Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1904-07-30
KalkaSka Air Ship
Is 1t a Dream or In Fact a
Reality?

kalkaska TO 81. Louis on the wings
Of the wind. A thousand miles in
twenty hours by airship!
A dream maybe; but yet dream
which Ia the mind of a shrewd, kindly
faced old man OF that village is no
dream but plain fact, needing only
time TO bring it to fulfillment.
Fer nearly year w. G. Freeman of
Kalkaska, stirred by the offer Of a
reward of 100000 for the speedest
dirigIble airship' to be shown at the
st. Louis exposition oy September of
this year, has spent his time in a
little red shop on the outskirts of the
town while he and a corps OF half doz-
en- assistants have worked away on
the machine which Mr.. Freeman firm
| iy believes will revolutiOnize transpor-
tation methods. Six weeks more will
see it finished and ready for trial and
then: Ho, for ST. Louis and the capital
prize.
Mr.. Freeman's invention is an air
ship pure and simple. driven by wings
and propelled by steam. Cutting en-
tirely away from Langly and his in
clined planes, from Santos-Dumont
aud his balloons. from dozen Others
whose theories have failed when put
to the practical test, the Kalkaska
man has hit upon what he believes is
a new principle, and SO confident is he
of success that he is willing to stake
not only his whole large fortune but
his life itself on the result.
A visitor to the Freeman shop is apt
in the first place to be somewhat i'm
pressed by the secrecy which shrouds
every movement Of the inventor and
his assistants in the shop where the
work is done. All doors are locked
and the windows fitted with shutters,
and though occasionally man gains
entrance who has no plausible busi-
ness there, he usually stays only long
enough to get out.
The visitor finds himself in long,
high room, crowded at one end with
whirring steel drills and raspng saws
and filled with the odor of stale lubri-
eating oil and sawdust, while at the
other end, raised on blocks and sup
ported by frames, rests little squat
cigar-shaped structure with two long
arms reaching out from its body on
either side as if i'm readiness TO grasp
the first thing touched.
Each pair OF these arms is joined at
its extremities. Rising from the
| Joints to a height of SIX feet are ver-
tical steel shafts, and other vertical
shafts are set midway between the
ends of the arms and the squat body.
These four shafts, when the machine
Is completed, are to carry the horizon
tai wings, and each shaft will be driven
by an engine built into the arm on
which it rests.
The wings themselves at first sight
remind one of nothing so much as
windmill blades, set horizontally in
stead Of vertically and divided into
series one above the other on the ver-
| tical shaft, six blades in series and
four series on the shaft, each blade in
series being parallel with the Others.
The engines, which Mr.. Freeman
has himself built are marvellous little
compound affairs of brass and steel, SC
small that you could almost slip one OF
them in side pocket. But each Is
capable Of developing five horsepower
and with three cylinders set at the
corners of an equilateral triangle there
Is no dead center possible. The boil
ers, OF which there are two, also built
of Crescent steel by Mr.. Freeman him
self, are of six horsepower capacity
each, but the wonderful efficiency OF
the little engines is expected to de-
velope more than that. The airshir
when completed Will be forty-eight
feet over all, the end wing ten feet Ii
diameter and the Others twelve ano
the cigar shaped car nearly sixteen feet
long, three feet In diameter and -four
feet high. All OF the frame work is o
seasoned white Eastwood.
Whether the inventors theories viii
stand the test of trial remains to b,
seen, his purpose being, as soon as tn,
machine is finished to give it privat,
and public trials here and then, If i
works satisfactorily, to attempt tn,
aerial journey to st. Louis. Certain i
Is, that nothing In the world is NOR,
sure than Mr.. Freeman's IS confidence IL
his own success.
"why, I've had this idea in my heat
for forty years." he said. "Of cours
my machine will fly"
To study for forty years OH one prof
ect implies that the man who does il
must be getting along in years. Mr.
Ereop,an ia pearlv IA Ha looks 90