The Democratic advocate., 1909-12-24
IMITATION OF INSECTS AERO
PLANES SECRET.
Not the Flight of Birds is the Model
Aviation, Says an Expert.

AfAdtlUus Sdy du EAptTts
The earliest attempts at human
flight" said a man who is interested
in aviation, "were by initiating the
action of a bird in the air. In every
! instance the result convinced the en-
thusiast and even the crank if he sur
vived that the strength of a man in
proportion to his weight was INSULT
icent to lift, support and propel him
by his working of artificial wings.
After the eXperimenters had salts
| fed themselves that it was beyond the
strength of a man to rise in flight on
wings moved by his strength attention
was turned to attempting longitudinal
flight from an elevation, and when this
failed attempts were made to glide
down from elevations by the manipu-
lation or artificial wings as flying
squirrel descends from the top of one
tree to the trunk of another at dis
tance. This was intended to be step
beyond the almost perpendicular de-
scent from balloon by means of a
parachute.
The results were not in any de-
gree encouraging, and for a time moth
| ing more was heard of attempts at
human flight by the Tapping Of artifi-
cial wings or of descent from eleva-
tions by the flexing of winglike at
tachments. The long series of fail
ures had ended the efforts of man to
| fly as birds fly or to descend from an
elevation as a flying squirrel de-
scends.
''The nearest approaches to 1n1tat-
ing the flight of birds were as old as
the navigation of the waters. A sail
craft close hauled on the wind sug-
gested the soaring of bird. AS
hawk shoots up into the sky with
fexing of his wings, so did sail craft
cut swiftly almost into the teeth OF
the wind. Later there came better
example in the iceboat, which when
close hauled outran the speed of the
wind and came so near to initiating
flight that it could skim across flmy
ice that would not have supported its
weight standing still. Yet in the boat
on the water and the boat on ice there
was no imitation of the flight of birds,
though it was in a considerable de-
gree an imitation of their soaring.
"The early would-be flyers were not
alone in their efforts to copy Nature.
A 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 fall
ures. The exception was the trst at
tempt made, and it is what is known
as sculling. An oar or sweep is
put in a chock or rowlock at the stern
of a boat and by a series of movements
having some semblance to those of a
ish's tail in swimming the craft is sent
along. This method of propulsion is
not good in rough water or for cover
ing long distances and it would be
impracticable by power machinery in
stead of twist of the wrist.
"The practicable methods of marine
propulsion by power are as different
from the method of the fish as that OF
the aeroplane is different from the
Tapping of a birds wings in flight
After Ericsson began to make practl-
cal use of the screw propeller very lit
tie was heard of fishlike propulsion
of boats.
when Bleriot flew from France to
England the appearance OF his aero
plane in the air above the Engllsh
Channel was likened to that OF huge
dragonf1y. That description tells the
secret of whatever success has been
attained in mechanical flight. Man
has done what he has done in this
direction by initiating, not the flight
of birds but, most likely unconscious
ly that of insects.
.'The planes of the heavier-than-air
machines are necessary, but without
the WhirIing propeller that makes the
aeroplane more like an insect tnan
bird there would have been no me-
chanical flight up 70 this day. The
June bug, with his immortal song =
| L1,1r nm
can buzz and buck my head agin
a wall
is one of the heaviest heavier-than-air
insects. He is the insect prototype
of a clumsy aroplane, yet he gets
there, all the same.
1.-The limit of mechanical flight by
initiating the insects is the limit of
efficiency of the motor. Until tur-
bine or other rotary explosive motor
has been invented that does away with
the necessity of COMPRISING the va
por before exploding it.
every compression engine is work
ing itself. A considerable part of its
power goes toward COMPRISING the
vapor in the cylinders in process of
charging while the force of the explo-
sions 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 neces-
sity for compression the motor would
develop. For this reason it seems
| that the limit of the gasoline explo-
sive motor will have been reached
when the 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 it will not re-
quire compression but will exert as
much power as or more than the gas
oline motor gives with compression
If such a vapor could be produced
compression could be done away with,
reciprocating engines would not have
to work against themselves, the rotary
explosives motor would be an easy
problem, the proportion of power to
weight in aerial motors would vastly
increase, and the efforts of man to
| initiate the flight of insects would
bring astonishing results.
The demand of mechanical flights
is an explosive vapor that will be eff
cient. without compression"
Why He Joined.