The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-05
NAvIGArING THr AIR.

It was Solomon, if we mistake not, who remarked that the way of bird in the air was one of the several things that were too much for him. If he were now living we suspect that he would be ready to admit that the way of an airship or balloon in the air would be too many for his great wisdom and intelligence. The myths and traditions of the far distant past tell of adventurous men who tried to navigate the air and made mess of it, but in modern times 1t has come to be something of a fad with inventors and experimenters. as well as with the class of venturesome beings who are ready to risk life and limb in the effort to accomplish something new or to create a sensation.
 And yet 1t cannot be said that any great success has been achieved. AL ways there has been something in the way to dash the hopes-and sometimes the bodies--of the experimenters to the earth. Something wrong in the con struction, some unforeseen accident or failure, has brought failure and often death. Among the latest and most enthusiastic claimants of success in navigating the air, the Wright broth- CTS. who for some weeks have been experimenting in North Carolina seem to have accomplished most, and the positive claim has been put forth by and for them that they have complete ly solved the long delayed problem. Whether this broad claim shall be veri- fed in the future remains to be seen, but The New Haven Register seems to consider the matter really pretty well established, and that the Wrights have made good.
 "The so-called secret it says, '"is so simple that it can be told in a few words. They have been learning of the birds. They have found out how to construct machine that will work
 
 learned the more important fact that no machine will do all. What the birds know by instinct man must learn by long and perhaps disastrous prac- tice. As the navigator of the water learns to trim his sails to the wind, to tack and reef and steer according to the breeze, so the navigator of the air must learn to turn his planes and Lrudders, to float and control his en- zines, according to the air currents aloft. He must learn the law of air currents. know what to expect and ! what to guard against. And in the in- ventIon of the Wright brothers, 1t would seem, he may have a machine l that will turn his intelligence into practical and successful flight. The motor and propeller will send the ma chine ahead but that is the least of the necessity. The tricks of balancing and floating, of keeping right side up | and steady in all sorts of currents and gales and twists of the wind. of going where one wills to go whatever the strength or direction or whim of the wind-these and hundred other things which the birds know by in- stinct. man must learn. If he gets them at all, by studying and copying the birds. This the Wright brothers have sought to do. and their success in fly ing is commensurate with their sue cess in imitation. Because they are un- mistakably on the right track, their progress will be observed with keen est interest"
 we have long been of the opinion that aeronauts were working on a wrong theory in their efforts to navi- gate the air. All their plans have looked to the construction of a ma chine that will sustain itself in, the air while not in motion. Tn other Fwords. they have tried to build ma chine that will rise and carry the weight attached to it, and that will hold its place safely in the air wheth- CT it is in motion or not. This we