Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-10-12
NAVAL B|RDMEN RETURN
Lieutenants EIlysOn And Towers
Well Pleased With Yesterdays
Hydroplane Trip.
USED SHIFT CONTROL.
Working As Pilots Alternately Officers
Found That Fatigue Did Not
Bother Them.

Thoroughly satisfied with the results
of their flight even though an over
heated bearing in their engine forced
them to land before reaching Fortress
Monroe, which was their destination,
Lieuts. Gordon Ellyson and ]. H. Tow
ers returned to the Naval Academy
this morning, bringing their disabled
hydroplane with them aboard the tor
pedoboat Bailey.
They Immediately reported their re-
turn to Captain Chambers, head of
the navy's department of aviation,
and the incidents in connection with
the trip, and prepared at once to rec
tify the trouble with their engine.
Lieutenant Ellyson, in speaking of
the trip, expressed entire satisfaction
with the demonstration and the exper-
ments made thereon. He and Lieu
tenant Towers are particularly pleased
over the fact that they proved con-
clusively that what is called "shift
control" is thoroughly practicable and
by its use the length of continuous
flight will be limited only by the length
of time the engine will work without
trouble, and by the supply of fuel
which may be carried
BY having two pilots in the machine,
and each running the engine for alter
nate periods, the two navy birdmen
yesterday afternoon demonstrated
conclusively that the human ele-
ment limitations-th through fatigue
and muscular weakness-can, to a
large extent be eliminated from gov
erning the length of air flights. This
is the first time that such an expert
ment has been carried to a successful
conclusion. and is quite a feather in
the caps of Ellyson and Towers.
Lieutenant Towers explained that
Immediately after leaving the govern
ment aviation field opposite the Naval
Academy, he ran the plane for twenty
minutes and then surrendered the
control to Lieutenant Ellyson, taking
a twenty-minute rest while his brother
birdman acted as plot. Alternating
this way in twenty-minute periods,
the two made flight of seventy-nine
minutes duration, which seventy-five
miles were covered and at the end of
which neither felt in the least wearied.
In addition to this, the two found
that it was possible for an expe rienced
aviator to repair his engine and work
on its parts while in flight. Engine
trouble with bearing was expert
enced, but while Lieutenant Ellyson
stayed at the wheel, Lieutenant Tower s
crawled back and fixed the trouble,
without stopping the flight. A little
later leaky water tube was repaired
in the same way.
The flight was maintained at an al
titude of between $50 and 200 feet,
and speed of nearly mile minute
until Smiths Point, at the mouth of
the Patuxent river, was approached.
There a serious "knock' in the move
ment of the engine warned the avia-
tors of trouble. Finding that a much
| overheated connecting bearing rod was
causing the trouble and that it could
not be fixed without considerable diff
Guilty, the naval birdmen returned to
their more natural element, and on
the surface of the bay worked their
way into shore and made a landing.
| After sending off wireless for as
\ sistance, they took their machine to
pieces and prepared for their return
to Annapolis aboard the torpedoboat
Bailey.
The engine now in the hydroplane
has not worked with entire satisfac-
tion and for this reason.it was today
taken out and will be shipped at once
to the Curtis factory, from where an
other and later make of the same type
of engine will be obtained. Pending
the arrival of this second engine the
effort to reach Fortress Monroe
will be abandoned. However, that
the next attempt will be successful
seems assured from the experiences of
yesterdays flight.