The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1908-06-04
SECRETS or THE BIG
AIRSHIP ARE OUT
Wright Brothers Expect to Sail 100
Miles An Hour.
MACHINE sIMLE IN CONCEPTION.
Machine In which They Have Flown
2S Miles Is Built on the Principle
of a SWIMMING Flat Disc-Have
Spent Seven Years Learning to Dive
From a Hilltop.

Dayton. o. Especially The secrets
of the famous Wright Brothers air
ship are out. The machines sue
cessful flights, in which, however,
wreck was recorded at Manteo, n. c.,
seem marvellous until It is explained
that the airship is built for opera
ton on the centuries-old principle OF
the fat disk, which thrown into air,
sails by the motion of its original inn
pulse for scores of yards, and then in
falling skins along over the ground
for an indefinite distance, finally
settling to earth without peceptible
collision. But the Wright brothers, In
their trial flights, have encountered
collisions with the earth, from which
they were seeking to separate them
selves, and it was not until recently
that the machine was brought to such
perfection that landing was made as
simple as that of the disk on which
the machine is modelled.
For seven years the brothers glid-
ed from the top of Kill Devil Hill,
at Mantoe, merely to solve the prob
lem of steering their machine. Then
they designed the gasoline motor and
propeller to obtain a continuous
energy in the place of the first inn
pulse which they had gained from
the start from the hill top.
In Dayton last Writer the Wright
brothers declared that 1t would be
possible for them, after slight
changes in the mechanism of their
machines, changes which their ex-
periments had developed, to make a
speed of 100 miles an hour.
An aeroplane capable of carrying
$50 pounds at 20 miles an hour re-
quires an engine making eight horse
power, they said. At 80 the power
would be 10; at 60, "a. This ratio
would be retained for each additional
mile They had great hope in the
fact that mechanical engineers were
constantly improving gasoline en-
gines.
They said they were confident that
the airship they were then about to
construct would be able to run for
thousand miles without renewing the
fuel supply. The machine which was
wrecked in Mantoe could run for
500 miles without taking on more
gasoline.
One strange feature of the Wrlghts
talk of the machines was that they
thought the airship never would sup
plant land locomotion; that as
regular carrier of freight and pas
sengers the railroads had no reason
to fear competition from the aero
plane. The utility of the airship
would lie entirely in it's advantage as
a accommodating agent in time of
war. They had no desire to sell
their invention to private company,
but were anxious to have the War
Department take 1t up.
The Wright brothers airship Is
built of spruce wood, second growth
ash, steel wire, heavy muslin and
small portion of metal. In appear
ance it resembles nothing so much
as big box kite, consisting of two
parallel planes, forty feet long and
six and half feet wide, muslin form
ing the planes, which is built and
to edges of spruce. Between them
and just under the upper plane is
motor which drives the propeller,
which is in the rear, six feet behind
the disks or planes.
There is included an arrangement
by which the driver directs the ma
chimes course by raising or lower
ing the edges of the planes and by
shifting the direction of the propell-
er. There is also a rudder in the
front of the machine which is shifted
10 aid in steering.