Evening star., 1903-08-14
To- LAUNCH A|RSH|P
Experts Give Up Experiments
With Models.
PLATFORM COMPLETED
STORM CAME AS WORK WAS
DONE.
Belief Now That the Supreme Test Is
Soon to Be
Made.
COMPLETED
snsc,al Dispatch to The Evening Star.

special Dispatch to The Evening Star
Underwater, Va, August 14.-It looks
today as If the Smithsonian airship experts
have abandoned their purpose OF having the
next experiment with model aerodrome,
and are bending their energies toward the
launching of the big machine. which Is to
be the supreme test. Before the rain storm
rendered work on the superstructure I'M
practicable this morning Head Carpenter
Reed had force of men busily engaged IN
constructing the frame work of platform
on each side of the big launching carriage
track The keleton had been just about
finished when the storm broke.
1t is on each side something like sixteen
feet square and four feet high. When the
floor is laid across the surface Will be
brought up to level with the top of the
railing which now surrounds the main plat
form The boards to be used in the floor
have already been hoisted aloft. The new
platform will leave three or four feet mar
gin on each side of the big launching car as
an ample passageway. They Will enable a
force of men, equally distributed, to work
with advantage upon the large aerodroine
when it is placed in position for the launch
ing By reason of the wide stretch OF wing
when the airship is fixed for sailing 1t Will
have to be taken out of the houseboat wings
and body apart. The former will be at
tached to the central portion after all the
parts have been elevated to the superstruc-
ture.
This will be very difficult work, and the
task of balancing the machine In the air
currents will also be arduous. To effect the
best results such platforms as these de-
scribed will be necessary.
The accustomed silence respecting their
plans Is being strictly maintained by the
experts and in the absence of any official
explanation 1t certainly looks as though
they are preparing the superstructure Tor
the big launching.
In the next experiment with Prof. Lang
ley's model aerodrome the question of steer
ing will play an important part. or course,
in all the airship trials this has been an
essential, but with the latest experience in
aerial navigation 1t has appeared more than
ever necessary to have an apparatus which
will send the machine in the general direc-
tion determined upon by the experimenters.
The principal aims of the Smithsonian ex-
perts for the coming trial are to get the
machine properly balanced; to have Its
wings sufficiently strong to avoid detection
and to insure a successful behavior on the
part of the rudder. Just how this appara-
tus is operated is a great secret closely
guarded by Prof. Langley and his assist
ants, but 1T is known that the thing works
automatically in the models. In many
former experiments the machines have been
noticed going in large curves in a moro or
less general forward direction when their
movements were, apparently, always under
the control of the rudder. But it is not
positively known by those outside of Prof.
Langley's party just how much the varia-
tions in line of travel We're due to adventi-
tious wind currents and how much they
were caused by the fleXure of the steering
gear. The apparatus with which the small
aerodromes equipped situated at
the extreme rear of the vessel and are
about four and half feet long. Unlike
marine rudders, they have four blades of
equal size. This number and disposition of
the blades adapts the rudder to steering
both in horizontal and vertical lines When
1t is desired to change the lateral course of
the machine the rudder acts just like that
of a marine craft but when the direction
in relation to the horizontal Is to be altered
the steering gear behaves like the out
spread tail feathers of a bird. AT least this
is its intended function and what the scien-
lists hope it will perform at the next ex-
pertinent.