Flying

“ Nothing could be more graceful and interesting than these flying lessons. The young were easily distinguished by their gray colour and their yet unsteady flight; while the old ones hung poised sometimes for the space of a minute without moving a wing, as if upborne motionless by the storm. ”

“ But to men who had natural aptitude in the basic requirements, flying had an extraordinary appeal. There was all the intense satisfaction to be experienced through skill in any art, such as the smooth stroking of a tennis ball, the rhythmic swing of a golf club, or the exquisitely precise casting of a feathered salmon fly—all these were experienced by the student pilot, but with the added thrill that a mistake invited disaster. ”

“ Perhaps the greatest joy of flying is the magnificent extent of the view. If the visibility is good, the passenger seems to see the whole world.
I have spoken of the effect of height in flattening the landscape, always a phenomenon in the eyes of the air novitiate. Even mountains grow humble and a really rough terrain appears comparatively smooth. Trees look like bushes, and automobiles like flat-backed bugs. A second [230] plane which may be flying a few hundred feet above the ground, as seen from a greater altitude looks as if it were just skimming the surface. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These arguments are based on the belief that Nature never makes a mistake; that she made the bird to fly, and therefore the bird must be the most perfect model for the successful flying machine. But the truth is, the bird was not made primarily to fly, any more than man was made to walk. Flying is an incident in the life of a bird, just as walking is an incident in the life of a man. Flying is simply a bird’s way of getting about from place to place, on business or on pleasure, as the case may be. ”

“ THE COMMON FLY.—So many birds have been cited in support of the various flying theories that the house fly, as an example has been disregarded. We are prone to overlook the small insect, but it is, nevertheless, a sample which is just as potent to show the efficiency of wing surface as the condor or the vulture.
The fly has greater mobility than any other flying creature. By the combined action of its legs and wings it can spring eighteen inches in the tenth of a second; and when in flight can change its course instantaneously. ”

“ When this one feature has been worked out, the age of flying machines will have arrived, for all other difficulties are of minor importance.
‘The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ But of course they can fly much better than a plane."
Bill shook his head. "That's where you are wrong. No bird can loop, or fly upside down. Reverse control flying and acrobatics--stunting generally is impossible for them.--But look below! ”

“ CHAPTER I FLYING MACHINES Early Attempts at Flight—The Dirigible—Professor Langley's
Experiment—The Wright Brothers—Count Zeppelin—Recent Aeroplane
Records.
It is hard to determine when men first essayed the attempt to fly. In myth, legend and tradition we find allusions to aerial flight and from the very dawn of authentic history, philosophers, poets, and writers have made allusion to the subject, showing that the idea must have early taken root in the restless human heart. ”

“ The way in which the natural wing rises and falls on the air, and reciprocates with the body of the flying creature, has a very obvious bearing upon artificial flight. In natural flight the body of the flying creature falls slightly forward in a curve when the wing ascends, and is slightly elevated in a curve when the wing descends. The wing and body are consequently always playing at cross purposes, the wing rising when the body is falling and vice versa. ”

“ There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet—except in dreams. The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not where. You are no longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay, creeping tortuously upon the ground; you are a part of Nature! Your heart is throbbing against hers! Her glorious arms are round you, raising you up against her heart! Your spirit is at one with hers; your limbs grow light! The voices of the air are singing to you. The earth seems far away and little; ”

“ There is great popular interest in the problem of soaring, or flying as birds do, without any apparent effort, and also in gliding flights, or descending from a high altitude without the help of a motor. ”

“ I could not have picked it out from among the hundreds of little squares into which populated areas are divided. One of the senses which must be developed in flying is an acuteness in recognizing characteristics of the terrain, a sense seldom possessed by a novice. ”

“ It is necessary, therefore, at this stage to direct the attention of the reader somewhat fully to the subject of flight, as witnessed in the insect, bird and bat, a knowledge of natural flight preceding, and being in some sense indispensable to, a knowledge of artificial flight. The bodies of flying creatures are, as a rule, very strong, comparatively light and of an elongated form,—the bodies of birds being specially adapted for cleaving the air. ”

“ FLYING IN A WIND.—Suppose you are flying directly in the face of a wind, the moment you begin to turn the action, or bite of the wind, will cause the ends of the planes to the right to be unduly elevated, much more so than if the air should be calm. ”

“ Two ways remain of flying by our own strength; we may use wings fastened immediately to the body, or we may devise a flying chariot. If we are to use wings, he says, we must be brought up in the constant practice of them from youth, first 'running on the ground, as an ostrich or tame goose will do ... ”

“ FLY, knowing, wide awake, fully understanding another’s meaning.
FLY THE KITE, or RAISE THE WIND, to obtain money on bills, whether good or bad, alluding to tossing paper about like children do a kite.
FLY THE KITE, to evacuate from a window,—term used in padding kens, or low lodging houses.
FLYING-MESS, “to be in FLYING MESS” is a soldier’s phrase for being hungry and having to mess where he can.—Military.
FLYING STATIONERS, paper workers, hawkers of penny ballads ”

“ The instantaneous adjustments of the wings, the quick response to a passing breeze, the swift recovery of equilibrium, the giddy, eddying movements that require such absolute precision—all that he must learn, learn with infinite labour and 79infinite danger, if ever he is to conquer flying. ”

“ Dwellers in the country are familiar with the way in which the parent birds teach their fledglings to fly, instructing them by example, and encouraging them in their first short flights until they have become familiar with their powers and can balance themselves aright in the air. And if even birds, with whom flying is an instinct, have to learn the art of balancing themselves in the air by practice, how much more so must such a clumsy creature as a man, to whom flying is entirely unnatural. ”

“ THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN AVIATION
THE DREAMERS
The idea of human flight has excited man’s imagination for thousands of years. From stories and legends handed down through the years, we know that even from earliest times people dreamed of flying. There are visions of conquering the air in the colorful legends of winged men and beasts found in ancient folklore. The winged statuary of the Egyptians was no doubt inspired by the desire to imitate the flight of birds. ”

“ That the wing, when the flying animal is progressing at a high speed in a horizontal direction, describes a looped and then a waved track, from the fact that the figure of 8 is gradually opened out or unravelled as the animal advances. ”

“ The figure-of-8 and kite-like action of the wing referred to lead us to explain how it happens that the wing, which in many instances is a comparatively small and delicate organ, can yet attack the air with such vigour as to extract from it the recoil necessary to elevate and propel the flying creature. ”

“ They often appear to fly for a length of time together for the mere pleasure of flying. They rise without the slightest cause of alarm, and sail about to and fro over the same field for half an hour, then settle and feed again, and presently take wing and repeat the whirling about overhead. ”

“ Flight is a purely mechanical problem. It is warped in and out with the other animal movements, and forms a link of a great chain of motion which drags its weary length over the land, through the water, and, notwithstanding its weight, through the air. To understand flight, it is necessary to understand walking and swimming, and it is with a view to simplifying our conceptions of this most delightful form of locomotion that the present work is mainly written. The chapters on walking and swimming naturally lead up to those on flying. ”

“ Natural wings, on the contrary, present small flying surfaces, the great speed at which wings are propelled converting the space through which they are driven into what is practically a solid basis of support, as explained at pp. ”

“ There may be made some flying instrument so that a man sitting in the middle of the instrument and turning some mechanism may put in motion some artificial wings which may beat the air like a bird flying. ”

“ Students of aërial navigation who are devoting much attention to observations of birds say that if the peculiar law governing extant flying creatures could be fathomed the problem of human flight might be solved. ”

“ To tread upon the air (and this is what is really meant) is, at first sight, in the highest degree utopian; and yet there are thousands of living creatures which actually accomplish this feat. These creatures, however varied in form and structure, all fly according to one and the same principle; and this is a significant fact, as it tends to show that the air must be attacked in a particular way to ensure flight. It behoves us then at the outset to scrutinize very carefully the general configuration of flying animals, and in particular the size, shape and movements of their flying organs. ”

“ While, however, diminishing the surfaces of the flying animal as a whole, she increases as occasion demands the active or wing surfaces by wing movements, and the passive or dead surfaces by the forward motion of the body in progressive flight. She knows that if the wings are driven with sufficient rapidity they practically convert the spaces through which they move into solid bases of support; she also knows that the body in rapid flight derives support from all the air over which it passes. ”

“ The capability of flying has for centuries been regarded as supernatural. Putting angels aside, demons are depicted with wings like bats’ wings, while witches, etc., possessed the faculty of flying up chimneys upon broomsticks. ”

“ Therefore the adjustments necessary for rising at the lower level and journeying in the higher level are too large and complex to make flying at high altitudes practicable—leaving out of consideration the bitter cold of the upper regions. ”

“ Now he had been high and now low; now almost beyond hearing, now flying close to crashings and shouts and outcries. He had seen airships flying low and swift over darkened and groaning streets; watched great buildings, suddenly red-lit amidst the shadows, crumple at the smashing impact of bombs; witnessed for the first time in his life the grotesque, swift onset of insatiable conflagrations. From it all he felt detached, disembodied. The Vaterland did not even fling a bomb; she watched and ruled. ”

“ Le Conte's very able and interesting article upon flying, in one of your recent numbers, fully recognized the fact that mere air in motion, commonly known as "wind," and popularly supposed to be in most cases moving at a uniform velocity, can not in the long run help a bird or a man to fly. ”

“ Of all animal movements, flight is indisputably the finest. It may be regarded as the poetry of motion. The fact that a creature as heavy, bulk for bulk, as many solid substances, can by the unaided movements of its wings urge itself through the air with a speed little short of a cannon-ball, fills the mind with wonder. Flight (if I may be allowed the expression) is a more unstable movement than that of walking and swimming; the instability increasing as the medium to be traversed becomes less dense. ”

“ This however is my teaching: he who wishes one day to fly, must first learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing:- one does not fly into flying! ”

“ In aerial flying everything is reversed. The long axis of the bird is inclined obliquely upwards and forwards, and the wings strike, not downwards and backwards, but downwards and forwards (c of fig. 4) . These changes in the direction of the long axis of the bird in swimming, diving and flying, and in the direction of the stroke of the wings in sub-aquatic and aerial flight, are due to the fact that the bird is heavier than the air and lighter than the water. ”

“ The Battle cry of ... Peace!
They all cluster around the doorway watching the marvelous evolutions of the airplanes. The pigeons soar under them, and the child for the first time smiles—
The child, quaintly:
The birds taught them to fly. ”

“ There is a risk also, when a pilot is flying in fog or at night, that, having no visible horizon from which to gauge the inclination of his craft, it may assume gradually some abnormal angle, without his own sensations telling him what is95 taking place. ”