Airplane

“ Efficiency of Airplane Wings.—I said at the beginning of this chapter that the airplane was a device for pushing down an enormous quantity of air. A certain amount of force has to be furnished in order to keep the airplane moving, and this force is furnished by the engine and propeller. ”

“ The performance of air transport in the war revealed that the air is like an ocean that affords uninterrupted access to any spot on land or sea. Experience proves that the airplane, contrary to widespread belief, is inherently an economical vehicle. ”

“ Now the wings and fuselage of our airplane are ready, and the rudder, the elevating surfaces and the ailerons are in course of production. They are made in the same manner as the wings, with a wooden framework over which fabric is stretched and “doped.” We begin to think our big bird is almost ready to be put together, but we have forgotten two important items: the engine and the propeller.
The airplane manufacturer usually does not attempt to build his own engines or propellers. ”

“ I choose flying as a career and bump into some funny things. I recently flew more than twelve thousand miles in a little over a month, through rain, fog, wind and snow, over mountains, cities and deserts, in a three-year-old, second-hand airplane that had already traveled some five hundred thousand miles. ”

“ One must have a good, smooth piece of ground to land on and plenty of it. When we get an airplane that will fly along (p. 102) at twenty miles an hour, one can land almost any place,—on a roof, if necessary,—and then people will begin to take an interest in owning an airplane for the enjoyment of flying. ”

“ Here again the construction of the airplane follows very closely the general form of the bird. A large bird which flew very high would be found to have his wings arched high in front, where they would have considerable thickness, and sloping down very rapidly toward the rear, while their thickness rapidly diminished. This sort of wing has great lifting power, and it is the sort that is used on an airplane which is built to “climb” rather than to develop speed. ”

“ The experience of one young airman on his first real assignment goes to show how the problems which seemed so easy of solution on the ground become unexpectedly difficult when the flyer is face to face with them for the first time up there above the clouds. Fresh from his course of training, he had been ordered to take an airplane from one government hangar to another which was close up behind the front lines. ”

“ Paul and his brother led the way out into one corner of the big field, so as to bring what slight breeze might spring up into the head of the airplane, explaining that machines without a pilot would keep a better keel under such conditions. ”

“ But suppose, as the sun rises to-morrow morning, you board a very fast airplane and fly it at its fastest speed toward the west. Suppose this airplane flies at the rate of 1,000 miles an hour. In twenty-four hours you have flown around the world, and wherever you have been during that time the sun has been just rising behind you. ”

“ For light loads, great speed, and quick manœuvering, the airplane is supreme. For heavy loads, long distance, ability to remain in the air for great periods of time, the dirigible is the only air craft that can fulfill the requirements. ”

“ Every part is produced in large quantities by skilled workmen, and its strength is scientifically determined before it is passed on to become a member of the finished airplane. [225] Sometimes whole factories specialize on a particular detail of the airplane. Here they make only airplane propellers; there only engines; while in this factory the wings and fuselage are produced.
Let us imagine ourselves on a visit to one of the great aircraft factories which have suddenly sprung up in the United States and become so busy with the work of turning out a huge aerial fleet. ”

“ Nerve and rapidity of thought save the aviator in many a ticklish position. It is perhaps a tribute to the growing perfection of the airplanes that in certain moments of peril the machine is best left wholly to itself. ”

“ In sections where airplanes had never come or at most had been merely glimpsed—a swift moving speck in the sky that came out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere—a plane that really came down to earth was a novelty. ”

“ Types of Airplanes.—To suit the foregoing purposes flying machines exist in seven distinct different shapes at the present time, namely: monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, single-motor tractors, single-motor pushers, double-motor machines and marine airplanes. ”

“ The flimsy airplanes of a good century before, with their little endurance records of weeks and months in the air, had given way to the great electric-driven cruisers which drew their power from the static about them, and which could stay aloft indefinitely. ”

“ After a careful look around to see that no other planes are landing, taking off, or in the air near by, the pilot opens out the engine, the roar increases its pitch, the plane moves slowly along the ground, gathers speed and rises smoothly into the air. ”

“ When men take to flying in large numbers no doubt we will have to have some sort of traffic regulations of the sky, but these will never need to be so strict as upon the ground, for the air is not a single track but a wide, limitless expanse, in which airplanes can fly in many directions and at many altitudes. ”

“ Everything seemed to us to confirm the correctness of our original opinions— (1) that practice is the key to the secret of flying; (2) that it is practicable to assume the horizontal position; (3) that a smaller surface set at a negative angle in front of the main bearing surfaces, or wings, will largely counteract the effect of the fore-and-aft travel of the center of pressure; (4) that steering up and down can be attained with a rudder without moving the position of the operator’s body ”

“ In our gliding experiments we had had a number of experiences in which we had landed upon one wing, but the crushing of the wing had absorbed the shock, so that we were not uneasy about the motor in case of a landing of that kind. ”

“ A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight. ”

“ We had taken up aeronautics merely as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it. ”

“ One of the life saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine had reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about two feet. ”

“ The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. ”

“ So I hurried down with the Aviation Captain to his tent to put on a warm aviation suit, while the Caudron was prepared for our flight. [83] As we approached his tent, a single-motored aeroplane took aboard its pilot and observer, its propellers whirred and roared, and it rolled casually away up the gradual slope, through a field of standing grain, till near the hilltop it took to the air as easily as a bird and spiralled up toward the low-lying dark clouds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the machine had been fastened with a wire to the track, so that it could not start until released by the operator, and the motor had been run to make sure that it was in condition, we tossed up a coin to decide who should have the first trial. Wilbur won. ”

“ Our seaplane swung around and around like a bird about to settle, and, as the seagulls do, alighted on the waters against the wind. With remarkable skill and patience the pilot carefully steered the machine until she faced the ways on which waited a throng of air-station officers and waders. Soon we were properly placed, and a dozen men clad in waterproof clothes splashed forward into the water, and caught the floats of the seaplane's wings. As the engine had been stopped before we landed, I got the first chance to speak to my pilot. ”

“ Here is an aeroplane starting off on reconnaissance. Pilot and observer are already in their seats in the midst of a neat arrangement of maps on rollers, compass, barograph, speedometer, pressure gauges, clock, camera, and machine-gun. The biplane, big but frail, its planes shining diaphanously, its metal-work sparkling in the sun, quivers and trembles to the stroke of the roaring propeller. ”

“ In just six weeks from the time the design was started, we had the motor on the block testing its power. ”

“ We were then satisfied that, with proper lubrication and better adjustments, a little more power could [10] be expected. The completion of the motor according to drawing was, therefore, proceeded with at once. ”

“ The darkness hangs about the driving air-craft like a pall. The aviator anxiously scans the earth below him for an occasional light or the glare that a distant city casts on the sky. It is by those means alone that he can get his bearings, unless he is a skilled navigator and steers by the compass. ”

“ We laid the track on a smooth stretch of ground about one hundred feet north of the new building. ”

“ We are about to consider man’s efforts to rise from the bottom of this ocean and wing his flight a little way through the atmosphere above him. His excursions upward are limited, for he could not live near the surface heights of this ocean, vast and deep and boundless. The art and science of his flight through the air, because of its relation to the flight of birds, we call aviation. ”

“ But the pilot of a racing plane is no ordinary man; none, indeed, but the most expert will dare to handle a high-speed craft. With 160 h.p. within its frail, light hull, and sustained in flight by the smallest of wings, the machine must have a master hand upon its levers—a hand light and yet sure, delicate and yet as strong as steel. Those in France who fly these racing craft are called the “record” men. Others, who do trick-flying such as “looping the loop,” are known as the “artists.”
A daily feature of work upon the aerodrome is the giving of passenger flights. ”

“ Whatever may be said against aeroplanes in full flight, and there is quite a long indictment—that they are, for instance, not at all like birds, and much more like dragon-flies, and are too noisy, and too rigid, and so forth,—no one in his senses can deny that as they rise from the ground—especially if you are behind them and they are receding swiftly in a straight line from you, and even more so if you are personally acquainted with the occupants—they have beautiful and exciting qualities. ”

“ But, as the Lift increases with the Speed, the complaints of the Under-carriage are stilled, and then, the friendly Lift becoming greater than the Weight, the Aeroplane swiftly and easily takes to the air.
Below is left the Earth with all its bumps and troubles. Up into the clean clear Air moves with incredible speed and steadiness this triumph of the Designer, the result of how much mental effort, imagination, trials and errors, failures and successes, and many a life lost in high endeavour. ”

“ There is magic in salt water which transmogrifies all things it touches. The aeroplane with its cubist outline undergoes a sea change on reaching the coast and becomes a flying-boat, a thing of beauty, a Viking dragon ship, a shape born of the sea and air with pleasant and easy lines, and in the sun, the dull war-paint stripped from the natural mahogany, a flashing golden craft of enchantment. ”

“ Just as the navigator must know the sea, so the aviator must have a knowledge of the heavens and the basic principles of aerodynamics in order to become a successful pilot. Although the air is volatile like the water, the aviator flies through it as a fish moves through water. Therefore the aerial navigator must know enough about the medium through which he travels to know what to do in an emergency. ”

“ It is five o'clock of a fine calm morning, when the Aeroplane is wheeled out of its shed on to the greensward of the Military Aerodrome. There is every promise of a good flying day, and, although the sun has not yet risen, it is light enough to discern the motionless layer of fleecy clouds some five thousand feet high, and far, far above that a few filmy mottled streaks of vapour. ”

“ Each young aviator winds up his craft, adjusts the power with his own hands, and sets the rudder for the flight.
The miniature air-craft must act in flight exactly the same as the great working air-craft which carry men aloft. A toy air-ship must make its flight in a horizontal position, and if it turns over in flight, even though it flies farther and faster than any other, it is disqualified. ”

“ Aspect-Ratio—The proportion of span to chord of a surface.
Air-Screw (Propeller) —A surface so shaped that its rotation about an axis produces a force (thrust) in the direction of its axis.
Aileron—A controlling surface, usually situated at the wing-tip, the operation of which turns an aeroplane about its longitudinal axis; causes an aeroplane to tilt sideways.
Aviation—The art of driving an aeroplane.
Aviator—The driver of an aeroplane.
Barograph—A recording barometer, the charts of which can be calibrated for showing air density or height. ”

“ I want to teach you to be not only pilots but your own mechanics. If something should happen to a plane you’re flying, I want you to know how to go about repairing the motor or anything else that may be wrong. For that reason I want you to spend a lot of your spare time fussing with an old plane, which is used just for that purpose. It is situated in the corner hangar. ”