Flyer

“ Aviation is the coming game, Mary V, and it's my game. Why, look what they're doing over in France! And if this country should get let in for a fight, wouldn't they need flyers? I'm not like Bland: I don't just look at it as furnishing thrills to a crowd that is watching to see you break your neck. Exhibition flying is all right, for a side line. ”

“ VI THE AIRSHIP BOYS’ OCEAN FLYER Or, New York to London in Twelve Hours. These thrilling stories deal with the wonderful new science aerial navigation. Every boy will be interested and instructed by reading them. ”

“ As scientists, Wilbur and Orville Wright discovered the secret of flight. As inventors, builders and flyers, they brought aviation to the world.
Their courage, perseverance and ability are comparable only to the magnitude of their achievement. The aeroplane will stand for all time as one of those few truly great inventions which have shaped the life and destiny of man. ”

“ Neither the Herald nor Ned and I want to do any talkin’ if this thing ain’t a go. If we stick our nose in the Jersey marshes or drop into the Sound we’ll let the other fellows guess at what we were tryin’ to do. But as the Herald suggests, if we reach London and get back, there isn’t any reason why the story shouldn’t be told and told right. The editor wants to get up a full account of the Flyer, its motive power, pictures of it, the program of its proposed voyage, the route and a sketch of its ‘brilliant’ crew, and have it all ready to print the moment we return. ”

“ Their monster aeroplane successfully crossed the Atlantic—traversing Massachusetts, the Gulf of Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, 1,709 miles of trackless water, Ireland, the Irish Sea—and delivered the plates of the Telegram’s special coronation edition safely to the Herald representatives in Hyde Park, London, at twenty-five minutes after one o’clock the next day. The story of the preparations for these marvelous feats, with a full description of the Ocean Flyer, its unique ideas and a detailed account of its now celebrated crew, appears below. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ All the same, it’s flyers like you who are spoiling this whole aviation business. Look at me—I’m a worker. Being a flying stewardess is my job. I work at it every month in the year. The pilots and their helpers, the mechanics in our shops, the radio men on duty all day, every day, depend on it for their living and the support of their families. Together we hope to make our transportation safe, comfortable and inexpensive for all. ”

“ While the Flyer, speeding forward over the lakes and rivers, white highways, thatched cottages and little stone fenced villages of Ireland, carried its crew nearer the great metropolis, all was made shipshape aboard. The staterooms were arranged for the return passengers. The boys aboard had no plans for further sleep or rest except such as they could snatch while on duty or in the short stop before their start on the return trip. The program called for a departure from London at two o’clock or before. And the flight to New York was to be made in twelve hours “or less” as Ned put it. ”

“ You boys have the airship that can do this and I think you have the daring to try it. If you do it with no other purpose than to show that a flight across the Atlantic is a possibility, you will get for it glory and fame—both empty rewards. ”

“ OF THE NEW YORK HERALD.
“Three sets of follow or tandem planes project, with slight dihedral angles, for from eighty to forty feet on each side of the body of the craft, a wing width never before attained. Yet, in flight, the enormous craft is readily held aloft, with all its load, by wings that are no more than seven and one-half feet in chord—from front to trailing edge. Although it will be incomprehensible to many how such small lifting surface can elevate such a heavy structure, this becomes apparent when the airship is seen at rest. ”

“ In the air, our road bed is perfect. Here a rut may pitch the whole machine over the fence. High up in the air you have no objects along your path to measure flight. The ground is so far away that it is no criterion. ”

“ The changes were made even as he spoke; the propeller's hum grew into a mild roar through the cabin walls, and the Sky-Bird leaped away over the ground, gaining momentum at every yard. To the surprise of even two such veteran flyers as John Ross and Tom Meeks, the airplane had gone less than fifty yards when she began to rise as gracefully as a swallow in response to her up-turned ailerons and elevators. ”

“ I want a ‘lead.’ The man on the story can’t write it. I can’t tell you anything except that this story concerns the first real airship. Give me half a column of what a real aeroplane ought to do—”
“It ought to go ten miles up in the air,” broke in Glidden impulsively as if anxious to demonstrate that he really had some ideas, “and the time will come when the flying machine will stay in the air more than five days. It will carry fifty people, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and sail two hundred miles an hour—”
“That’s enough,” laughed the editor. “Our machine does two hundred miles. ”

“ Just before one o’clock on the afternoon of June 21 ten persons sat down to luncheon in the private dining room of the American Aeroplane factory. President J. W. Atkinson, of the company, and Mrs. Atkinson; Chief Engineer Osborne and Mrs. Osborne; Night City Editor Latimer, of the New York Herald, and the five members of the crew of the giant aeroplane—the Ocean Flyer. These were, Ned Napier, captain and pilot; Alan Hope, first officer and pilot; Roy Osborne, observer and calculator; Robert Russell, engineer, and Buckingham Stewart, “assistant engineer” and “English pilot.” ”

“ Then the editor and Ned reviewed the plans for shipping the Telegram matrices in New York bay.
Close figuring showed that, while it was a fraction under ten miles from the Aeroplane Company’s yards in Newark to the point off the old Battery in East River, where the sea tug would be waiting, it would be advisable to allow the newspaper operators at least twenty minutes for transporting the forms to the Ship News wharf and to start the Flyer on signal about ten minutes before the expiration of this period. ”

“ What military prestige will it give the country that is the first to perfect an airship that can travel two hundred miles an hour—an aeroplane that can actually carry men and bombs? Point out that this means across the Atlantic in fifteen hours. ”

“ We have reasonably full details of the construction of your new airship and, I believe, exact accounts of its unique features—the triple tandem planes, their automatic adjustment, the new ‘moon propellers’ and the enormous turbine sulphuric ether engines. ”

“ Latimer slapped the desk with the last “take” of Stewart’s copy.
“You fellows don’t know news when you see it. What does the average reader care about English elections and French champagne riots? Every man and boy in the United States is interested in aeroplanes. And this story tells about the final thing in airships. It’ll be read all over the world to-morrow. It’s big, I tell you, and worth a page—”
“That’s what they all say,” sneered the telegraph editor. ”

“ As I understand it, your metal airship can maintain a speed of one hundred and eighty miles an hour for a protracted period. It is, in a direct great circle course, a little over three thousand miles from this city to London. ”

“ TOURING BY AIR Machines and alighting grounds—The cost of flying—An imaginary tour—The sensations of a passenger—How laws will be framed to govern flight—Aerial smugglers and spies.
The joys of aerial touring are such that it is difficult to do them justice. Free from the earth and its obstructions, free from police traps and dust, and the noise and traffic of the roads, the aerial tourist wings his way—serenely and with ease, a panorama spread below and upon either hand, and with a wine-like freshness in the air. ”

“ 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 began doing more cross country flights to airports in the area. Sometimes we flew with other students and the one in the rear seat always flew the plane as that is where the instructor always sat. One time I was flying with Bill Bell ( the son of the founder of Bell Aircraft Inc. of Buffalo N.Y.) and he was flying the plane, with me in the front seat. ”

“ We have seen how the soaring bird tacks, first up, then down, then up again, and then down again. That conveys the idea of the perfection of rapid transit for passengers and freight. With the captive balloon we can tack up, with the soaring machine we can tack down. Short tacks up, long tacks down; there is no calm for the aeroplane; give it altitude and it can seize from the calm the wind of flight. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The aviator jumps down, the passenger climbs out with somewhat less agility, perhaps, and expresses his very hearty thanks, the plane is turned around, the propeller started, and the machine flies off again, leaving the passenger to tramp slowly through the grass, contemplating the insignificance of the human creature who is forced to walk humbly along the ground. You may remember that the first time you descended from an automobile and began to walk, you seemed to yourself to be only marking time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the long overland stretches the aviator pays scant attention to the dead epics that he violates with the drumming blast of his propeller when he bores through the atmosphere above those plains where the spirits still dance in little dust whirls that pivot and career with no breath of wind. ”

“ Gwenna Williams passed out of the gates beside the big poster of the aeroplane in full flight carrying a girl-passenger who waved a scarf. It was everywhere, that Spring. So was the other notice:
"An afternoon in the country is always refreshing! Flying is always interesting to watch!" ”

“ When I am asked what individuals can do to aid aviation my reply is, to those who haven’t flown: “Fly.” For, whether or not aviation will be found useful in their lives, or whether they [216] find flying pleasant, at least they will have some understanding of what it is, if they go up. Every day all of us have opportunity to do our bit—and to get our bit—by using the air for our long-distance mail, and at least some of our express and freight. And perhaps some who come to touch aviation in these ways, will find an interest which will carry them into the ranks of plane owners. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A beautifully-timed, fine glide, the machine stealing down gracefully, and touching the aerodrome light as a feather, at a precise spot the airman has decided on even when he was several thousand feet high, is a delightful spectacle for the onlooker, and a keen pleasure also—from the point of view of his manipulative skill—to the aviator himself. But a pupil, at any rate in his first attempts, must not concern himself too much with any idea of a fine or graceful glide. ”

“ Instead I gave each one of an army of small boys the privilege of sitting in the pilot's seat, and showed them how to manage the controls.
The astonishing thing to me was, that while this village was not twenty kilometres off the much-frequented air route between C—— and R——, mine was the first aeroplane which most of them had seen. During long months at various aviation schools pilots grow accustomed to thinking that aircraft are as familiar a sight to others as to them. But here was a village, not far distant from several aviation schools, where an aviator was looked upon with wonder. ”

“ The air of this early dawn is distinctly chilly, and the A.M.'s are beginning to stamp their cold feet upon the dewy grass, but very careful and circumspect is the Pilot, as he mutters to himself, "Don't worry and flurry, or you'll die in a hurry." ”

“ A small airplane is ideal for short flights, joyriding the heavens, or sight-seeing among the clouds; but there is something more majestic and stable about a big machine like the Sky-Bird II which a pilot soon begins to love with a passion he never feels toward the little 'plane. An exquisite community of spirit grows up between machine and pilot ”