The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1910-09-09

heavy motor in the fall. The French
have been the heaviest losers in
life of any OF the nations interest
| ed I'm aeronautics Half n score or
daring and temperamental French
men have paid with their lives the
penalty for venturing into the sky
spaces on frail machines of silk, alu-
minum and piano wire The Germans
are the next heaviest losers in life
and property. The wrecling of the
numerous rigid and semi-rigid dirigibles
of the Zeppelin and Parseval types has
hit hard the hackers of the German
idea in aeronautics. The casualties
for the year 1909 were terminated by
the death of the Spanish aviator, Fer
naudez, at Nice, on December 6. He
was a martyr to the idea Of lightness
in aeroplane construction. His death
was undoubtedly caused by trying to
lv with a motor that was entirely too
light for the strain it had to bear dur
ing his determined flights. While
sweeping in great circles over the
aviation grounds of the French city
the tiny motor gave way with a split
ting crash. The watchers turned their
heads away while the swift fall lasted
In spite of the warning conveyed in
his death, many aviators even yet are
sacrificing safety for lightness in their
engines. Delagrange. who was killed
in the first week of January, 1910,
made the opposing mistake OF having
an engine whose weight was too great
for his wing area. His planes were
not sufficiently large to bear up under
the weight of his heavy motor, when
under the strain of full flight Della.
grange was the first aviator to carry
a passenger with him in his aerial
trips. Mrs. Pettler, the first woman
passenger in the history of the aero
plane made a flight with him in July,
1908.
After the death of Delagrauge, the
first few months of 1910 were devoid
of fatal accidents. Aviation meetings
were going on late in the winter in
America, southern Europe and in
Egypt 1t was April in the present
year before lie Blon was killed on the
Spanish seacoast at San Sebastian.
lie Blon was the idol Of the more dar-
ing aviators He had attracted inter
national attention by his remarkable .
flights at Doncaster, England, late in
October of the previous year. He had
dared the winds to do their worst in .
a 15-mile fight on October 19, and on
the next day he made a trip that all
aviators, even his nervous fellow .
countrymen, characterized as fool .
hardy A great gale blew up out of
the Atlantic on the night of October .
18, growing steadily worse through .
the night of the nineteenth 1t was
the sort that sweeps the tight little
island" every autumn, a terrific blow
that comes roaring up the channel
from the Atlantic, sending fishermen
and channel shipping scurrying for
shelter in some rock bound harbor
In the midst Of this great gale the
Frenchman announced that he was
going to make a flight In aeronau'
.icaI records the fight that he made
that day is set down as being "a fool.
hardy flight in a great gale"
The death roll has grown rapidly
N this the summer of 1910. On May
10, Michelin was carried by a strong
wind against a derrick, and in the fall
hat followed sustained injuries that
caused his death Eugene Spier was
dlled at San Francisco while prac'
Using on a glider" M. Robi met his
leath in a meet at Stettin. Wachter
vas killed at Reims. Charles Stewart
Rolls, hero of England by reason of
lis remarkable fight from Dover to
Calais and return, was killed at Bour'
lemouth through a rudder Of his own
invention failing to answer the lever.
Iinet, a Belgian, met his death during
recent aviation exhibition in a
french town. Eugene Ely, while try
ng for the third time to make con
inuous fight from Winnipeg to Port
.ge la Prairie, fell from a height OF
everal hundred feet and was killed. /
The dirigibles have been the occa !
ion Of nine of the twenty-three
leaths of the last two years. On
25, 1909, the French war
the Republique, on its way /;
0 Meudon from the field maneuvers ]
It La Palisse, was destroyed, sup
,ossably by a propeller blade breaking
If and ripping open the walls of the
raft. Four men were killed in the |
all of 400 feet that followed the utter
collapse Of the dirigible. In the de
truction of the Erbsloeh at LEIGH
ingen, Germany, a few days ago, five
men, including the inventor, met their
DOM.