A Glimpse into the Future.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 1, 2 November 1908, Page 14

A Glimpse into the Future.

The Past. — Daring writers are for ever lifting the veil that hides the future. Of such are Jules Verne and Mr. Wells. The first of these made a wonderful excursion round the world "via the empyrean blue," as a pictmesque journalist lately said of a similar journey of his own projection. Storms, calms, head winds, favouring breezes, hail, rain, snow, sun — all were alike to this daring navigator of the air. The tremendous pace of this "Clipper of the Clouds," the absolutely safety of her balance, the precision of her various journeys — these and many other things about her were saturated in an atmosphere of probability which so won upon the reader as to make him end in absolute certainty of belief in the leahty of the magic creation. Mi. Wells, without being equal to the French master m realistic effect, is also most entertaining to the minds ot men, makes them wonder and speculate and thrill. He fills the air with fleets of flyers carrying troops, deadly weapons, ammunition, and malevolence of the Satanic order in plenty. His path through the atmosphere hangs over destroyed cities, gaping charnel houses, and lamenting survivors of huge populations. Jules Verne projected his airship before any aviator had even made a model : Wells started within the range of models and had the encouragement of the progress of the dirigible balloon. Present Promise.— The present century has already seen the advance of both types oi flyer to important stages. It has naturally therefore seen the spread o± piophetic flying from literature to periodical journalism. A German doctor some months ago, as we showed in these columns, boiled down some of the work of his predecessors, of course unconsciously, into broad pictures of air fleets of dirigibles carrying dynamite and raining it down with disastrous force on the world below. The weakness of his work was that, besides being dreariest literature, it rested on a scientific basis of his own invention which had no basis of science at all. The other day the epidemic of prophecy spread south of the Line, and we had c.n article describing the things that may be some day among us. This article (it appeared in the Bulletin) avoided the mistake of scientific pose — simply took the line of accepting whatever the practical men do, and may be thought reasonably likely to do. His conclusions are quite logical, as are those of an American authority we publish further on. If the promises of aviation or dirigible ballooning, the promises rather of their friends, are fulfilled, then many things will happen that will have to be very seriously reckoned with. First of all sea power will become a bad debt, secondly, the value of all harbours will disappear, the air ships of the future having nothing to do but steer across the imaginary boundary lines of the various countries. From the first which implies the irresistibility of the airship in war must come the cessation of war ; from the second the end of protective tariffs in the face of the impossibility of watching limitless boundary lines Moreover every ship will be steered for the nearest scrap heap. Out of this will come univeisal freetrade, universal brotherhood, of nations, universal — well it is hardly necessary to follow all the details of tlio logical dream. Enough that the world will have to be entirely re-arranged.

The practical question is of the correctness of this. The answer is that it all depends on a mighty big "If." It the pi onuses, etc., etc., are fulfilled then the answers must be in the affirmative. What then are these promises, and how far has practical work advanced m the indicated directions? The "Dirigible" md its Prospects.— The dirigible has advanced a long way into the credulity ot mankind , so far indeed that governments and peoples find a great deal of money to throw away on developing the dirigible. That type has attained to a flight controllable only in fine weather. Its many disasters prove that so far it is absolutely useless for the purposes which it is relied on to effect; as a fighting machine it is more dangerous to itself than to anything else ; as a carrier — well ! as a carrier, let us see what Zeppelin No. 4 — the most successful of the whole bunch of dirigibles flown since the days of Renaud's first journey to Paris — did. Much was made of the fact that it earned fifteen peisons. Now it transpired that its crew numbered twelve ; consequently it is a fair inference that the carrying capacity of Zeppelin No. 4 was limited to three independent persons. It would therefore require a fleet of 33,000 Zeppelins to carry an army of 100,000 men At a length of 480 feet apiece the fleet would be when in a line ahead nearly 3000 miles long. This is however verging on burlesque, the consequence of taking the dictum of some irresponsible writer. Let us consider the views on the subject of Professor Newcomb, the President of the Astronomical ard Asti ophysical Society of America, who contributes a thoughtful article to the September number of the Nineteenth Century magazine. He applies to the airship the same principle that is followed in the designing of the steam liner. "The model remaining the same, the carrying capacity increases as the cube of the length. But the resistance of the water, and therefore the power of the engine and the consumption of coal, increases only as the square of the length. The larger the airship can be built, the more economically can she bo driven when wo measure economy by the ratio of carrying power to cost of running.'' He admits that "the limits to hei possible size can not be set by any principle ot physical science. The question is simply one of constructive engineering — how laige can we build her and still keep her manageable?" Thus, assuming perfection of constructive and managing power to be reached — a very great assumption indeed — he calculates that to carry 10 3 UUO tons or 15,000 passengers, the airship must be not less than half a mile long and 600 feet in diametei. Here is a monster presenting a tremendous surface to the wind — not so bad when going in the wind's eye— but with a "soldier's wind" right on the beam blowing at the moderate pace ot twenty miles an hour the ship would go bodily to leeward at that rate. What would happen to her on the course for New York sailing out of Liverpool? Moreover in a fog she could never make a landing, or keep a course. Commercially, looking by the light of recent disasters, there does not seem much prospect even loi the perfectly developed dirigible. The Dirigible in War. — As a fighter what is the chance of success? She would be an easy target irom her size, .and "the construction ot a machine gun which pointed vertically, could lire a shot to a height of two miles is so simple a mattei that I assume this is to be the height at which the aerial ship would have to operate." This reminds one of the statement of Admiral Scott, late ot the Powerful — the man who made the gun carriage that took the 4.7 gun to Ladysmith — that the 13-inch guns of the Dieadnought can hit anything flying as high as Mount Blanc, 16,000 feet If an explosive shell were discharged from the above-named machine gun with a range of two miles, Heaven help the airship and its inflammable gas bags But assuming that guneis lose the power of hitting haystacks, let us consider what the airship could do by throwing dynamite down. Now, the deck of a warship is the only vulnerable part above water, the turrets and batteries being specially protected against descending shells. There is first the difficulty of the aim. "The time required for a bomb to fall from a height of two miles is between twenty-five and thirty seconds — during which time the ship would have moved away her entire length, and would therefore have escaped the missile. ' '

But allowance can be made True On the other hand the airship would be moving too, "floating in the moving air," and the navigator of the air "cannot deteinime the direction ot the wine! as a sailoi can " The onJy guide tor him is some object on the eaith. Hut here theie is only water and the nio\ my ship he wants to hit. Will he strike once m iorty times ot dropping the bombs? The pioresbor doubts it. Assuming, howevei, that che bomb is mnacuious and hits eveiy time, will that not disable the ship 01 dimmish her fighting power? Let the proressoi answei. "A torpedo discharged under water against the side of a ship sinks her, partly irom being under water, and paitly because the water reacts in the explosion. But the torpedo exploding on the deck has nothing, but the air to react against it, and the limit of damage done would probably be a hole or fracture in the deck." He adds that for one or two hits in this game the airship would require a hundred bombs ot a ton weight each on the chance ot making one or two holes or fractures in the deck below. Now to take one ton to the height of two miles the airship must have "j'JUO cubic yards" oi gas in the balloon, l'herefoie on the really oft chance of two holes or fractures in the deck there must be 500,0UU cubic yaids of gas. Tiuly the fleet below would be able to say as Leorudas did at Thermopylae, that they would have the advantage of lighting in the shade. Furthermore, what would the fleet's own airships be doing? Of course no fleet would think of putting to sea without an attendant air squadron. Would these ships of the air start out and fight each other? If they did they would both tall into the water, for a hit with the lightest artillery, it it could be used by the combatants, would explode the gas in their respective bags, and down they would tall. "A conflict," says the professor with dry humour, "between two aerial navies composed ot balloons belongs only to the realm of poetiy. ' Not so dangeious this, however, as it looks. Many accidents have proved that the balloon's envelope when burst turns into a parachute. It is clear that the navies of the world are not going to become bad debts by leason of the dirigible. But there is the dreadful series ot fatalities to be inflicted on aimies and forts and bridges. They at any rate are stationary. They can compel the observance of the two mile limit, however, and perhaps a good deal more. Foits could be protected as well as the turiets ot ships, and they would not receive any greater shock fiom the falling bombs than the ships. Then there is the other side to reckon with. Assume perfect flyers on both sides. What about a line ot guard houses, bomb pioot, along the hontier, and flying patrols keeping guard between, with squadron^ ot airships stationed at intervals ready to turn out at any given signal from the patrolling flyers? What about searchlights tor night work ? What about special heavy oidnance planted at intervals ready to hre at anything, up to 16,000 feet? What enemy would fly over the English Channel to get such a waini reception? The man who said that the airship must destroy the nations must have been weak enough to think that there would be only one an ship and that everybody on the other side would be an imbecile as well as a coward. He must also be an adept at taking things for granted. He must also have altogethei foigotten the history of the long still unfinished struggle between attack and defence, in plate against gun, etc. It is clear that the dirigible ail ship has not nmch of a future either foi war or for commerce. As an observer and reconnoiterer there may be something for him to do. but it seems haidly woith considering at the present time. We can attoid to wait till the dirigible develops in the direction of the unexpected. Tnn Aeroplane and irs Chances. We turn to the chances of the heavier-than-air type. This type is following the sound lines of tho bird. It is still far fiom the perfection of bird flight. Xeveitheless the mam facts of its achievement aie not to bo despised. It flies independent, it laises itself fiom the ground, it maintains its equilibrium in the air, it letmns to earth when it pleases and as it pleases. One has flown over forty miles, remained in the air one hour, also one hour and a half It has been sold to a slnewd piactical aviatoi tor £20,000, and theie are fifty examples of him undei construction. These sue the stnking facts with which Wilbur Wright has replied to the cutic in Engineering who sneered at his preliminary trials, pointing

out that none of them had lasted over a minute iind a half, and that, however "majestic" the enthusiastic impressionable Fiench obseneis had found the machine, it had been the victim of two accidents and had not reappeared. On September 21 and October 11 Wright quietly added the above pei formances to the lecord of his machine, and the other facts immediately followed. We piesume that the critic has acknowledged that things are better than he thought. The type has its limits, how cv ci . It is dependent wholly on its motor for suppoit in the air, which it cannot maintain except at some speed. We can not forget that a sister machine, noAvii by Orville Wright, came down during its tiials under contract with the American Government^ and killed one of its two occupants The explanation given by Orville Wright is that he had three geais instead of the original tw o on which his brother continued to rely, regaidmg the use of the third as a dangeious complication. Want of skill then with the thiid gear caused the misfoitune. Still, the position of that type is serious. We shall heai more of it when Orville Wright recoveis fiom his broken leg. Will this type evei carry anything? Assuming that it ultimately does become a cartier, and manages to attain to soaring powei arriving at the perfection of bud flight — at present it has not risen highei than 100 feet -itc use in war will be liable to the disabilities we have been considering in the case of the dirigible. In war, then, beyond reconnoitermg, the aeroplane has not a future. As to commerce, we return to the question "will this type ever be a earner?" Professor Newcomb raises an objection which appeals to be fatal. "Being as it were supported upon the air, it must present to the latter a horizontal surface propoitioned to the entire weight to be earned. If one yard of suiface can be made to carry a ceitain weight at a ceitain speed, one thousand yards will be required to carry one thousand times that weight. Any enlaigement of the machine must therefore be in a horizontal dnection The estimate of weight must be so much per square yard of horizontal surface : an addition of weight in the vertical dnection can never be possible Hence if any enlargement of the fivers is e\ or made — for example, if they are to cany two men instead of one as at present -it must bo thiough enlaigmg their superficial extent in the same propoition. Reflecting on the piesent extent of the successtul flveis, it will readily be seen that a piactically unmanageable aiea of suppoiting surtcice and a consequent weakening of the machine will be lequned for any impoitdiit enlaigement. Whether the limit be one, two, or thiee men, every extension of it mubt, to secure the necessary strength involve increased weight pei square ya'd, which will be less and less compatible with its peiformance." To begin with, this criticism refers to the type as at present developed — the type of machine dependent on motion for support in the air The conditions will be different when — if evei — the machine is peifected into a soarer independent of motion for suppoit in the air. Moieo\er, this objection was laised against the first pioposals to fly, and was seen to be to some extent futile after the measuiements of the wings of birds and insects had shown that the heavier the flyer the less the spread of \miio did he lequne in proportion. Fin thei more the Wrights have advanced so far as to cany the second man without any enlaigement of then machine. Both brotheis have earned then passenger — it was one of the conditions of their enterprise that they should. One of these passengers was killed, it is true, but that was due to an accident with the gear, not to the fact that the- machine was cariymg more weight than it was entitled to carry. It will be said that there is some confusing clement here: inasmuch as in the beginning everything depended on the agility of the aeionani who had to lcmn the gymnastics of his balance, and \eiy difficult they were. These difficulties of gjmnastic effoit have now given way to simple methods oi mechanical control, and two men cm now sit up comfortably wheie one had to lie Hat and wnggle, with the ceitamty of deatli ;f he stopped an instant Howovei, after all is said that can bo said it must be admitted that the piospe<t of the aeioplane e\ er becoming a caniei oi any importance is doubtful, it improvement is to be confined to the piesont lines of effort for <i machine so extiemely light and f i ail. It may he a consolation to know that the ocean linei , foimed on tlio fish model, was in tho beginning

very light, and frail too. If that type advanced to forty thousand tons and twenty-six knots there may be hope for the frail basket known as an aeroplane. One can only shrug the shoulder and look askance at "Wells and the rest of the company of jumpers at conclusion. There is a prospect of another kind for the flyer, however. Military men are sure to be struck some day not distant with the possibilities of using the machine as a mount for one or two men, even in its present state of development — not for going into the fighting line, but for rapidly transporting corps d'elite from one pait of the field to another. For example, if during the war with Russia the Japanese had been able to fly over the mountain country they tackled so pluckily for their gieat turning movements their success might have been invariable instead of partial. A thousand machines supplying 1000 men every hour to some point twenty or thirty miles away would be a formidable factor in a battle. Musketry fire would not be fatal to them, and artillery they could discount as infantry do by scattered formations. It is an idea for the military expert to consider and develop. But rf it comes to the front the aeroplane will but add to the existing method of waging war with effect. It will revolutionise nothing but tactics. The Unknown.— Along new lines of effort will there be a chance? Who shall say? Professor Newcomb says all that can be said on that subject and says it well. "Should some way of controlling 01 reversing gravitation be discovered: should it be possible to make the ether react upon matter: should radium be hereafter produced by the ton instead of by the milligramme: should some metallic alloy be found having ten times the tenacity and rigidity of steel— all our forecasts relating to the future possibilities in the application of power would have to be revised." Of radium let it be understood in this connection that it ls a substance which has been scientifically described as emitting energy in seeming defiance or all laws of energy. It comes to this then, that before we can tee! justified m looking forward to the tremendous changes predicted by the dreamers and the tellers of fables as the consequence of advance in the art of flying, there must be some new startling and unexpected discoveries, for the present men must be contented to fly in a way. The main thing is that they are flying in a way truly wonderful: but with vague longings for something that does not appear too clearly. *#* h * The Eoyal yacht Osborne is to be sola. She is out of date, but still a very valuable boat, having cost £133,083 to build, in 1874, and having had Inige sums spent on her since.