Los Angeles herald., 1908-12-01
FLYING MACHINES
.RoM an advance copy of The Her
III aid for January 8, 1910, we take

HROM an advance copy of The Her
aid for January s, 1910, we TAX
u the following extract:
Complaints of the interferences
of overhead wires with the flying
machine service, both public and
private, are pouring into the news
. paper offices and into aerial police
headquarters. Sergeant Smith of
the air squad has been detailed to
make an investigation into the mat
ter, and it is likely his report will
be followed by an immediate and
peremptory order to trolley, tele-
graph and telephone companies to
comply with the law and bury the
wires. Besides. the necessity for
wires in the transmission of cleo
trical currents has been almost
done away with by the latest i'm
provements in the transmission of
wireless currents, and it is only the
old fogeyism of the companies or
their Discrimination to incur ex-
pense which makes them cling to a
method Of transmitting electricity
which is fast becoming obsolete.
"Owners of flying machines report
they find difficulty in reaching their
offices downtown. Most of the ac-
cidents which have been reported,
and which are made the most of
by conservatives who are opposed
to all radical changes, such as the
changes in civilization which are
bound to follow the general adop-
ton Of the flying machine, have
been caused, not by defects in the
flying devices, but by the presence
in air, on roofs, among tree tops.
and in all kinds of unexpected
places OF the clumsy, old-fashioned
wire. The Herald will gladly lead
in an anti-wire crusade. Overhead
wires must CO."
Perhaps you think the foregoing is
too sanguine, too "anticipatory." But
we think a means of mechanical flight
will soon be in general use, because
we are informed on expert authority
that a citizen of Los Angeles has in
vented the small, compact, easily man.
aged type of avimotor 1--WE might as
well give it a name) which will do
what cumbrous flying machines of all
have failed to do, and will
make aerial flight practical and pop
ular.
Few people have paid much atten-
ton to the fact that Los Angeles.
which has become the national center
for aeronautics and ballooning, Is
bound to become the center for all
kinds of fight. It's leadership in popu-
lar aviation is assured by the remark
able invention of Professor Zerbe Of
this city. Within a few weeks time,
when the operator becomes so accus-
toned to the use of the machine that
his manipulation of 1t will be practi-
cally reflex action, we believe more
marvels than the Wright brothers ever
thought of will be performed in Los
Angeles.
The Los Angeles inventor of the
pTdCLlCdl, I1dTh6Idple uylHB IudClllIl6 10
not dreamer, but master of mathe-
MATES and mechanics. AS in the case
of the gyroscope, this inquirer's inves-
legations into natural laws and their
operations have totally overturned
some Of the preconceived and long es-
tablished notions regarding the laws of
mechanics and dynamics. His
for protection staggered
the patent office at Washington, the
officials of which at first refused to
give patent rights to a man whom
they frankly considered to be a. claim
ant of results impossible and absurd.
On investigation. the patents were is
sued to Professor Zerbe, because the
governmental scientists
and experts found that the Los An
geles man who claimed he had solved
the problem of individual mechanical
flight knew what he was talking about,
and as nearly as can be determined.
HAS solved that problem.