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Aviation History
1909
1909 - 0005.PDF
JANUARY 2, 1909. ciated with such a record, we shall endeavour to remedy the defect as far as possible by compiling a summary. Incidentally, it is interesting simply as a curiosity to reproduce the actual contents of the official catalogue so far as they apply to the present subject. Thus the two lines in the catalogue :— XXI. Aerostation et Aviation. (irande Nef. The public at large, however, was in no way deterred by any lack of official guidance in its ferreting out of the novelties, and during the afternoons and evenings the crowd round the different stands was simply enormous. Adding to the numbers, came parties of schoolboys : and on one occasion we observed a large band of Esperantists in charge of a guide who explained the different exhibits in the International tongue. At the stand where the Wright machine was exhibited they met with a particularly hearty reception from one of the directors, who himself addressed them in Esperanto.- So popular was the exhibition right from the very first that the Administration was solicited to extend its duration; the terms of the notice in which they announced that they could not do so, we give verbatim as follows :— "Le Salon de 1'Automobile 2' Serie, Vehicules Industriels Navi- gation, Machines-Outils, Premier Salon cle l'Aeronautique, fermera irrcvocablement ses portes Mecredi soir 30 Decembre. " De nombreuses demancies de prolongation ont bien ete adressees a l'Administration, mais le Commissaire General, fidele aux tradi- tions, a decide de ne point modifier la date de cloture primitivement fixee." To anyone already interested in the experimental side of the problem of flight it may readily be believed that the Show is open all too short a time for even such a small number of machines to be studied in detail, especially as it is not customary for Englishmen to spend their Christmas holidays in exhibitions. Many from this country, therefore, will doubtless have found themselves unable to be present at all, and will, in view of this, appreciate the information which we are able to set forth in the following pages. We have endeavoured in what follows to give as complete an account as possible of the exhibits in a form convenient for reference now and in the future, but in some cases full particulars have not been available. At the present time flight is only just commencing its career as an industry, and there is in consequence a somewhat similar difficulty in obtaining desired information that there used to be in the early days of the motoring industry, when we were on more than one occasion threatened with the police for our all too-persistent curiosity. The public at large is rigorously excluded from the stands. Although these are the earliest of days, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the flying industry is already born. It is one of those half-hidden aspects of the present situation which makes itself unobtrusively apparent at the Salon, but might have remained unrealised for a much longer period to come had such an occasion not offered an opportunity for bringing it to light. It is a little apt to be forgotten that the more prominently successful experimenters have been at work for a long time; it must seem an almost incredibly long time to those who have hardly given a thought to the subject before the latter part of the year that has just terminated. One has only to turn back through the pages of Tlie Automotor Journal to appreciate how tar even the publicly known efforts in aviation extend ; and, as every- one knows, there is always a vast amount of secret labour in pioneer work which never comes to light until long afterwards. The history of the Wrights is, happily, already fairly complete, and serves as an undying example of " labor omnia vinrit" applied to flight. Who would have guessed, however, that it was six years ago that M. Esnault-Pelterie first commenced the work which he has since continued without interruption to the present day ? His case is the more interesting since he has not confined himself to any one department; he has built aeroplanes, designed and constructed a very successful engine, and laid down an aviation factory which has now been working for a year and is at present probably the largest in existence. And yet he is one of the youngest of those in the fie\d; in fact, M. Peltetie is a " flying engineer" pure and simple, for be com- menced his practical career as soon as he had left his regiment—which he joined directly after taking his degree in science—and he has not, like so many others, graduated in an allied industry. We have cited M. Pelterie as an example not only because it is undoubtedly one of exceptional interest, but because it so aptly points the moral of " going slow" at first in a new thing. As M. Pelterie himself remarked to us at the Salon, " Everywhere to-day I hear the same expressions of surprise and wonder at what is on view, followed by optimistic conclusions of further wonders to come immediately. I am afraid they are going to go too fast; they forget our past laborious work." It is not alone in the fashioning of complete aeroplanes, and in the designing of light engines, that the present Salon has developed an industrial aeronautic side. There is an even stronger proof of our contention that the industry is born, in the fact that there have already sprung into existence some firms who are devoting special attention to the making of parts. Propellers, frames, radiators, and surface materials are among the pieces detache appertaining to flight, and several most interesting and clever inventions have already found practical expression. Many visitors doubtless expected to find the greater part of the Salon constituted by models, but such is not at all the case. Models there are in plenty, but we can say without prejudice that in general they do not improve upon the standard of the Agricultural Hall exhibits, either as regards ingenuity or workmanship. A few are designed directly at variance to those main principles on which present day " experts " are fairly well agreed—such as for example a model of a machine in which the narrow planes are placed longitudinally —but the majority are nothing but crude conceptions of the modern machines with an additional plane hereortheie as their sole claim to originality. The flapping-wing machine is in evidence as usual, and is apparently going to be the pet freak of the Flying Salons of the future. Most of the exhibitors in this section have a seedy and dejected air, and are too obviously waiting for some ignorant but kind-hearted philanthropist to place a small sum at their disposal for the development of their ideas ; we imagine that the smallest of donations would be acceptable in most cases. Before proceeding to a more detailed description of the individual exhibits, we purpose devotiqg a short article to the more general subject of aeroplane construction and design as it is represented by the collection of machines at the Grand Palais. Inter- esting at any time, such a comparison is all the more important now since this is the first tune in history that it has been possible.
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