The Portland daily press., 1893-10-10
MAXIM OF MAINE.
He is Prominent Figure IN the Congress
of Flying afachiffe Makers.

The third Congress of Aeronauts at
Chicago cannot be said to mark the.solu-
ton of the problem of navigating the
air, but it must have done good in disa-
busing host of inventors who have
plunged. into the NAL iagg Of flying ma
chimes without clear understanding of
what has been done before them and
what is being studied elsewhere today
Some curious and very sintrincate move
ments of birds when soaring have been
to i some degree nalyzed aud certain
conclusions reached, which have more,
negative than positive value, teaching
inventors at least some OF the limits be-
yond which it is useless to attempt to
60. The congress enforces the conclu-
sion reached by Maxim, Langley and
others that the aeronallt must give up
the relationship, Notwithstanding the
partial success of Commandment Renard
In his naviagble balloon, 165 feet long
and ~ 10 feet in 4 diameter. Renard
built last winter larger air ship on the
feet in diameter, from which he expects
to get speed OF nearly 25 miles for an
hour and ability o. gHpve in passably
strong wind. But this balloon can fly for
few hours only, and it will carry but
few passengers.
M. Falconnet has suggested that for,
practical purposes a balloon ship must
diameter rUnwieldy, dangerous when
started and brought to stop, enormously
costly and extremity fragile, such machines
can hardly be termed practicable. They
are military machines like steam rams
and torpedo boats III <..gS
Everything tends to the, dropping of
the balloon principle and trying havy
=. 4bot co foroa IF r1ovino air
against broad planes, as a kite is sus
tanned at an angle to the wind, and as
the turkey buzzard scars by adjusting
the planes of its wings, neck and tail to
the breeze. Aeronautics, little peri
odical Just started by M. N. Forne in New
York, gives most space to researches on
the flight of birds. It prints an essay by
the late G. W. Hastings, in which the lat
ter concludes that man cannot obtain
success BY initiating the up-and-down
f1anppino fight of birds, but may sue
coed in copying their gliding flight Dis
cussing the secret of soaring Frank II.
Winston concludes that individuals can
learn to fly as they learn to walk the
tight rope, practicing with the flying ma
chine attached by 4 rope to a cable be-
tween two hills, as Md. Sanderval has
done. But he acknowledged that such
fying must remain in the category of cir
Gus feats.
Mr. Hiram S. Maxim OF Maine appears
to be on the way to .devising practical
/ BILE airship' through experiments car.
ried on at Bexley in Kent. Pictures of
this much talked-of air ship have Jap
peared in American papers. It has two
nlanes of cloth stretched on framewoIks
of hollow steel tubes. Platform, boiler
and driving screws of wood are between
these planes, which are not parallel, but
wider apart in front than behind. Dirty
en- through the ar by the big wooden
screws, the upper plane, striking the air
at an angle, gives a lifting power, and
the greater the speed the stronger the
lift Yet even this ship is nothing but
a device to study the action of bodies
and aeroplanes speeding through the at
mospher. 1t runs on a track, and be-
sides the two planes mentioned it has an
intermediate small plane and side wings
on each side, one above another, not
to speak of two cloth rudders of large
size. Altogether these surfaces represent
| 5000 square feet.
Mr.. Maxim has studied the bird as it
alights for his method of coming down
| to the ground is similar. He calculates
that if his engine stops running suddenly
the aeroplanes will act like the parachute
and the ship will settle slowly down,
| touching earth very gently. The total
weight Of the machine, including water.
naptha for the fire and three men. is
71o0 pounds. A boiler, weighing LOCO
pounds, gives him 300 horse power. But
| Mr.. Maxim will make no boasts: he is
going on with his experiments, and
| merely expresses reasonable hope that
he may solve all the main problems and
adjust the various parts of his machine
satisfactorily before the century closes.
evident. enough, The next congress of
aeronauts is called for 1900 at the exhi-
bition in Paris. 1t is fairly certain that
| by ' that time the American, French and
German inventors, will have practicable,
| if not commercially available, air ships