Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-08-18
MoNARcHS OF THE AIR.
Giant Birds That Man May Some Day
Emulate In His Attempts to Ely.

/
| Emulate In His Attempts to Fly.
| Early in the morning the great vul-
ture Of North Africa leaves his eyrie
in the mountains and scars away into
the sky, rising to such a height that
the human eye, straining against the
sun bathed sky. fails to perceive him.
| All day long, hour after hour, he
swings or hovers, never dropping un-
less his keen eyes perceive carrion
beneath, and not until sunset does he
wing his way back, apparently as fresh
as when he started.
This vulture has been watched by
the hour through powerful telescopes
and never once seen to give so much as
a single flop of his wings.
| Man has been studying bird-flight
for generations past. He has done his
best to initiate it; he has gone deep
into it's problems, and has put forward
all kinds of ingenious theories. And
at the end of it all even now that he
himself is beginning to master the air
by means of a rigid screw driven
plane, he has to confess that the prob
lem Of soaring flight is well-nigh in
soluble.
For a very long time the common
explanation of soaring flight was that
soaring birds, like the vulture, took
advantage of air currents. 1t Is a fact
that some birds, like the albatross
need a breeze to enable them to sail
through the air; but there are others,
such as the frigate, or man. -of-war
bird, which can rise in the calm and
float all day without a motion Of their
broad pinions.
| The wings Of the frigate bird have
an expanse Of 10 to IL feet, and it can
fly at any pace up to hundred miles
an hour, and can remain for week on
the wing without once perching.
| The albatross of the Southern Hem
isphere has been known to follow a
sailing ship for a fortnight at time,
apparently never resting. Its wing ex-
panse is greater even than that Of the
condor one bird that was shot off the
Cape of Good Hope, measuring 178 feet
from wing tip to wing tip.
From these figures it might be
gathered that the larger the wing ex-
panse of any particular bird the great
er it's powers of flight.
Yet here, to use an Americanism, we
strike another snag. The powers of
flight in various birds are not by any
means proportionate to the bearing
surface of their wings.
The stork, for instance, can fly mag
nificently. On it's annual migration it
covers 1000 to 5000 miles and will
cross the Mediterranean with the
greatest ease. Now the stork weighs
eight times as much as a pigeon, yet in
proportion to it's weight has only half
as much wing surface.
! But a bird Of prey must be able to
do much more than support its own
weight in the air. 1t has to lift its kill
from the ground and carry 1t perhaps
many miles up into the mountains.
What such a bird is capable of may
be realized when it is said that an ca
gle weighing about eight pounds has
been seen to pick up and carry off
young pig weighing more than double
as much as itself. And there are many
cases on record of eagles having car
ried off children weighing, with theil
clothes, over a stone.
If man could build an aeroplane tc
match the eagle, that aeroplane would
only weigh, engine and all about eighty
pounds and it's pilot could carry 1t or
his back. 1t would have to be able tt
rise with only a few feet run, to sal
with safety in any gale and to remain
afloat for at least 10 hours at a stretch
Answers.