Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-02-08
The FLYING MACHINE.
From Harper's Young People. I

While i'm Paris in 1889 | saw some very
beautiful seamless tubes of steel, copper,
brass, and also of German silver. was
assured that they could be made of al
most any size and thickness and of al /
most any length, but the small and thin
tubes were exceedingly expensive. These /
tubes caused me again to think of the
subject of aerial navigation, and while
on journey through the Austrian
Alps | studied a great deal on the sub
ject, and it appeared to me that with
these light tubes | should be able to
make steam generator light enough
for the flyng-machine of which had so
long been thinking. From Austria |
went to Spain and while there | had the
misfortune to break a muscle in my leg,
which cOntine + me to my room for "A
considerable time. obtained pen, ink
and lot of paper, and amused myself by
making great number of mathematical
calculations in regard to the weight and
power of steam generator and of en-
gnes, also in regard to the thrust of
screws working in air and the lifting
power of aeroplanes.
On my return to England employed
all my leisure moments in making draw
ings of a pair of compound engines.
three hundred horsepower, for my pro-
posed ilying-machine, and, the drawings
/ finished, at once set about to nave the
engines made | decided to make the
whole engine of steel.
The crank shafts were very light and
hollow and were highly tempered; the
cylinders were of a high grade of steel;
the passageWays, etc, were made of
seamless drawn steel tubes and the
whole was very neatly riveted and then
brazed with silver solder. The cylin-
deis were then rebored and their thick
ness reduced to 1892 inch. | made my
connecting rods of steel tubes, using the
inside as an oil reservoir. These CON
Meeting rods were new in design, having
universal joints at both ends. Two
pairs of engines were.bult Gone pair for
each of the two screws which proposed
to have on my lving-machine) and
every ounce of steel in them was of the
very best quality. When finished it was
found that they weighed collectively six
hundred pounds and that they would de.
velop over three hundred horsepower
These were by far the iightest engne-
for their power ever built in the world.
The next problem was the steam gen
orator. | again went to Paris to see
about the tubes, but | found that the
kind | required had only been made in
very small quantities and were very
high-prced. However, | ordered lot
of the very thin and strong copper
tubes. The price agreed upon was
equal to their weight in silver, namely.
$50 for the lot.
These tubes were made and forwarded
to England. But at that time happen
ed to be in st. Petersburg and in my
absence they were placed in the stores
of my gun company and before | re-
turned to England some of the dishonest
employees of that company stole the
tubes and sold them as old copper for
about So and went on Il debauch with
the proceeds, and the beautiful tubes
which had cost so much money and
taken so long to make were again re-
duced to pig copper. Another set of
tubes was obtained as soon as possible
and experiments commenced with the
boiler. The first boiler made did not
prove satisfactory and third set of
tubes of larger diameter was obtained
and another boiler was built. When
finished ii had. with its feed-water heat
err, which really formed part OF the
boiler, heating surface of 500 square
! feet. 1t weighed with its gas-burner,
/, easing and smoke-stack about 1000
pounds. Experiments were then made
with gas apparatus, as believed that
gas was the only fuel that would be
suitable for running a boiler constructed
of such a large number of very thin
tubes. This required great deal of
tApcI lulcutluS, uul Ill lllc emu suCCecu'
ed in making and burning all the gas
required and | found that my boiler
would make all the steam that my en-
gines would use.
then constructed species of plat
form car mounted on four Hanged
wheels. The boiler was placed on the
forward end of this car, and the engines
attached to the rear end ON brackets.
had already made a number of very
large, light and strong wooden screws
of white pine, worked down very thin
and covered with strong linen. They
were found to be very efficient. Each
screw was II feet 10 inches In diameter
and had a pitch of lG feet. In the mean
time | had been providing railroad
track, nine-feet gauge, leading from the
shop where | had built my machine,