REVELATIONS IN AERIAL FLIGHT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9163, 11 August 1908, Page 5

REVELATIONS IN AERIAL FLIGHT.

CABLE NEWS.

nitod Press Association —By Electric Telegmph Copyright.

WRIGHT BROS.' AEROPLANE. Received August 10, 10.35 p.m. PARIS, August 1U Messrs Wright Bros.' aeroplane, which was recently sold to the French Government, flew 2,500 metres at a height oi 30 feet in 105 seconds at Lake Le Mans, 132 miles south-wett of Paris. The aeroplane was quite under control, circling easily. It was flown for hours. There is great enthusiasm over its success. The French press reports declare that the aeroplane displayed remarkable bird-like qualities in soaring, skimming and turning. Experts described it as a revelation in aerial flight. So mur:h mystery has attached to the doings of the Wright Bros., that an account of their flights by an eye-witness is welcome. A special correspondent of the London "Daily Mail" recently visited Manteo, South Carolina, to see the inventors at work, and his reports are full of interest. The aeroplane was rim out from its shed and started /down a railed track, from which it rose qasily, and skimmed the earth at a height varying from 20 to 25 feet. "It rounded Nag's Head Hill, a quarter of a mile from me, like a hawk," said the correspondent, "and went northward, scaring a drove of cattle into the sea. It lifted its head to climb a yentle slope, crossed the hill, came southward on the east'side, and stopped like a partridge returning to its nest when half a mile from the barn." On the following day the Wrights were even more successful, though the machine was smashed through an accident. "The aeroplane wobbled for an instant at the start, poised as if to mark its course, darted gracefully behind the west side of a sandhill, quickly came to view in a depression north of the brow, passed east of the next lower hill, turned westward when almost out of sight, against the side of a third hill, and made a long straight lap to its starting point. Then, without a moment's faltering, it came in a wide cirjle around the hill nearest Prospect Hill, where 1 was stationed, made a long straight lap northward, almost disappearing as before from my vision before turning. The machine next came down behind the second hill of the course. Each straight lap, is estimated at two miles, and the curves must add a mile or two more, but I prefer to give a conservative estimate of something over six miles. The precise time was seven minutes and forty seconds."