Flying machine

“ Then a whirr as the Flying-Machine was shot forward into the networks. All that the majority of them had seen and heard before. The thing went with a drooping flight through the framework and rose again, and then every beholder shouted, or screamed, or yelled, or shrieked after his kind. For instead of the customary concussion and stoppage, the Flying Machine flew out of its five [42] years’ cage like a bolt from a crossbow, and drove slantingly upward into the air, curved round a little, so as to cross the line, and soared in the direction of Wimbledon Common. ”

“ Inventors of, and experimenters with, flying machines are not at all agreed by any means in regard to the best position for the screw. It would appear that many, having noticed that a horse-propelled carriage always has the horse attached to the front, and that the carriage is drawn instead of pushed, have come to the conclusion that, in a flying machine, the screw ought, in the very nature of things, to be attached to the front of the machine, so as to draw it through the air. Railway trains have their propelling power in front, and why should it not be the same with flying machines? ”

“ In the spring of that year I had got to a flying machine that lacked nothing but longitudinal stability. My model flew like a bird for fifty or a hundred yards or so, and then either dived and broke its nose or what was commoner reared up, slid back and smashed its propeller. ”

“ A bird, on first rising from the ground, or beginning its flight from a tree, will flap its wings to get under headway. Here again we have another illustration of the manner in which a flying machine gets under headway—the motor imparts the force necessary to put the machine into the air, but right here the similarity ceases. If the machine is to be kept afloat the motor must be kept moving. A flying machine will not sustain itself; it will not remain suspended in the air unless it is under headway. This is because it is heavier than air, and gravity draws it to the ground. ”

“ It shows that a flying machine need not necessarily be a light, airy structure exposing an immoderate amount of surface. On the contrary, it favours the belief that it should be a compact and moderately heavy and powerful structure, which trusts for elevation and propulsion entirely to its flying appliances—whether actively moving wings, or screws, or aeroplanes wedged forward by screws. It should attack and subdue the air, and never give the air an opportunity of attacking or subduing it. ”

“ While every craft that navigates the air is an airship, all airships are not flying machines. The balloon, for instance, is an airship, but it is not what is known among aviators as a flying machine. This latter term is properly used only in referring to heavier-than-air machines which have no gas-bag lifting devices, and are made to really fly by the application of engine propulsion. ”

“ If one should attempt to propel such a machine with wings, it would be quite as difficult a problem to solve as it would be to make a locomotive that would walk on legs. What is required in a flying machine is something to which a very large amount of power can be directly and continuously applied without any intervening levers or joints, and this we find in the screw propeller. ”

“ From all of which we may well infer that the flying machine in practical form has arrived, and that it is here to stay. It is no exaggeration to say that the time is close at hand when people will keep flying machines just as they now keep automobiles, and that pleasure jaunts will be fully as numerous and popular. With the important item of practicability fully demonstrated, "Come, take a trip in my airship," will have more real significance than now attaches to the vapid warblings of the vaudeville vocalist. ”

“ It was said in the ancient world that there is nothing so absurd (p. 045) but some philosopher has believed it; there is no imaginable way of flight that has not engaged the time and effort of some inventor. Yet among the multitude of attempts it is not difficult to trace the ancestry of the modern flying machine. Wing-flapping machines left no issue. Machines supported in the air by helicopters, that is, by horizontal revolving blades, can be made to rise from the ground, but cannot easily be made to travel. ”

“ Up to the present day the airship—to which we will first turn our attention—has been much more largely and successfully experimented with than the flying machine. It is, however, the opinion of many, including the great authority Sir Hiram Maxim, that in the future the flying machine will become the more important invention of the two. “In all Nature,” says Sir Hiram, “we do not find a single balloon. All Nature’s flying machines are heavier than air.” ”

“ It is very much the same in learning to ride a flying machine; if you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds, but if you really wish to learn you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial. The balancing of a gliding or flying machine is very simple in theory. It merely consists in causing the centre of pressure to coincide with the centre of gravity.’
Wilbur Wright. ”

“ The various flying machines have different ways of accomplishing the control of the rudders for steering to the right or left, and up and down, for a flying machine is different from all other vehicles in this one respect. In addition to the steering, the machine must be balanced, and as the air is the most unstable of all mediums, how to maintain the equilibrium becomes perhaps the most important point in the construction of an aeroplane, as well as the most necessary one for the aviator to master. ”

“ But I will astonish the crowds Monday by making the most successful flight. I don’t mind admitting that my machine is built on the principle of the flying grasshopper. It acquires a start by means of two long shafts, made on the model of the hind legs of a grasshopper. By means of powerful springs my machine is launched into the air, just as a grasshopper leaps forward. Then his wings sustain him, just as the wings, the centrifugal planes and the equalizing weights, will hold up my airship with me on it. I have a great invention. ”

“ The real flying machine is the glider enlarged, and equipped with motor and propeller. The first thing to do is to decide upon the size required. While a glider of 20 foot spread is large enough to sustain a man it could not under any possible conditions, be made to rise with the weight of the motor, propeller and similar equipment added. As the load is increased so must the surface area of the planes be increased. ”

“ The invention of flying machines has always been handicapped, as it were, by this fact Men invent a flying machine and then try to ride it and show it off, and thus they are prevented by death from perfecting their rolling stock and securing their right of way. ”

“ It would, therefore, work very much like an aeroplane machine. It would also be possible to provide a third screw of less dimensions and running at a less velocity, to push the machine forward, so as not to render it necessary to give such a decided tilt to the shafts.
As before stated, great care should be taken in designing and making the framework of flying machines, and no stone should be left unturned in order to arrive at the greatest degree of lightness without diminishing the strength too much; then, again, elasticity should be considered. ”

“ The difficulties attending the creation of a successful flying-machine are immense, some unique, not being found in aquatic and terrestrial locomotion.
In the first place, the airship, flying-machine, aerostat, or whatever we please to call it, must not merely move, but also lift itself. Neither a ship nor a locomotive is called upon to do this. Its ability to lift itself must depend upon either the employment of large balloons or upon sheer power. In the first case the balloon will, by reason of its size, be unmanageable in a high wind ”

“ Ben agreed. “Perhaps the motors we hear belong to the flying machine of some sport out for a twilight ride. There are a good many aeroplanes passing between St. Louis and the east at this time of the year. We may hear other machines before morning.”
“Suppose,” Carl suggested, with a startled expression in his eyes, “that the clatter in the sky is caused by the flying machine operated by the fellow who chased Jimmie up New York bay?” ”

“ It will, therefore, be seen that everything depends upon the area of the air engaged, and in designing a machine we should seek to engage as much air as possible, so long as we can keep down the weight. Suppose that a flying machine should be equipped with a screw 10 feet in diameter, with a pitch of 6 feet, and that the motor developed 40 horse-power and gave the screw 1,000 turns a minute, producing a screw thrust, we will say, of about 220 lbs. ”

“ This latter feature should make the book of interest even to those who have no intention of constructing or operating a flying machine. It will enable them to better understand and appreciate the performances of the daring men like the Wright brothers, Curtiss, Bleriot, Farman, Paulhan, Latham, and others, whose bold experiments have made aviation an actuality. ”

“ All successful flying machines—and there are a number of them—are based on bird action. The various designers have studied bird flight and soaring, mastered its technique as devised by Nature, and the modern flying machine is the result. On an exaggerated, enlarged scale the machines which are now navigating the air are nothing more nor less than mechanical birds. ”

“ Our invention relates to that class of flying-machines in which the weight is sustained by the reactions resulting when one or more aeroplanes are moved through the air edgewise at a small angle of incidence, either by the application of mechanical power or by the utilization of the force of gravity. ”

“ A dirigible, man-carrying balloon that can be guided under favorable conditions, and can maintain itself in the air for any considerable length of time, was an accomplished fact at least five years before the practical aeroplane flying-machine. Yet the majority of scientists had become convinced several years before their convictions were verified by actual demonstration, that some type of mechanical flying-machine—a machine that is heavier than the atmosphere and that maintains itself by some mechanical means—was the only one likely to solve the question of aerial flight. ”

“ Stabilizing planes of some form are a feature, and a necessary feature, on all flying machines, but the methods of application and manipulation vary according to the individual ideas of the inventors. They all tend, however, toward the same end—the keeping of the machine perfectly level when being navigated in the air. ”

“ From mere gliding machines without self-contained power the brothers progressed through the various stages of achievement until in the fall of 1903 they had created the type of flying-machine now made so familiar to everyone through the pictorial publications. ”

“ The earnest student of aviation is reminded that the progressive work in this new art of flying is not being done altogether, nor even in large part, by the daring operators who, with superb courage, are performing such remarkable feats with the flying machines of the present moment. Not one of them would claim that his machine is all that could be desired. On the contrary, these intrepid men more than any others are fully aware of the many and serious defects of the apparatus they use for lack of better. ”

“ The flying machine, which at the end of the nineteenth century was a toy, ten years later was added to the most valuable resources of man, and ten years later again bid fair to alter the conditions of his life on the surface of the earth. ”

“ The constant fear of all gliders is, that the machine will point downwardly, and his motion, as well as the position of the body, tend to shoot it upwardly, instead.
CHAPTER IX AEROPLANE CONSTRUCTION As may be inferred from the foregoing statements, there are no definite rules for the construction of either type of flying machine, as the flying models vary to such an extent that it is difficult to take either of them as a model to represent the preferred type of construction. ”

“ The flying machine, built, apparently, almost entirely of metal, was driven by an engine said to weigh, with fuel and water, about 25 lbs., the supporting surface from tip to tip being 12 or 14 feet. Starting from a platform about 20 feet high, the machine rose at first directly in the face of the wind, moving with great steadiness, and subsequently wheeling in large curves until steam was exhausted, when, from a height of 80 or 100 feet, it shortly settled down. ”

“ It must launch itself in the ocean of air, and must extract from that air, by means of its travelling surfaces—however fashioned and however applied—the recoil or resistance necessary to elevate and carry it forward. Extensive inert surfaces indeed are contra-indicated in a flying machine, as they approximate it to the balloon, which, as has been shown, cannot maintain its position in the air if there are air currents. A flying machine which could not face air currents would necessarily be a failure. ”

“ Another simple means of illustrating the principle of flying machine operation, so far as sustentation and the elevation and depression of the planes is concerned, is explained in the accompanying diagram.
A is a piece of cardboard about 2 by 3 inches in size. B is a piece of paper of the same size pasted to one edge of A. If you bend the paper to a curve, with convex side up and blow across it as shown in Figure C, the paper will rise instead of being depressed. ”