Aerolite

“ Are not these aerolites parts of shooting-stars?"
"Circumstantial evidence favors the theory that some of the aerolites come from falling-stars; but, at the same time, no solid matter has reached the earth that can be directly traced to one. The amount of solid matter in an ordinary shooting-star is so small that it is thought to be consumed in its passage through the air, where its great velocity causes it to be heated to a very high degree; whenever anything has fallen from the sky to the earth, and been found at the time of its fall, it is always intensely hot." ”

“ If you will scale a sheet of tin, or a thin, flat stone, or even a slate from a roof, into the air, you will have the simplest form of an aeroplane. The stone, or tin, is heavier than the amount of air it displaces, but it stays up for a comparatively long time because it is in motion. The moment the impulse you have given it by throwing fails, then it begins to fall.
The engine, or motor, aboard an aeroplane keeps it constantly in motion, and it glides along through the air, resting on the atmosphere, by means of the planes or wings. ”

“ The types are classed in two general divisions based on their weight relative to that of the atmosphere, viz, the lighter-than-air machines and the heavier-than-air machines. Lighter-than-air machines are those which employ a bag filled with a gas whose specific gravity is sufficiently less than that of the air to lift the bag and the necessary attachments from the earth, and include simple balloons and dirigibles. Heavier-than-air machines, which will neither rise nor remain in the air without motive power, include all forms of aeroplanes. ”

“ If there should be no material substance, like air, then the only way in which a heavier-than-air machine could ever fly, would be by propelling it through space, like the ball was thrown, or by some sort of impulse or reaction mechanism on the air-ship itself. It could get no support from the atmosphere.
LIGHT MACHINES UNSTABLE.—Gradually the question of weight is solving itself. Aviators are beginning to realize that momentum is a wonderful property, and a most important element in flying. The safest machines are those which have weight. ”

“ We have, during the seventeen years since aeroplanes first took the air, seen them grow from tentative experimental structures of unknown and unknowable performance to highly scientific products, of which not only the performances (in speed, load-carrying capacity, and climb) are known, but of which the precise strength and degree of stability can be forecast with some accuracy on the drawing board. For the rest, with the future lies—apart from some revolutionary change in fundamental design—the steady development of a now well-tried and well-found engineering structure. ”

“ With the huge wing-like planes expanded to the full, the Ocean Flyer coasted aslant the air-waves. The cloud belt encircling the globe was penetrated and passed through, leaving small drops of moisture glistening all over the glass of the portholes. The moon’s rays made the metal body of the vessel [77] glitter like so much silver. As they dropped lower and lower, the world became dimly visible, seeming to be literally rising to meet the descending aviators. At an altitude of three thousand feet, the downward planing was discontinued and level flight again maintained. ”

“ THE ADVENT OF THE AËROPLANE The year of 1908 will be memorable in aëronautical science for its demonstration of the possibility of mechanical flight. Day after day in France and America was then seen the spectacle of men flying in the air, with a grace equal to that of the soaring bird. This was done with a machine not raised by the buoyancy of a gas, but with one that was heavier than the medium in which it travels, and whose sustentation and direction was accomplished by dexterity and skill. ”

“ At every stage of this development the aviators are indebted to the birds for information. The successful aëroplanes have great width compared to their depth, they gain stability by flexing the tips of the wings, and their planes are arched upward and forward exactly as are the wings of a bird. The aviator arranges his center of gravity after the same general model, below the planes and well forward. He places his engine forward, just as the bird has its strongest muscles in the chest, and he builds his frame of hollow tubes like the bones of a bird. ”

“ Having from a long experience in aeronautics been convinced that a constant and regular current of air is blowing at all times from west to east, with a velocity of from twenty to forty and even sixty miles per hour, according to its height from the earth, and having discovered a composition which renders silk or muslin impervious to hydrogen gas, so that a balloon may be kept afloat for many weeks, I feel confident with these advantages that a trip across the Atlantic will not be attended with as much real danger as by the common mode of transition. ”

“ Watch the successful model as it gains its altitude, settles down to a horizontal flight, is perhaps knocked off its course by a cross current, and steadies itself with a graceful curve and proceeds on its way.
All these problems must be anticipated. The young aviator must ingeniously arrange his planes and ballast in advance. The regular sky pilot, on the other hand, meets the problems of the air as he encounters them, by flexing his wings against disturbing currents or by banking to maintain an even keel at a turn. ”

“ Within a comparatively short time, then, we ought to see many companies organized in this country for aerial transnavigation of the globe by helium airship! Before the year 1919 has come to a close we ought to see aeroplanes and dirigibles jumping the Atlantic from shore to shore. Who knows, it may even come to pass that man shall become as much a creature of the air as the birds! As a world of exploration and travel the heavens offer him many adventures. ”

“ In a flying machine, the combination, with an aeroplane, and means for simultaneously moving the lateral portions thereof into different angular relations to the normal plane of the body of the aeroplane and to each other, so as to present to the atmosphere different angles of incidence, of a vertical rudder, and means whereby said rudder is caused to present to the wind that side thereof nearest the side of the aeroplane having the smaller angle of incidence and offering the least resistance to the atmosphere, substantially as described. ”

“ The development of aeronautics generally in this country was behind that of the Continent, and the airship had suffered to a greater extent than either the seaplane or the aeroplane. Our attitude in fact towards the air had not altered so very greatly from that of the man who remarked, on reading in his paper that some pioneer of aviation had met with destruction, "If we had been meant to fly, God would have given us wings." ”

“ The flutter of the tiny propeller suggests the sudden rise of a covey of partridges. The little craft, at once so graceful and frail, defies all the accepted laws of gravitation. It darts ahead in long, undulating curves as it floats over the invisible air-currents. As in the aëroplanes of larger size, the length of the [Pg 11] flight is dependent almost wholly on the motive power. As the little engine slows down, the craft wavers, and then in a long curve, for it can do nothing ungraceful, it glides to rest, skidding along the floor like a bird reluctant to leave the sky. ”

“ Oh, where is he who will invent a contrivance to keep me supplied with Air of right density and quality? It should not be impossible within certain limits.”
“We fully agree,” said the dying Power and Thrust. “Only maintain Us and you shall be surprised at the result. For our enemy Drift decreases in respect of distance with the increase of altitude and rarity of air, and there is no limit to the speed through space if only our strength remains. And with oxygen for Pilot and Passengers and a steeper pitch11 for the Propeller we may then circle the Earth in a day!” ”

“ Evidently it would be a mistake to place the air-ship at a point suitable for an ordinary balloon without motor and propeller.
And yet it was there that I did place it, not by my own will, but by the will of the professional aeronauts who came in the crowd to be present at my experiment. In vain I explained that by placing myself "up stream" in the wind with relation to the centre of the open space I should inevitably risk precipitating the air-ship against the trees before I would have time to rise above them, the speed of my propeller being superior to that of the wind then blowing. ”

“ These pedals control the rudder and tail.”
“But what in the world makes it go up?” asked Willie.
“Well, William actually seems to be waking up a bit at last,” grunted Tommy.
“When the engine is started, the aeroplane is propelled swiftly over the ground. Naturally, the air is at once forced beneath the planes, exerting a powerful pressure upon their surfaces. Now, it follows that unless the aeroplane has sufficient weight to push this air downward or aside the machine is bound to overcome the force of gravity and rise.” ”

“ The sea-plane, when a flight is made, is launched upon the water down a slipway; then the pilot and his passenger embark, the motor is started, and the propeller draws the machine across the water at a rapidly increasing pace. The floats raise themselves higher and higher upon the water, as the air-planes exercise a growing lift, until they only just skim the surface. And now comes the moment when the airman, drawing back his elevating lever, seeks to raise his craft from the water into the air. ”

“ Before we begin to discuss the aeroplane we must remember that before a modern machine leaves the ground it must be moving at least thirty-five miles an hour with respect to the air. This forcing of the edges of these broad-pitching, curved surfaces through the air at such a velocity naturally drives the air downward and these particles of atmosphere react in [26] exactly the same degree upward, thus forcing the planes and the attached apparatus upward. ”

“ Continually, the principal features of both the Wind Bird monoplane and the strange rotor-bladed gyroscope were given try-outs on dog planes, as the test planes were dubbed. And continually, “bugs” developed on both types of models. “Bugs” are what the aero-mechanics call those errors that always show up when air-minded inventors begin putting theory into practice. The air is still such an unknown quantity that when mankind tries to enlarge an air machine from a tiny model into a great forty-foot wing expanse, a hundred odds and ends of air troubles immediately develop. ”

“ Of course, when an aviator is lost in the fog or above the clouds he needs to use all the instruments on board to find his position. For that purpose drift instruments are mounted on aircraft; those tell how much the air-currents, which have the same effect on aircraft as the tide has on a boat, have driven him off his course. A compass indicates the direction in which he is travelling, and other instruments show him whether his machine is climbing, diving, or “banking”; the aneroid barometer indicates the altitude. ”

“ From observation he gathered how a bird checks its own speed by opposing tail and wing surface to the direction of flight, and thus alights at the proper ‘landing speed.’ He proved the existence of upward air currents by noting how a bird takes off from level earth with wings outstretched and motionless, and, in order to get an efficient substitute for the natural wing, he recommended that there be used something similar to the membrane of the wing of a bat—from this to the doped fabric of an aeroplane wing is but a small step, for both are equally impervious to air. ”

“ But if you accept even one report of a flying disk or rocket-shaped object before the twentieth century, then you have to accept the basic idea. In the last forty years, you might blame the reports on planes and dirigibles. But there was no propelled aircraft until 1903. Either all those early sightings were wrong, or some kind of fast aerial machine has been flying periodically over the earth for at least two centuries. ”

“ The development of the jet engine was made possible by a number of recent scientific achievements. One was the development of new alloys capable of withstanding extreme heat. The gases in combustion produce temperatures of 1500 degrees and over, and it is only in recent years that materials to resist such temperatures have been produced....
“Smoothness, simplicity, and evenness of power are three of the principal characteristics reported by pilots who have flown the new fighter plane powered by jet propulsion.... ”

“ Stewart rushed the prepared “take” of copy to the city editor’s desk and continued:
“It is from this new metal that the car, planes and truss of the Ocean Flyer are constructed. The aeroplane is modeled in general after the body and wings of a gull in full flight, insuring, by its peculiar construction, not only the greatest speed, but, by an ingenious adaptation of the same gull’s wing, the automatic stability long striven for by aeroplane builders.” ”

“ A man flying in a wind may, by vigorous use of his ailerons, recover the balance of his machine time after time; but as the wind rises, he may be struck ultimately by a gust that tilts his planes to an abnormal angle, despite his efforts to check them. The machine will then heel till it stands almost vertical—till it reaches such an angle, in fact, that it ceases to move forward and begins to slip sideways—skidding away, beyond the pilot’s control, like a motor on a greasy road. ”