The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-20
AER0PLANE IS
 GOLD MINE FOR
 NUTMEG STATE
Henry A.Wise Wood Warns Our Manufacturers and
 Inventors Middle West Is Laying Its Plans to Capture This Great and Growing Indus try.

Issuing a warning to Connecticut manufacturers that the aeroplane in- dustry is growing by leaps and bounds, and that it is up to- the mechanical and business genius of the Nutmeg State to take hold now and reap the profits of the future, Henry A. Wise Wood, one of the best known members of the Aero Club of America, gave an interesting interview to a Farmer re- porter this noon.
 Mr. Wood, accompanied by Mrs. Wood, will be the guests over Sunday of A. Holland Forbes, president of the Aero Club of Connecticut, at the lat ter's handsome home, Garden Court in Fairfield.
 Mr. Wood stated that the manufac- turers of Connecticut. as well as the inventive genius will do we'll to real ize that if they do not take immediate advantage of this opportunity, they will lose it; for the far-seeing manu- facturers of the Middle West are now preparing for the manufacture of fly ing machines on large scale, and may capture that business just as they did the automobile industry
 Tn my opinion" said MT. Wood. i've are about to witness the inauguration of a single industrial growth which in the course of few years will be comparable to the industrial growth which followed the invention of the steam power apparatus and of cleo tricity
 'It is now demonstrated that power is the king of the air and it is the development of the highest capacity of that power that is now especially worth the attention of the brilliant engineers and inventors of New Eng iand."
 MT. Wood spoke of the Bleriot mon- oplane, not from its scientific but from its business point of view. The com pany which has the exclusive right to manufacture these flying machines earned in the year 1910, MT. Wood said, s67, 1000 net profits. But when the fig ures which tell of the profits earned year 1910 were mentioned authorita- lively by MT. Wood he did much to stimulate manufacturing industries in Connecticut to take hold of the con- struction of aeroplanes. It was of the Gnome engine that he spoke. This di- minutive French flying motor came into the field only two years ago. and perfected it. But as in France two years ago aeroplanes as a busi ness industry were much farther ad vanced than in the United States, this motor was offered to French capital which, instantly seeing it's value, se-i cured it. In the year 1910 the com- pany controlling this little motor earn ed s459,000 net.
 There seems to be no reason, there fore, why the development of the manufacture of aeroplanes and of contributory apparatus to the aero planes should not follow the same course as did the development of elec trtc lighting, the telephone, the trolley car and the automobile. Each one of these gave birth to very large con- tributory industries.
 In this industry, as originally in that of the automobile, the French are the pioneers. speaking of it now from the business point of view. Their men of capital and men of science seem to have an especially keen eye for appar- atus that may successfully be used both for the automobile and the aero plane. The story of the "Silent Knight motor is one of the dramatic histories of the development of the au- tomobile The American inventor went here and there throughout the United States seeking a market for his invention of motor engine which would work silently and without valves. When at last, despairing of marketing his apparatus in the United States, he went to France he speedily found that science and capital were ready to join in the utilization of his apparatus, so that now France and to some extent England believe that what America at first declined has proved to be the best apparatus for the auto car.
 With flying, he said, not only a new industry, but huge one, has sprung into existence. In his opinion, it has been developed very much as the au- tomobile industry was developed, and even more suddenly since it is only within about three years that the men of science as well as the men of cap- ital have been convinced that the air has been conquered and that men may now fly.