The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-22
AIRSHIP TIED TO AUTO.
MAKING EXPERIMENTS FOR
 FLYING MACHINE.

mer Residents of LoFdship Park.
 Inventor Expects to Soar at Will
 Through the Clouds.
 Bridgeport, Aug, A.-Resensbling the
 winged auks of tradition, which, ac-
 cording to the tales of the Arabian
 Nights, were accustomed to swoop
 down upon vessels and carry away the
 marines, a queer aeroplane lowered and
 circled over Stratford Sunday.
 Flying huge kite with forty horse-
 power Locomobile taking the place of
 the small boy on the other end of the
 string, and with a sand bag weighing lS0 pounds supplanting the tail, was
 the novel sport that amused a score
 of the summer residents at Lordship
 park. Stanley Y. Beach of New York and Stratford, an enthusiast in aero-
 nautlcs, was the promoter of the un-
 dertaking, with view to gaining some
 statistlcs for use in the future. A. L.
 Riker, vice president of the Locomobile
 Company of America, seated in his
 touring car manipulated the levers
 that controlled the motive power.
 Gustaf Weisskupf, also known as lGustaf Whitehead of 241 Pine street. tfor years designer of models of air tships themselves also took part in the sactlvity.
 For several months past Mr. Beach shas been devoting what tims he can spare from his duties With the seien- ' tific American, of which his father Is 1 the editor, to experiments with aero-
 planes, and extremely light but power I Gul engines. He has evolved an aero lplane built on radically different prin- Giples from others, built with view 10 ultimately solving the problem of '@erial navigation. It consists of a long through, from which is suspended boat shaped car, and from the sides of (which extend two dirigible wings. E Sunday at noon MT. Beach left his } home in Stratford in an automobile, ! at the rear of which was his airship, \ travelling upon a set of wheels fasten- < ed under the boat. He sped across the Meadows to Lordship, where a score Tor more spectators gathered around < his queer device. The ships cotton wings were spread, ballast piled into \ the boat and her prov was made fast, sby means of long rope, to Riker's Locomobilc. At a signal from Mir. Beach the car started, and the aero Iplane scared upward like a thing ani- mated. Cameras clicked. The Loco- Smobile attained speed of twenty miles an hour, and the novel craft maintained a splendid equilibrium. As the Locomobile slackened, the airship settled down to earth, dropping upon its wheels without mishap.
 The Locomobile again pulled away. and the ship scared again, this time settling rather unsteadlly and breaking 9 rib of its huge cotton sail Repairs were made and experiments were re- | sumed.
 Again the Locomobile tugged at the airship, but this time ballast was add 1 ed by the presence of a human be- 1 ing, brother of inventor Whitehead. The total weight now resting upon the wheels supporting the airship was | nearly 1000 pounds.
 The Loconoblle shot away but the | airship ran a long distance over the | golf links of Lordship before 1t finally took to the air. It rose short dis tance, then settled The Loconlobile tugged away, and the airship, creaking in it's cords and wires, suddenly experi- enced a dire accident It's left wing, unable to withstand the fearful strain imposed by the weight 1t carried, and the force of beating back the atnlos- phere at a speed of twenty miles an hour broke, and doubled over on the back A groan of sympathy went up from the spectators at sight of the accident to the life-like contri~, vance.
 sWeltering in the heat and exhausted oy running after the Locomobile and lirship, Beach and his assistants ban daged the wounded wing temporarily, and hitching the airship on their auto mobile, returned to stratford during the afternoon. Mir. Beach gained many statistics by means of scales nc had hooked on Riker's automobile which showed him the exact lift neces- sary to raise the machine from the ground.
 By means of speedometer in the automobile and the scales. he learned lust how much energy was needed to . make the device fly. These he careful y noted, with view to some day ac. complaining the dream of many an un- successful inventor, of soaring at will through the clouds,