Barbour County index., 1910-09-07

klLLI srhI was cruSned to
death beneath his
heavy motor in the fall. The French
have been the heaviest losers In
life of any of the nations interest
ed in aeronautics. Half score OF
daring and temperamental Frencn- !
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 lie
and property. The wrecking 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
nandez, 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
fly 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 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 fight. Della
grange was the first aviator to carry
! passenger with him in his aerial
! trips Mrs. -Pettier, the first woman
passenger in the history of the aero
plane. made flight with him in July.
1908.
After the death of Delagrange, 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 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, 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
tical records the fight that he made
that day is set down as being "a fool
hardy flight in great gale"
n0 uSdtH 1OI1 hco SAO"h Aopiuly
in this, the summer of 1910. On May
Is. Michelin was carried by strong
| wind against a derrick, and in the fall
that followed sustained injuries that
caused his death. Eugene Spier was
killed at San Francisco while prac-
tising on glider" M. Robi met his
death in a meet at Stettin. Wachter
was killed at Reims Charles Stewart
Rolls, hero of England by reason of
his remarkable flight from Dover to
Calais and return, was killed at Bour-
nemouth through a rudder of his own
invention failing to answer the lever.
Kinet, Belgian, met his death during
recent aviation exhibition in a
French town. Eugene Ely, while try
ing for the third time to make a con-
tinuous flight from Winnipeg to Port
age la Prairie, fell from height of
several hundred feet and was killed
The dirigibles have been the occa-
sion OF nine of the twenty-three
deaths of the last two years. On
September 25, 1909, the French war
balloon, the Republique, on its way
to Meudon from the field maneuvers
at La Palisse, was destroyed. sup
possably by propeller blade breaking
off and ripping open the walls of the
craft. Four men were killed In the
fall of 400 feet, that followed the utter
collapse of the dirigible. In the de-
struction of the Erbsloeh, at LEIGH
lingen. Germany, a few days ago, i've
men. including the inventor, met their
doom.