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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1173.PDF
balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment ofits weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell It would accumulate velocity and at the same time loseweight, and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush would be utilised by means of a shifting of its weights to driveit up in the air again as the balloons expanded." All this seems a quaint conceit enough nowadays, whenmen take the air as placidly as they would a taxicab. Yet if Jules Verne were living to-day he could plead justificationfor some of his wildest imaginings. • AN inventor happened in the other day. (Oh yes, this often happens to us, also poets.) He demanded to see the Editor, as of assured right. With one hand, the nails of which were bitten down to the quick, he clutched a bosom manifestly bulging with plans. Our Chief, with that Jovian serenity for which he is so justly noted, deputed someone else to " see to that high-brow." Opening fire in a rich Lancastrian accent (oh Wigan, still does the memory of thy potato cakes endear thee to us!), he gave us a pricis of his career, which ranged from caretaker in an electric power house to promotor of an aeroplane company of stupifying possibilities (with ramifications as to detective agencies, and an ill-fated marriage bureau). This accomplished, he drew breath, and gave us his unbiassed opinion, not for publication, of the Air Board authorities. (Occasional heads popped in at the door, attracted by language so richly embroidered.) Delicately (knowing the susceptible ways of the breed) we suggested that he come to the point. He did so. In the solitude of the mill he had hatched a project that would add, at the most conservative estimate, fifty per cent, to the speed of any aeroplane. It would enable the 'bus to hover even as a gull, the cost would be derisory, only the incredible inertia of the Vested Interests, &c, &c, had. hindered its development, and the attendant sudden conclusion of the war. He touched lightly on the " 'eartless capittleists." (That was the way he pronounced it, anyway.) We pleaded for a sight of the invention, plans, data, or particulars as to models, if any had been constructed. He replied with large generalities, gave it as his opinion that we were too young to be trusted with his secret, coined a brand new and satisfying epithet for officialdom (which we could only print in a coloured supplement) and departed in a cloud of shag. When normal life had been resumed, and the skulking technical editor had crept back to his lair, we turned up the patent. It was a multiplane arrangement, a kind of Jacob's ladder, which would stand as much chance of flying as a honeycomb. " MARY POSTGATE," a short story in Kipling's last volume, is strong writing and good reading, and not the least in. Aerial Age Weekly.AN ENVIABLE RECORD—"She's a regular Ace." " I_should say so! Bagged her sixth aviator." OCTOBER 17, 1918. teresting thing in it is the portrait, etched with corrosive, of a German pilot. The tale tells of a lady's companion with a grey and orderly mind, who finds herself caught in the swirl of the great war at the close of a colourless life. The crude young son of her employer to whom her withered heart had yearned is killed on a practice flight. A child of her village is wiped out of life by a bomb while she is standing near. And when a German airman is brought down, badly injured internally, close to her home, that cold dispassionate mind, remembering" these things, considers -what to do. " She saw, half hidden by a laurel not five paces away, a bare-headed man sitting very stiffly at the foot of one of the oaks. A broken branch lay across his lap, one booted leg protruding from beneath it. His head moved ceaselessly from side to side, but his body was as still as the tree's trunk- He was dressed—she moved sideways to look more closely— in a uniform . . . with a flap buttoned across the chest. For an instant she had some idea that it might be one of the young flying men she had met at the funeral. But their heads were dark and glossy. This man's was as pale as a baby's, and so closely cropped that she could see the dis- gusting pinky skin beneath. His lips moved. " ' What do you say ? ' Mary moved towards him and stooped. ' Laty 1 Laty ! Laty ! ' he muttered, while his hands picked at the dead wet leaves. There was no doubt as to his nationality." She goes back to the house to get a heavy revolver that the dead boy had taught her to use. " When she came through the rain, the eyes in the head were alive with expectation. The mouth even tried to smile. But at the sight of the revolver ... its corners went down. A tear trickled from one eye, and the head rolled from shoulder to shoulder, as if trying to point out something. ' Cassee. Tout cassee," it whimpered. ' What do you say ? ' said Mary disgustedly, keeping well to one side, though only the head moved. ' Cassee,' it repeated. ' Che me rends. Le medecin. Toctor ! ' " ' Nein'. said she, bringing all her small German to bear with the big pistol. ' Ich haben der todt kinder gesehn.' The head was still." And she waits silently until it is dead—" dead as dear papa in the late 'eighties; Aunt Mary in 'eighty-nine; mamma in 'ninety-one ; cousin Dick in 'ninety-five . . . Wynn buried five days ago ; and Edna Gerritt still waiting for decent earth to hide her. ..." TEN YEARS AGO. Excerpts from " PLIGHT " of October, 1908. WILBUR WRIGHT'S GREAT FLIGHT. On September 21st, Wilbur Wright, in the presence of a vast concourse of people, remained aloft for 1 h. 31 m. 25 s., and thereby established a record which is far ahead of the previous best—that made by his brother at Fort Meyer on September 12th. Indeed, had he desired, he could appa- rently, except for the darkness, have continued for a much longer period, as of 50 litres of fuel, he had still 28 litres left, and 8 litres of water remaining from the 10 litres he took up. ORVILLE WRIGHT'S MISHAP. At the very moment when Orville Wright, having spurted ahead of his brother Wilbur, the cup of reward which he so greatly deserves was rudely dashed from his lips by an accident. The most regrettable feature of the whole affair is, of course, that it occasioned the death of Lieut. Selfridge, an American artillery officer, who had been specially appointed to the ballooning section, but was leaving the next day for a " congress at St. Joseph. He was making his first trip as a passenger on that fatal Thursday, September 1,7th. The aeroplane had not been aloft much more than five minutes, however, when one of the two propellers gave way, and the machine fell from a height of about 75 ft. The cause of the accident appears to have been, in the first instance, the use of extra big propellers, which had been fitted prior to that trial in order to see whether better results could not be obtained. The increased diameter (9 ft.) caused their tips to foul the rudder stay wires, and one of the propellers broke. WILBUR WRIGHT'S PASSENGER FLIGHTS. Of late, it has been very evident that Wilbur Wright is paying increased attention to the carrying of passengers on his aeroplane, and although the sad fatality which marred his brother's earlier efforts with strangers must have made Mr. Wilbur more wary than ever, he has, nevertheless, gone steadily ahead, and after a series of comparatively unim- portant trials, finally made a sensational flight on Tuesday last, October 6th, of 1 h. 4 m. 26 s., accompanied by Mr. Arnold Fordyce as passenger, which was preceded on Saturday last, October 3rd, by a flight of 55 m. 32 s. 1174
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