The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-19
THE MANFLIGHT PROBLEM.

THE MANFLIGHT PROBLEM.
 Hargrave's Machine an Aid to Its So-
 lution-The Australians Improve
 ments in the Models of Maxim, Lang
 ley and Lilienthal-A Company
 Forming for the Purpose of Con-
 structing Airships.
 The news that a company is forming for the purpose of constructing airships will perhaps tend more than anything else to prove to the general public that aerial navigation generally is rapidly approaching the era of practical achievement. The marked impetus which the problem of manfiight has re- ceived within the last few years dates from the time when Helmholtz gave death blow to balloon navigation by showing that under the most favorable circumstances, and then only when constructed of the most rigid materials, balloons could be driven up to a limit of not more than twenty miles an hour through the air. The attention of sci entists was thus drawn off the balloon and concentrated upon the hitherto de- rfded flying machine. Fresh eXperi- ments by Maxim, Langley, Lilicnthal, Chanute and others have resulted in establishing not merely a new science of acrodromics, to use Professor Lang leys term, but also the fact that the
 question of a machine capable of SUD- porting mans weight and flying with safety and speed through the air for considerable distances is not merely possible, but that it's solution Is reduced
 to matter of subordinate detail in
 volving the best form aeroplane and | the lightest and most efficient engine to work rotating stem screw fan.
 The principle which is the basis of the
 modern flying machine bears the same
 analogy to bird flight as a carriage on wheels bears to pedestrial locomotion. The wing action of a bird, flying fairly horizontally, when dissected is found to consist of two distinct clements, one, a
 propulsion forward by back pressure on the air, and the other a support furnished by the upward component of the air which is forced against the in- clined front plane of the wing. Tn the
 modern flying machine it has been found more convenient to deal with | these separately, so that it now con- sists radically of plane surface in- clined at a small angle, which may on the average be taken as an incline of
 one in thirteen, together with a rota- ting screw propeller which forces this inclined plane through the air The principal requisites which then rema in for the successful accomplishment of | 1T .%.N stability and dirigibility of the aero- plane under all s,circumstances, and such an efficiency of the motor, com
 pared with it's weight, as to furnish propulsion sufficient to support the aer- l oplane and it's passengers.
 The former part of this problem has been separately studied in particular 1 by Lilienthal Langley and Hargrave, and the latter by Maxim. Maxim has | succeeded in proving the power of a l motor to raise an aeroplane containing | passengers above the ground. but has
 not as yet dared to intrust his machine and friends to the tender mercies of the | free air beyond his controlling rail linl- l It's. Lilienthal has developed the wing form of aeroplane without touching the question of the motor, and has shown l that even the variations of the wind
 alone are sufficient to support and even
 raise an aeroplane under intelligent
 control and enable descent to be
 made under perfectly safe conditions. | Hargrave of Australia, who promises
 to be the Newton of airflight, has at tackled both problems at once, and, by
 approaching the moving aeroplane
 from the kite principle, has constructed
 what is now found to be the most sta-
 ble form of aeroplane in existence.
 From the very first he seems to have
 recognized the strict analogy between
 the support of a moving inclined aero
 plane and that of moored kite. If we
 cut the string of a kite, supply it with
 a motor to drive it horizontally, and
 suspended so as to allow 1t to lie at the
 same angle as when moored, aud imag-
 inc the wind replaced by calm, a rela- tive wind will be produced by the for
 ward motion of the aeroplane kite, which supports it exactly as it was when moored by the string.
 The solution of the problem of the best form of kite thus involves the sim
 ultaneous solution of the best form of aeroplane. Ordinary kites are unstable chiefly in a lateral direction, owing to i the sharpness of their edges, and liar
 grave has remedied this defect by in venting the double-plane or cellular l kite, in which the cloSed-in sides con- | meeting the two planes insure lateral
 stability by developing an opposing | -