Twentieth Century’s Stupendous Conquest.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 26, 28 December 1910, Page 8

Twentieth Century’s Stupendous Conquest.

Iff RETROSPECT AND AN OUTLOOK.

(Bi-

HUDSON MAXIM).

ll is only within our own generation Shat man has reached forth with the tentacles of his brain to dutch and take unto himself this most mysterious and mighty power; it is only within two years' that his dominion over the air has had its beginning. The men of old time longed for the bird’s flight, but moved not beyond the futile desire; they had no ingenuity toward its accomplishment. Daedalus and Icarus of the hinged was wings were the most capable aviators that antiquity could devise; and they were merely agreeable myths. In all history until our day there is hardly an incident oi significance concerning man's attempts to fly, if we except the contrivances of certain skilled mechanicians tvho constructed automata of marvellous powers, the chief of which were birds that flew in orderly, sustained flight for considerable distances. Until just now balloons were both the first and the final flying machines —puppets Of the eddy ing rivers of the air. There came a hint of what might be known in the future when, in IS9O, 1891, aud 1897, Clement Ader tore himself free of earth for a few seconds in his steam driven, bat-shaped monoplanes. In 1891 Sir Hiram S. Maxim’s giant machine, also steam driven, apparently lifted itself clear of the rails. These were the first clumsy hoppings of the artificial bird. But the callow chick finds its wings cumbersome at the outset, and, when it would fly, does but fall to the ground. So these pioneer aeroplanes, although they demonstrated in a measure the possibility of flight by heavier than air machines, were not under control ; therefore, they failed vitally, despite their accomplishment. Gasoline Engine Key to Problem. It was the gasoline engine that brought to humanity the boon of wings. The vast economy in weight secured by the new motive force rendered the problem of aviation comparatively simple, after what earlier investigators had laboriously and courageously discovered under conditions so adverse. At- Kitty Hawk, N.C., on December 17th, 1903, Mil bur Wright flew for twelve seconds; and, later on the same day, Orville Wright maintained a flight through the air for fifty-nine seconds. These flyings were controlled by the operators, and for that reason they marked supreme achievement in the mastery of the air. Then, slowly, the duration of the flights increased. One hour two minutes and fifteen seconds was the record made by Orville Wright at Fort Meyer, Virginia, on September 9th, 190 S. Forthwith, the progress went by leaps and bounds. Prior to 1908, there had been no flight of an hour in length; but in that year, there were eleven of an hour or more in duration, and in 1909 there were fifty-six. January 1,1909, the record stood that only five men in all the world had made flights exceeding ten minutes free from earth. January 1, 1910. only thirty-four had acomplished the feat of remaining aloft more than thirty minutes. These figures show both the slowness and the rapidity with which the scientific art advanced. Even at the slowest, the progress was amazing. Pieriot crossed the channel from France to England, on July 25th, 1909—a flight perhaps, for reasons of sentiment, the most picturesque of ail. Record Flight in Quick Succession. It was in the same year, on November 3rd, that Farmau established a record by maintaining a sustained flight for a. period of four hours, which was the record for the year. Hamilton voyaged from San Diego into Mexico and back, January 24th, 1910. On April 29th, Paulhan made his great journey from London to Manchester, to win a prize of £lO,OOO offered by the London Daily Mail. The channel was again crossed on May 21, by De Lesseps, while Curtiss made the flight from Albany to New York, for a prize offered by the “New Yord World,” on May 29th. On June 16th of this year. Hamilton flew from New York to Philadelphia, and returned in one day, thereby gaining the prize of 20,000 dollars offered by the “New York Hines’* ami the “Philadelphia Ledger.” A wonderful flight of its sort baa aha

been achieved by Brookins, who on July 9th ascended 6,100 feet up into the sky. There is something staggering to think on: This soaring aloft more than a mile above that earth which through countless ages had held the feet of man mercilessly chained to its surface, and lastly Chavez has flown the Alps. Down in Mexico it takes "mne thing like six hours to toil up the cone of the crater PopocatapetL Then one squatd on a leather blanket, and blithely slides down the ashy mount. It takes six minutes to cover the distance that- in the ascent required as many hours. The venture of landing in the scrub at the foot of the cone is hazardous, but, despite the peril of scratches and bruises, the long, swift slide is a splendid thing. Yet it becomes less than nothing when compared with celestial chutes. Brookins tobogganed from heaven to earth in just seven minutes, and he alighted as gently as a gull dropping to rest upon the bosom of the sea. Chicago-New York Flight Next Step. The next aeroplane triumph in the United States will be the journey between New York and Chicago. Already a prize of 25.000J0i has been offered by the New York “Times” and the Chicago “Evening Post” and entries are being received. Who can doubt, in the light of recent events, that the flight will be accomplished ? Then will come the crossing of the Atlantic, and then—but we are dealing with the present, and the aircraft is a fact of the present; it will be a colossal factor in the future, with which we must speedily take reckoning. It is no longer a chimera, a toy; it is a tremendous dynamic factor of the forthcoming civilisation. Already flying machines are freely offered for sale in Europe, America, and abroad, under the auspices of firms (hat are not swayed by any philanthropic impulse, but are investing capital in plants and publicity for excellent commercial reasons; they expect to make money, just as the builders of automobiles have done. The first purchasers must be the military authorities and those who are desirous of giving exhibition flights. After these are coming quickly the lovers of sport, who will tour the celestial areh for the sheer joy of it, winging their way at will where always hitherto has been the realm of only birds and angels. And presently, after all ;the others, will come the practical uses of peace, the aerial journeyings of men to and from .their business pursuits, the employment of the heavenly highway for the exigencies of commercial operations. Expert Amateur Now in Ascendant, The trend of progress is illustrated by the multitudinous aviation meets that are now being held throughout the civilised world. Hitherto, the professionals have been in the ascendant; to-day the presence of the expert amateur marks taa evolution of the art. Within the year there have been successful meets at Le Mans, Pau, Rome. Rheims, Brescia, Berlin, Washington. Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Mineola, Atlantic City, Ashbury Park, Budapest, and elsewhere. At least one royal personage, the Bulgarian ruler, has accompanied an aviator in “spurning the lower places'”; and a number of women have adventured in brief flights. It was at Heliopolis, in Egypt, that the mystical bird of the hierophants was wont to rise in new and magnificent life from the ashes of its own funeral pyre. And there, as that ages-old city, the other day, the khedive beheld the upsoaring of another bird, more mighty and marvellous than aught fabled, the darting plane, with the brain of a man and the speed of a wild swan in its migration. Chief Use in War Probably as Scouts. In some scouting manner, doubtless, air craft will prove available for military uses. They will serve for scouting —for attack, even, in some instances. But I am sure that they will do little in the way of dropping bombs, to the destruction of cities and armies and battleships. The point of attack is exceedingly small for a bomb dropped in a line approaching the vertical, and the difficulties in the way of accuracy ere well nigh insuperable. At the siege of Port Arthur the Japanese sank the Russian fleet, as they supposed, by their rain of high angled projectiles, which fell oa the vessels al-

most vertically. Afterward, on examination, the victors found that in every instance the Russians themselves had opened the sea eocks, thereby allowing the ships to fill and sink. In the majority of eases the first impact of the shells against the wooden upper deck, a stanchion, or a companionway had caused the bursting of the missile, so that the damage, of a comparatively trifling sort, had been limited to this particular portion of the deck space. It was rarely that a shell had penetrated the protective deck of steel, and serious injury was done to a vital part only in a single instance. And it inu-i be remembered that these shells weighed 500 pounds each, and that they fell almost vertically from a height of about two miles.

There surely is ample reason to doubt the peril from tiny bombs falling from hardly one-tenth the height anj with far less than a tenth of the accuracy that characterised the Japanese fire. The shell would not drop vertically, but on a curved resultant line, made up of the forward velocity imparted to the shell by the moving aeroplane and the vertical velocity due to the aeeeleratkm of gravity. At a predetermined distance from the object of attack the bomb must be delivered with a precision based on the aviator's knowledge of the height above the object, and forward velocity of the aeroplane, the velocity and direction of progress of the ship below, and, as well, the velocity and the direction of the wind currents.