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Aviation History
1911
1911 - 0976.PDF
I/OGHT learned by man, although the greater birds possess it to perfection. A few instances are on record of experimenters with gliders having been held aloft in one position for brief intervals of time, but there has been no conscious development of the art of soaring, from which, however, it is plausible to expect something in future when the art of aviation and knowledge of the atmosphere have further progressed. " Those who realise how much the larger species of birds accomplish without the expenditure of muscular energy must see that there is a field of the greatest possible importance AVERAGE NOVEMBER'S reputation for fogs, which it has appeared to be losing of late years, is fully established by a century's records. The number of lighter fogs is not very much greater, it is true, than that of October and December. But in dense fogs this month is well ahead of all the other months of the year. And while September and October give us morning and evening fogs principally, they are often all-day phenomena in November. In this respect, therefore, it is the worst flying month of the year in the south of England. It has twenty-one times as many dense fogs as June. Although fogs are associated with calm weather, November is one of the four stormiest months of the year. We get, on an average, twenty-five per cent, more gales than in October, but we are still far short ef the maximum, which occurs in January. Com paring November in this matters also with June (the best month) its its record of gales shows an increase of 150 per cent. Severe cold now begins, and during the month there is a fall in mean temperature of no less than six degrees. Usually we have a very cold snap in the period from the 6th to the 12th. Snow really begins. As was remarked in a preceding article, this is one of the most uncertain of weather phenomena, some winters passing without any considerable fall, and others giving us snow-covered ground for weeks at a stretch. The average for November is less than one fall per annum, the chances being 4 to 3 against it. This is for the whole month, but while snow is com paratively rare during the first two weeks it becomes rather more common in the last two. Hail is seldom seen, only about one fall occurring in four or five years, and thunder is still more rare, getting down to very cear the year's minimum in November. Cloudy days, of course, are very frequent, but November is not nearly so bad as the three following months. It has fewer rain- days, and less rainfall than October, but nevertheless is among the four worse months in the number of rain-days. We have a very great decrease of sunshine, in London, from the amount registered in October—nearly 50 per cent., while we get only just one-fourth of the sunshine of May, June, or July. We may compare November, which, taking it all round, must be a very bad flying month, with one apparently best month, June. It will be seen that there is a sad falling off in the quality of the weather, and yet worse is to come, as may be judged from the relative figures for December. Ten years' gales „ fogs ,, dense fogs ,, thunderstorms... ,, hail-storms ... . ,, snow-falls ,, rain-days Average rainfall (Greenwich) Mean temperature (Greenwich) . Hours of sunshine (Greenwich) . Degree of humidity (Greenwich). WE have already seen the excellent results of the collaboration 01 Mr. Claude Grahame-White and Mr. Harry Harper, and the new volume which they have written promises to be as successful as their initial effort. This time they are appealing to a different audience, and their subject is not quite the same. Boys love heroes, and are never tired of reading of their wonderful doings, and they will, no doabt, take as keen a delight as ever in reading this thrilling and interesting story of the struggles of the pioneers in the art of flight. Perhaps not unnaturally the book opens with an account of the experiments and tests carried out by Otto Lilienthal, " the father of the aeroplane," and it passes on to the work of Tilcher, Hargrave, Cha*ute, and Montgomery to Sir Hiram Maxim. The Wright Brothers next come in for consideration, and then follow chapters on NOVEMBER II, 1911. that is as yet totally unexplored. This is not a suggestion that aeroplanes will fly about without engines; on the contrary, they must always have engines, just as birds must always have muscles. It is a suggestion, however, that a skilful pilot of the future may be able to take advantage of winds and currents in the atmosphere from which those competent in the art of flight to-day are totally unable to make a profit. To this end a wider use of the glider as an introduction to the aeroplane seems highly desirable and especially worthy of encouragement" ® ® NOVEMBER WEATHER. By T. F. MANNING. Table of Weather Phenomena Jor November. The figures show how many times in a hundred years each event occurs. June. 71 74 I 20 34 0 116 2 "03 in. 59"4 196 73-6 Nov. Dec. 194 24 52 5' 13 IO4 2 I 2i 3 7 25 139 142 2-22 in. 18-3 in. 43-5 39-9 50 36 87-3 88-6 ® ® ® HEROES OF Day. I 2 3 4 5 6 7 1st week ... 8 9 10 11 12 ... 13 14 2nd week ... IS 16 17 18 19 20 21 3rd week ... 22 23 • 24 25 26 27 28 4th week ... 29 30 Month ® THE Gales . 6 7 7 5 3 7 3 38 3 5 6 10 5 10 7 46 7 8 5 5 S 7 6 43 6 9 10 7 7 4 9 52 8 7 194 Fog . 14 13 21 13 17 20 23 121 21 19 IS IS 24 19 18 134 II 18 21 20 18 14 20 122 20 21 18 IS 13 18 16 121 14 12 524 AIR Dens e Fog . 2 4 5 4 2 2 4 23 6 4 s 6 5 4 4 34 4 s 8 4 6 4 6 37 5 8 7 5 2 2 2 3i 3 2 130 »» • Snow . 1 1 - - 2 1 1 6 1 1 2 3 - 1 1 9 2 S 4 3 4 4 3 25 4 2 2 6 7 4 2 27 3 4 74 Hail . 1 - 6 1 - 2 1 - 1 - 5 - 1 - - 1 - 1 3 3 1 - 2 - - - 6 3 "* 23 Thun der . 1 1 - - - - 2 4 1 - 2 - 1 1 - 5 _ 1 - - 1 - - 2 2 - 1 1 1 1 1 7 2 ~ 20 Rain - Days . 47 49 5S 50 44 42 42 329 40 40 49 46 38 40 44 297 55 So 40 44 41 41 46 3l7 46 41 54 60 60 44 49 354 46 52 .395 Mea n Temp , 467 46-5 46-3 46*1 45'9 45"5 45'I — 44-6 44 "o 43*6 43'2 42-9 428 42'6 — 42-5 42-4 42-3 42 -2 42-2 42*1 42'I — 42*2 42'I 42-1 42*0 41'9 41*6 4i-3 — 41 -o 407 43-5 Santos Dumont, Henry Farman, Louis BIe*iot, Hubert Latham Louis Paulhan, and Grahame-White. All these have had stirring experiences such as the nomal boy delights to hear about, and he will find the story loses nothing of its " life " in the telling. The concluding chapters deal with some of the martyrs and heroes whose names stand out in the history of the wonderful development of the last three years, such as Rolls, Grace, Captain Ferber, Delagrange, Chavez, Sopwith, Drexel, Vedrines, Morane, Renaux, &c. Those who are casting about at this season of the year to gratify the anticipations of sundry cousins and nephews will find the book makes a very acceptable gift for boys. It is well illustrated by a number of coloured pictures, as well as a very good series of photo graphs, and is published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton at 6s. net. 978
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