The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-07
THE AEROPL ANE
 IS AN INSECT Not a Bird, Says a Man, and He Gives Reasons Why AVIATORS PLAIN BUGS Does Not Say Anybody Started Out to Initiate Insect Flights, But It Came Out That Way in
 the End.

From the Omaha Bee
 "The earliest attempts at human flight" said a man who is interested in aviation. were by initiating the action of bird in the air. In every instance the result convinced the enthusiast, and even the crank, If he survived. that the strength of a man in proportion to his weight was insufficient to lift, support and propel him by his working of artih- cial wings.
 After the experimenters had satisfied themselves that 1t was beyond the strength Of a man to rise in flight on wings moved by his strength attention was turned to attempting longitudal flight from an elevation by the m
 flight from an elevation, and when this failed attempts were made to glide down from elevations by the manipulation Of artificial wings as flying squirrel de- scends from the top of one tree to the trunk of another at a distance. This was intended to be a step beyond the almost perpendicular descent from bal loon by means of a parachute.
 The result was not in any degree en- couraging and for time nothing more was heard of attempts at human flight by the Tapping of artificial wings or of descent from elevations by the fexing of wing-like attachments. The long se- res of failures had ended the efforts of man to fly as bird flies or to de- scend from an elevation as a flying squirrel descends.
 Boats Initiate Birds.
 The nearest approaches to initiating the flight of birds were as old as the navigation of the waters A sail craft close hauled on the wind suggested the soaring of a bird. As a hawk shoots up into the sky with the fiexing of his wings so did sail craft cut almost into the teeth of the wind Later there came a better example in the iceboat. which when close hauled outran the speed of the speed of the wind and came so near to initiating flight that 1t could skim across flmy Ice that would not have supported it's weight standing still. Yet in the boat on the water and the boat on the ice there was no imitation of the flight of birds. though 1t though it was in a considerable degree an imitation of 1 their soaring.
 "The early would-be fliers were not | alone in their efforts to copy nature. A 1 great many attempts have been made | to propel boats by initiating the move | ments of fish in swimming. But with one exception all Of them were failures. The exception was the first attempt 1 made and it is what is known as skull l ing. An oar or a sweep Is put in a chock 1 or rowlock at the stern of a boat and l by a series of movements having some | resemblance to those of a flshs tail in | swimming the craft is sent along. This method of propulsion is not good in rough water or for covering long dis i tances and It would be impracticable by power machinery instead of a twist of the wrist
 "The practicable methods of marine propulsion by power are as different from the methods of the fish as that of the aeroplane is different from the flap ping of birds wings in flight. After Ericsson began to make practical use of the screw propeller very little was heard of fshlike propulsion of boats. BIeriot an Insect. 'fWhen Bleriot flew from France to En- gland the appearance of his aeroplane in
 
 likened to that of huge dragonfiy That description tells the secret of what ever success has been attained in ma- chanical flight. Man has done what he has done in this direction by initiating not the flight of birds, but most likely unconsciously, that of insects. '"The planes of the heavier than air machines are necessary, but without the whirling propeller that makes the aero flrA fv.n h ht~l there would have been no mechanical flight up to this day. The Junebug, with 1 his immortal song:
 | I'm June bug and I'm beetle; l I can buzz and buck my head agin a wall. 1 is one of the heaviest heavier than air I insects. He is the insect prototype of a clumsy aeroplane, yet he gets there all | the same.
 "The limit of mechanical flights by imi- I tating the insects fs the limit of eff ] ciency of the motor. Until turbine or | other rotary explosive motor is devised the nearest approach to it will be the | multiple cylinder engine. But thus far 1 no explosive motor has been invented that does away with the necessity of com pressing the vapor before exploding 1t. One Great Difficulty.
 Every compression engine is working against itself. A considerable part of its power goes toward compressing the va DOT nthe cylinders in process of charg- ing while the force of the explosions in the other cylinders is being expended Gasoline vapor cannot be used efficiently except under strong compression, and this compression must be accomplished at a great loss of the power which. but for the necessity for compression the mo- , tor would develop. For this reason il seems that the limit of the gasoline ex- plosive motor will have been reached whe nthe number of cylinders shall have been increased to the limit of regular and efficient compression and ignition.
 Looking further ahead there is the hope of the discovery of an explosive vapor so dynamic that 1t will not require compression but will exert as much power as or more than tho gasoline mo. tor gives with compression. If such g vapor could be produced compression could be done away with reciprocatine engines would not have to work against themselves, the rotary explosive motor would be an easy problem. the proportion of power to weight in aerial motors would be vastly increased and the efforts oi man to initiate the flight of insects woult bring astonishing results.
 "The demand of mechanical flights ii an explosive vapor that will be efficient without compression"