The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-08-21
NEARER TO AIR FLIGHT.

/ i
all agog over the trial Of Count Yep
peiin.s great airship. at Zurich. and
he was nailed by considerable and over
sanguine section Of the pseudo-scientinc
world as the inaugurator OF new and
tation. Now. Count Zeppelin Is pretty
nearly forgotten. and the tickle public is
pinning its faith to the Brazilian Santos
Dumont. who. with q much smaller ma
chine, has been floating around the Eiffel
tower and the Jardin d Acclimatation in
Paris. Both these men, together with the
Russian Darilewsky. and several others,
have devoted good share Of their lives
to the work OF getting up balloon which
can be steered. They have accomplished
something; they have assembled with their
balloons. have gone a small distance, and
have returned to, or near to, the point
from which they started. There is de-
gree OF encouragement in the fact that.
at chosen moment. and with no great
wind. they have been able to go where
they undertook to go. But neither Yep
pelin nor Santo-Dumont has attempted to
do very much. and the chief problems Of
aerostation remain still to be solved.
There are. as the world knows. two OPP
posing schools of men OF science in this
neld. One school. which includes Count
Zeppelin and NJ. Santo-Dumont, believes
that the airship of the future will be the
Siderable balloon; that Is. an apparatus
which is made buoyant by gas lighter
steered by rudder.
-
The other school, represented by Prof.
Samuel p. Langley, believes that the gas
balloon will never be anything but a bal
loon, essentially dependent on the air and
the force and direction Of the wind. and
that If the problem is ever solved 1t will
have to be solved by mechanical flight
by the flying machine OF aerodrome. In
Professor Langley's view, man will never
he learns to do 1t In the birds way. He
must be able to rise from the ground, to
maintain himself in the air and to go
against the wind. as the birds do. Pro-
fessor Langley has maintained great Sc
crecy in connection with his own expert
no doubt that he has flown. so % speak.
a little bit. He has made an encouraging
start toward the mystery of the art and
science of Initiating the birds.
Count Zeppelin and M. Santos-Dumont
have the advantage over Professor Lang
ley of dealing with a science concerning
which the world knows a good deal al
ready, and in the field of which there
need be no particular effort at secrecy.
Zeppelin's balloon Is colossal affair. re-
quiring colossal machinery. Both he and
Santos-Dumont use gas engines. Santos
Dumont's motor Is more powerful, rela-
lively to the size of his ship. than Yep
pelin's. He seems to have, in this respect.
q more practlcdDle apparatus let II ~
evident that he essays air flight but timid-
ly, and in all he has done SO far there Is
really no great promise for the future. II
he had first flown from Paris to Versailles
and back again, rising to a thousand feet
to do so: if he had done this even on a
MINDLESS day. and had assembled and de-
scended as he wished, something marked
would have been accomplished.
-
The world would still have been far away
from the vaguely imagined airship which
is to carry passengers from New York to
London or Paris in 4S hours, but the world
might have seen in his small success a
more or less definite promise of the greater
one. How long will it be, at the present
rate of progress, before dirigible balloon
will be able to make trip from Paris to
Versailles and return, in even a light wind?
Many years one would say at a venture.
for the art of ballooning has gone forward
little indeed. counting in Zeppelin and
SantOs-Dumont and all they have clearly
accomplished, in the last hundred years.
compared with the progress OF steam and
electricity.
There is one method of proposed aerial
progression which is a compromise be-
tween the principles of dirigible balloon
ing and mechanical flight It Is the COM
bined balloon and aeroplane, which pro-
poses to employ a buoyant gas, but not
enough to put an airship quite afioat. The
action Of the motor must do that and also
scale the thing through the air as a naWk
scales against the wind. Man cannot raise
himself with wings as bird can; but it
| is argued by M. Yvon Lejeal and others
| that If his condition as to buoyancy were
| somewhat Appropriated to that of the
bird by the use of a buoyant gas. and a
sufficient motive power then applied to
overcome the dinerence the problem
might be solved. It is not proposed to
| make the individual fly in this way, but a
/ large machine. An airship on this plan
! has been proposed and at least partly con-
structed by a Frenchman named Rose. 1t
| is said to be as big an ocean liner, and
/ all but about one-tenth of it's weight will
! be lifted by two cigar-shaped balloons.
The motor engine will be relied on to take
/ care of the other TENTH The world will
| be increduious about this great ship until
| it has Witnessed some performance by It,
! Increduious, on the whole, the world will
| be about the practicability of any of the
| machines so far devised. Yet in spite OF
all doubt and discouragement, man firmly
! expects some time to navigate the all
4 freely M. Santos Dumont, with his smaller
and nimbler machine, seems to have come
nearer to the realization of the thing de-
/ sired than Count Zeppelin did. 1t now de-
! wolves upon Professor Langley to prove
that his is the proper theory by giving the
! world new and successful exhibition Of
mechanical l4ight.-New York Mail and Elk
! press.