers and travelling at a maximum speed of seventy miles an hour, the passage of the Atlantic would, we are told, be quite possible. The impression one gathers from the latest records of actual flights, however, scarcely bears out the optimistic anticipations of tho enthusiast we have quoted. The smaller planes have been, on the whole, quite as successful as the larger ones, with the reservation that the increase of horsepower involves an increase of weight, and that the larger machines have the advantage in speed. But the question of stability has really still to be solved for all classes of aeroplanes, and it has yet to be seen whether the Germans, with big machines, or the French, with small ones, will be the first to find the solution.