The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-04-28
THE FUTURE OF FLYING
MACHINES

chine. In addition to seeing the ma
chine they saw it fly and had per-
sonal knowledge of the achievement.
During their lives they had heard
more or less about flying machines,
had listened as to joke, dream
or a fancy, and had been in the habit
of saying, "But they will never sue
ceed." And up to some certain mo-
ment not long past, they had main
tanned that attitude. But through
such exhibits as that of last Tuesday
we have all been forced from that
position. The past has been sepa-
rated from the present by the dem
onstration. Yesterday flying was only
fancy: today it is an accepted fact.
The fact has been accomplished with
the first, the crude vehicles upon
which a series of improvements will
be made, and that speedily. In all
the realm of aerial navigation there
is cause for rejoicing. Failure has
been dethroned. Effort has been
crowned with success. Endeavor has
been married to achievement, and the
workshop was the hymenial altar.
And what will be the results?
Why new field of operation opens
upon the vision. Enterprise will be
quick to make practical what inven-
tion has made possible. While it is
yet risky to carry passengers on air.
ships, mails can be transported, so
the mail schedules can be cut in two.
What the passenger departments on
our railroads have run the wheels
off" Of trains to accomplish, the
speedy delivery of mails, the airships
will match and then easily reduce by
half, and all this without any parti-
cular risk to human life, for the mail
train often carries hundreds of peo-
pie and too often carries them to
death, while the aviator rides alone
and thus reduces the total risk to a
small fraction.
As that first steam engine was a
joke compared with the locomotives
of today, so the airship of today will
be improved upon until this will look
crude and heavy in comparison. That
FIRST steam engine could make but
one stroke of the piston and then
cool the cylinder to remove the steam
before getting up steam to make the
second stroke. Now pair of pistons
on locomotive start train in
moment and acquire such speed of
strokes that the eye cannot follow
nor the ear sparate the strokes that
increase in speed until they blend
into one continuous roar.
The airship of today requires
smooth open field and several men
to start it, and who shall say that
inventive genius will not reduce it
in size and increase its efficiency until
it will lift happy excursion party
from the plowed field or the city
street, and soar away above the dirt
and dust and jars of the roads and
bridges.
Looking back over the evolution
Of the cars, the bicycle and the auto
mobile, who will refuse to belitve
that rich men and women will con-
tinue to use their fortunes and risk
their lives in testing and developing
this new machine. Then when they
are cheaper and more practical, the
well-toSdo and the people working on
modest salaries will be buying them,
mortgaging their little homes to Sc
cure the purchase price and thus
unconsciously sacrificing themselves
to the evolution Of the airship Every
boy will trying to build one, every
girl trying to fly one, the nation will
be studying its mechanism and its
workings with a zeal that brings out
tuc USob ludI tucEc iS III the WuOlc
people.
Even the babies will be learning
all about them, for Santa Clause will
be making tiny biplanes, If he is
not alraedy. and by winding up a
strong spring and turning it loose
on the floor 1t will take it's fight and
sail across the room like bug, keep
ing the study of aerial navigation
before the mind of old and young.
With all this work and study going
on in the interest of direct construc-
tion and operation, others will be
making improvements In the inter-
est OF economy of space, for when
we go to circus in the airships,
they will take up too much space at
the circus and somebody must fur
nish the pattern for the folding de-
vice so that the ship can be doubled
up and carried under the arm as is
he baby carriage nowadays when we