SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 14, 5 April 1923, Page 54

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

By "VOLT"

Coming Wonders of the Air. Aviation is one of the youngest of the sciences (says Tit-Bits, London). It is only 141 years since the first weird-looking balloon designed by Montgolfier rose into the air before the astonished eyes of King Louis XVI., carrying with it a cock, a duck, and a sheep. The aeroplane has been with us barely 19 years. It was in 1903 that a machine made by the Wright Brothers and driven by an engine of eight horse-power rose into the air with a human passenger. Since those days progress has been rapid. We have machines now, whose engines develop as much power as railway locomotives. They can carry loads up to four tons at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour. Every month that passes sees some new improvement in aircraft. Engines have now been designed which, though they will develop 1200 horse-power, are yet so light that four men can carry them with ease. A machine made entirely of steel has been tested and found almost indestructible. Inventors in several countries have had successes with helicopters, machines that require no "take off" on level ground, but can rise from the space of a tennis court straight up into the air. What is to be the future of aviation in view of all its new wonders? Major-General Sir F. H. Sykes, G.8.E., K.C.8., C.M.G., who during the last part of the war was Chief of the Air Staff, tells us something of that in his book, Aviation in Peace and War. We can no longer rely solely upon the Navy to defend us, he argues, for unless we can keep the air as we keep the seas, we are at the mercy of any foreign foe with great fleets of aircraft. The giant 'planes of to-day can carry six or <eight huge bombs each weighing half a ton, and can drop them accurately upon ship, camp, or town. Sir F. H. Sykes believes that the warfare of the future will begin with air attacks. "Whereas in 1914 it was twenty days between the declaration of war and the exchange of the first shots," he writes, "in the next war the air battle may be joined within as many hours, and an air attack launched almost simultaneously with the declaration of war." Huge bombing machines will assemble, he believes, as soon as war is imminent, and once it has begun they will make straight for important towns, mobilisation centres, arsenals, harbors, and railways. A few swift blows might so paralyse an enemy that he could not put up a fight at all. Aircraft can now drop poison gas upon towns beneath. It may be contained in bombs, or it may simply be sprayed from the skies, falling by its own weight and dealing death to all whom it reaches. 3n recent tests aeroplanes using a new gas more potent than anything previously devised destroyed every living thing on the ground over which they passed. But though we must be prepared against air attacks, civil aviation *s equally important. Steamers and trains have reached their highest possible speed; it is to the air that we must look for the travel of the future. For the price of a battleship an air route to Australia could be organised, the value of which would be beyond contemplation. Our country is too small and its train services too good to need much inland flying. Our aircraft will make their way in a few years' time to and from the ends of the earth, taking with them mails, passengers, and goods.

Modesto Belette, a familiar figure of Courtisols, in the Chalons diocese of Paris, has just died at the age of eighty-two. He had been in the service of his Church since the age of seven, when he made his debut as altar boy, and from the age of thirteen he had, been the bellringer of the parish. The Bishop of Chalons recently presented him with a medal as a reward for his 75 years of faithful service.