Science Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 10, 20 August 1897, Page 27

Science Notes.

WE CA X FLY AT LAST. Professor Lvxgley gives an interesting account in the Strand Magazine of his successful efforts to solve the problem of aerial flight. When he first began to think of the subject and to observe the night of birds, as all other experimentalists had done before him and to reflect that no matter how often people had failed man ought after all bo able to solve a problem for which nature had given him the model, he turned in vain to books for the principles on which to proceed. He found, indeed, that Sir Isaac Newton, had indicated a rule for finding the resistance to advance through the air which seemed, if correct, to call for enormous mechanical power, and a distinguished Trench mathematician he discovered had made a formula showing how rapidly the power must increase with the velocity of flight, and according to which a swallow to attain the speed it is now known to reach must be possessed ox the strength oi a man ! Discarding these theories which were absurd on the face of them, Professor Langley set himself to discover the principles upon which night should be based, and on those he spent three years. The general conclusion arrived at was that by simply moving any given weight of a plate-like form fast enough in a horizontaf path through the aii. it was possible to sustain it with less than onetwentieth of the power that Newton's rule called for. Instead of an increased power being required by increased velocity the power demanded became less and less. The experiments were first made with a plate ot brass one pound in weight, and the final calculation was that two hundred pounds ot such plates, if we could insure horizon Ul flight, could be moved through the air at the speed ot an express train, and sustainei upon it with the expenditure of onehorse power. Having established this, principle, Protestor Laugley proceeded to try and fulfil the conditions. The first was to°gbt one engine ol unprecedented light ne-s, the second to consider through what means it was to be applied. There was a long and dismal record of failure. Suitable engines were provided, the machine otherwise seemed perfect bur, horizontal flight could not be secured. Various expedients were tried for launching, but (lay utter day Professor L mgley saw his lerodroino, as he called it, flop down into the water over which he tried it. He stuck to his project with gieat pertinacity, howevt r. The wings were finally, s.ijs the professor, and alter infinite patience and labour, made b.t once light enough ,md strong enough to do the work ; ami now iv the long struggle the way had to be fought up to face the final difficulty, m which nearly a year more passed, for the all-important difficulty of balancing the aerodrome was now reached. Success however, in the end crowned the labour. Professor Langley thua describes the successful experiment . — On the <;ih of May of last year I had journeyed, perhaps for the twentieth time, to the distant river station and recommenced the weary routine of another launch, with very moderate expectations indeed, when on that, to me, memorable afternoon the signal was given and the Rsrodrome sprang into the air. I watched it from the shore with hardly a hope that the long series of accidents had come to a close. And jet it had, and tor the first time the a'rodromi' swept continuously tin ougli the air like a living thing and as second alter second passed on the face of the stop-watch' until a minute had gone by and it still flew on, and as I heard the cheering of the lew spectators I felt that something had been accomplished at last, for never in any part of the world or in any pjriod had any machine of man's construction sustained itself m the air before tor ewn this brief period ot time. Still the ajrodronie went on in a risiu_r course until, at the end of a minute and a half (for which tune only it was provided with fuel and water), it had accomplished a link over halt a mile and now it settled rather than tell mro the mer with a gentle descent. It was immediately taken out and flown again with equal success, nor was there anything to indicate that ir, might nut ha\e flown indefinitely except for the limit put upon it. ' On >,o\einlk.r 2 •> a larger machine made a longer flight at the rate ol ,iv miles a 1 hour, the distance traversed being three quarters ot a mile, and the machine descending safely. Piofessor Lan >lev tlm.s concludes his article .. — ■ p " 1 have bought to a close the poition of the work which seemed to b.> specially mine— the demonstration of the practicability of mechanical flight ; and for the next stage, which is the oiLuieroiaJ and practical development of the idea, it is probable that the world may look to otln nj. The world, indeed, will be supine if it does not realise that a new possibility has come to it and that the great mmersal highway overhead is now soon to be op.ned. '