Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1908-05-19
SIGNAL CORPS
TO INVESTIGATE
FORT OMAHA WILL SEE ARMY
EXPERIMENTS WITH ARE
IAL APPARATUS.
Washington Bureau Of
The Ottl1nWa Courier

&s ~ fWashing gton, D. c., MaY,18.
Nowhere have the experiments of
the Wright brothers with their flying
machine been watched with more in
terest than right here in Washington.
The government has spent good deal
of money In various experiments with
aerial navigation. and is getting ready
to do good deal more in the near
future.
The effort to develop a practicable
dirigiDle apparatus has not been taken
very seriously by the government
authorities, for the reason that till
very recently little confidence has
been entertained that this could be
done. Rather, the government work
has related to the use of balloons for
inspection, study of topographic con-
ditions, and location Of opposing
forces. Fort Omaha Is to be made in
the near future the general headquar-
ters for the signal corps of the army,
with general equipment for carrying
on this sort OF work on a large scale.
and making it just as practical as pos
sible. Huge balloons have been built.
and the purchase Of a didgible appar.
atus has been considered.
First Heavier Than Air Machine.
Until now, however, all the work in
connection with the signal corps ex-
periments have been done with the
| ilighter-than-air apparatus. The devel.
opment by the Wrights Of what looks
like fully practical heavier-than-rna
chine is admitted to put a new face
on the whole business. The remark.
able speed which the Wright machine
has made-at times declared to have
equalled for considerable distances
that Of an express train-is one OF
the most attractive features. The
utilities Of such an apparatus, once
developed to the point where it could
| be used with confidence and certainty
would be so numerous that every
army's intelligence department would
have to be equipped with the machine
and with skilled operators for it.
/ There is much mystery about this
Wright apparatus. At least one and
it is generally believed two or three
essential features of 1t are unknown
to anybody save the inventors. There
is some mystery also about effort!
which were made at one time, accord
ing to report, to sell 1t to the German
government. The story is that tht
inventors had not at tnat time so IA
developed their project to be able tt
make a convincing statement of it.
points without divulging secrn
which they were unwilling to confid,
to anybody. Hence the deal failed
for the time at least.
Negotiations on Abroad.
More recently it mas been reported
that negotiations abroad are about t,
be resumed, and there is considerabl
interest in the question of whether tn
United States government will get an
other chance to bid on the invention
1t is believed by some military an
aeronautic people that the Wright
are now being financed by somebod
with confidence in their scheme am
, knowledge that II they make goo
they will sell the invention for a hig
figure.
If there is some essential featur
about this apparatus which can b
kept secret. SO that the countr
buying it will be reasonably secure /
a monopoly, then the investors fo
the rest of the military nations wi
be under obligations to become e,
) ceeding busy roaling something euua
ly good and effectiv
J. C. Welliyer.