Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-07-06
MAXIM'S NEW WONDER.
A FLYING MACHINE THAT BIDS FAIR TO
REVOLUTIONIZE THE WORLD.

@AA1AS 40
pected to Fly 100 Miles an Hour and
Drop Dynamite as 1t Goes-No Further
Use for Forts or warshipS.
A heavily built but short and muscular
man sat beside table in bedroom in the
Murray Hill Hotel, talking to reporter
of The Sun. He is one of the great men of
the age, and if what he was talking about
comes true it will be difficult to see why he
will not be regarded as the greatest man
of his time He is Hiram S. Maxim, the
inventor, the head of the great gunmaking
house of Maxim & Nordenfeldt, the cleo
trician, the Yankee who has gone abroad
and built works in half dozen countries,
one of them all but rivalling tho great
works of Krupp.
While he has been travelling about taking
orders for guns in Italy, Russia Spain,
France, and England, something entirely
different has been turning over and over
in his mind during the last two or three
years. This is his experimental flying
machine with which he expects not only
to revolutioniZe warfare, but communica-
ton between the nations of the earth; to
alter mans relations with man in a thou
sand respects, in short. In form the ma
chine is huge kite of silk, to which will
be hung platform carrying the engines
and the screw propellers, which they are
to move and which are to force the kite
through the air. He believes that he has
| mastered the secret of initiating the ac-
ton of birds in the air, and, unlike most
men who have interested themselves in
the study, he is an eminently practical,
hard-headed Yankee in this world to do
something and to get money for it. He is
no dreamer. He expects his machine to
make 100 miles an hour or better, and to
| carry great loads of whatever you please,
| passengers or freight in peaceful times,
| or dynamite with which to pepper the
| habitations and works of an enemy in
time of war.
my large apparatus" said Mr. Maxim,
els provided with plane ITO feet long and
1 forty feet wide, made of a frame Of steel
| tubes covered with silk. Other smaller
planes attached to this make up surface
of $500 square feet. The whole apparatus,
including the steering gear, is las feet
long. The machine is provided with two
compound engines, each weighing 300
pounds. The steam generator weighs $50
pounds. The other things-the casing
about the generator, the pump, the steam
pipes, the burner, the propellers, and the
shafting-all weigh 1900 pounds. Every
| thing is remarkably light, so remarkably
| light that one great bar in q boiler that
| generates as much steam as mine would
weigh more than my whole boiler. 1t is
made of copper and steel brazed with
|
| joints in the generator, and 1t is heated
by $4,000 gas jets, there being forty feet of
CRATE surface, The heat thus produced Is
perfectly terrific. The boiler was tested
up to 900 pounds pressure, and it didn't
leak drop.
The most novel feature about the en-
CINE is the system by which I burn petro-
| turned into gas, and then that is burned
| DnnlratjnOr dtaan0
| lately been tried, and it was found that
they gave push of 1000 pounds on the
machine, which seems to indicate that the
machine will carry 1000 pounds. The &C
tual amount Of power shown in useful eff
feet upon the machine itself was 100 horse
power A part of the Aero.plane, or ac-
tual kite, is made nf very thin metal and
serves as very efficient condenser of the
steam"
You call it a kite-does it look like
one?" the reporter inquired.
every much like kite" said he; Gin
deed, that is what it is-a huge kite, with
the machinery hanging beneath it from
Its under side. If it were in the air, in
flight, you would see great sheet of silk
and little platform under it, between it
and tho earth.'
" How far will it go-how much fuel can
| it carryY
" If it proves as 1 have figured it, there
should be room for fuel to carry it a thou
sand miles; indeed, it looks as if 1t might
carry two tons of fuel or sufficient to pro-
pei it across the ocean. But cannot tell
about that; trial alone will determine
what unforeseen things, not calculated
will arise. 1t will be possible to burn 2O(
pounds of fuel an hour, but figure thai
forty or fifty pounds will produce moder
ate speed, or for high speed, 100 pounds
The highest speed got on the small ma
chino was ninety miles an hour. but be.
lieve this big one will go 100 miles an hour
What do you call it2' the reporter
! asked.
) I call It'll don't know what call it
The French have coined word for 1t, I be
lieve' They call it an AVIATOR
I have forgotten all this while, to asl
you what the machine is going to do?'' thu
reporter said.
! "What is it going to do? That Is thu
biggest question you ever asked in you
life The whole world becomes changed
it works-the whole world will be revolu
tionized in year. There will be no NOR
| iron clads, no more armor plates, no NOR
l big guns, no more Notifications, no NOR
l armies. There will he no way of guarding
, against what this machine will do"
eve will have to make roofs Of armo
plate on our houses, will we not?"
mo; there will be no way to guart
. against it. It will drop a ton Of nitro
q glycerine into place and you can't sto]
! it. 1t will go into an enemy's country an,
drop dynamite on the gas works, the waite
works, and the bridges-those are tn
things to destroy. Instead of Tomm
Atkins going ahead, musket in hand, an
, standing the brunt of the fighting, the BIZ
fellows who get up the wars will have t
- suffer. The first thing we will do will
J. to fly over the Emperor's palace and dro
n a ton of dynamite on the roof. What wi
a it do? Why, Russian officer said to m
=. when explained the thing to him: 'Tha
e will change the whole world in 81
- months IN. Y. Sun.
l. Yankee ssSyvapper."