Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1910-07-22
CONTINUANCE
Butler AmeS Air Ship Arrives AT
The Academy For A Thor
Ough Testing OF Lifting
Power
NO ATTEMPTS AT FLYING
This Is The Present Intention OF The Ia
ventor..Airship Is A Much Observed
Machine


Take two large tin spools similar
10 those that one gets with each wide
typewriter ribbon, run a pencil
through their middles ard separate
them by narrow bit, cut out little
cardboard platform and hang under
them, then rig up a sassy looking
little framework with tooth picks
or matches around the sides of this
collection, and you have something
that strongly resembles miniature
Of Congressman Butler Ames' idea
of what self-respecting airship
should look like.
Possibly the Wrights, Glen Curtis
and q few others would not agree
with this idea, and it must be said
looks most bob-tailed and headless.
The feeling of something wanting in
the caudal appendage neighborhood
will it is explained, not be so marked
when the propeller is attached, but
the headlessness of the contrivance is
understood to be permanent.
Arriving at the Academy with its
wierd looking passenger strapped to
the bow, the torpedo boat Bagley, un-
der command of Lieut.. C. Il. Kear,
docked last night after trip from
Washington, on which the inventor and
his invention had shared honors in
the curiosity of the jackies and coal
passers of the crew.
This morning it was the observed of
all observers. All roads led to the
Naval Academy and everybody who
did not have the breakfast dishes to
wash or the weeks laundry to distrib-
ute, went to take a look at the rare
combination of boat and airship that
looks so much like new species of
flying fish.
Congressman Ames, with the retir-
ing disposition of all great inven-
tors, was not to be seen, as he
had not left the residence of Super
intendent Bowyer, whose guest he
is, so Lieutenant Kear and the
crew were made victims OF the
Foolish Question squad.
All that these mere amateurs could
say was that they had got the con-.
trivance we'll iashed to the platform
built for the purpose on the bow of
their craft and that coming down
the Potomac from Washington and up
the Chesapeake Bay yesterday, they
had coupled some power to it from
the Baglev's motors, and that the big
spools had been made to go round and
round right merrily.
1t was explained that while they
were spinning the airship-d don't call
it an aeroplane-had tugged and pull
ed at the weights that held it down
and the ropes that tied it to its perch.
In fact, that it had acted really as if
it would fly. A close canvass of the
Bagleys crew, however, failed to
locate any daring volunteer who was
willing to risk forcing the government
to pay his wife and family pension
through being the first to mount the
platform and cast loose the hawsers.
On this little platform which, by
the way, has four real cute little
bicycle wheels for use on land, is
a small electric motor designed to fur
nish power should the airship ever
want to be independent. Should this
i
/ the motors not run, there is a safety
device to preserve the life of the ma
chine and its jockey Running length
wavs of the spindles of each spool
like wheel of the airship are little can
vass blades which should the engine
an propeller stop, could be thrown out
at right angles with the spindels and
/ theoretically the resistance of the air
would make the spools continue to
revolve until the contrivance had
/ floated to terra firma.
Pending a testing of the worth of
the machine from the safe position on
the platform built onto the Bagley,
the tests will be largely theoretical.
A wind gauge and several similar
scientific instruments are scattered
about on the bridge of the Bagley in
front of the stationary airship and the
inventor will ask them to tell hin
their honest opinion of the thing be-
fore he lets himself loose to soar.
The initial test of the brand new
est thing in flying machines will be
made off the Academy this after
noon. Like the tests which its in
ventor subjected it to in Washington
last year, the trials here will all
be conducted aboard the vessel tC
which it is lashed. That the ma
chine can and does lift and lift
goodly weights has already beer
demonstrated.
With its propeller attached it vii
also drive forward, but just how best
to handle it and how much hors >
power both in forward and upward
movement and how much sweep oI
propeller will be necessary, are tht
things which are going to be found
out during the trials at the Academy
These things Congressman Anes an
nounced this afternoon in a brief in
terview. He also explained the the
ory of his machine, sd. ing that it va
simply nothing more nor less thai
that involved in the pitching of a.
"up-shoot, such as is sometimes de
livered by baseball pitcher to til,
puzzlement of the batter. The driv
forward is accomplished by the re
4 3 H.