The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-07-10
MESTACn REVIEWS
THE AVIAIORS
GEORGE MEsTAcH, THE FAMOUS
BIRDMAN WHO WILL FLY AT
STATE FAIR, REVIEWS THE
PROGRESS or AVIATION MADE
in LAST HALF DECADE.

ago." said George Mestach, the noted
French birdman, the other day IN
speaking OF the progress of aviation,
no radical changes have been evident
in the type or design Of these craft,
IL we except the monoplane which Is
not a departure from the principle.
Given time, the Wrights themselves
would have evolved anything that has
since been demonstrated.
For that matter, the same might
truthfully be said in connection with
he late Professor Langley's machine,
which Is now in the Smithsonian in
stitution. In addition to evolving a.
a engine which could have done the
work-giyen a practical flyer to OPP
erate-Langley had antedated them;
given the Wrights or another with
their particular genius, evolved
through painstaking practice, to ham
die 1t, Langley's would have been the
first flying machine.
Automatic, perfect stability, which
will give to air craft a margin of safe
~ akin to that possessed by the mod
ern steamship, lis as far in the future
as ever, say, tomorrow, or next year
or next century.
Louis BIeriot and Others have
evolved m~onoplanes, that is to say.
have boldly taken the bird instead of
the box kite as their models, and their
machines are more graceful, more
speedy and it is alleged and / believe
more hazardous to operate than the
original biplane. Other experiment.
ers have seized upon the obvious idea
of rising from and landing upon the
water, and have solved an ordinary
mechanics problem by the addition of
pontoons to the under part of their
machines. There are a number Of
automatic stabilizers, safety devices,
or pr~eservers OF the center of gravity,
now being exploited, none of which,
1t is needless to say, detract one iota
Q the always imminent peril of
death faced by every aviator, every
time he leaves the ground.
Man can now fly; but he can not
yet fly in safety, but for the inevitable
improvements in a engines that
have been and will be in evidence, one
can safely say that the science Of
flight was exactly where it was seven
years age Theorists there are who.
now expound with a wealth of detail
concerning co-eficients and ~pressures
and lifts and thrusts, their ideas of
what should be done to secure abso-
lutte safety in air flight. These are of
the same type of scientists, gentle
reader, who held Iracus and the
Wrights and all other practical pre-
sumptive flyers, up to more or less
mild derision through all the worlds
past history. One of them may yet
educe the scientific principle, that will
put flying in the safety class. When
he does lit may be tomorrow) Union
Pacific will slump to a lower level
than it did in the panic and that in
stantly.
Meanwhile the farmer and his wife
will attend the fair to see a man fly
the marvel Of the ages. If they have
seen it before they will go again in
the not vain hope Of seing a flyer die.
"A young J~erseyite flies a machine
at school; ventures outside the ground
-dies. Miss Davis crosses the chan
mel az a passenger and after tnnumer-
able successful flights, falls fifty feet
and is killed. Hoxsey attains a world
wide fame and the greatest altitude
of his time all in one week, and is
killed on the last day of the second
Los Angeles meet. Chaves crosses the
Alps, and is killed in alighting. We
drines, the saturnine daredevil French
c~ross-country flyer, runner-up and
winner in many big European events,
falls and breaks all his bones.
young and old, man and woman,
expert (so-called) and neophyte all
are simply the playthings of chance
when off the ground Let one attend
a flying ground for but one single
week and note the number of unrecord-
ed smash-ups and accidents that take
place, even under good conditions, and
that person win be never be one-at a
meet or a fair-to clamor for q flight
against the ~airnan's own Judgment.
Rather he will wonder that any per-
son can be found to risk his person so
for money, or any company to risk It's
capital in so uncertain and expensive
a game.
wonderful flights have been made.
A Frenchman has flown 700 kilomet-
ers between sunrise and sunset, and
another Frenchman has done better
than ten hours in continuous flight.
A cross channel passenger service is to
be i~naugurated, and all yer the world
a determined effort is being made to
bring flying machines to a practical
basis. Hudson Maxim advocates COLI
lege courses in aviation-this should
put football to the rear-and also calls
upon the u. S. government to properly
equip the army and navy with aero
planes and a competent corps OF fly
ing men. And in this last he is doing
a patriotic duty. In the belief Of
many, the Wright brothers sank all
the navies and rendered obsolete the
tactics of all the worlds armies when
they made their first flight. And in
1912-seven years later-the United
States is spending $75, 900 for thirteen
~aeroplanes, while four other countries
in Europe are spending over $4,000
600 for 925 machines. Meanwhile Lee
Hammond and others are teaching the
Japanese to fly aeroplanes, just as
the observation-disclosures other nations
taught them the science of modern
war prior to the Russia-Japanese
mix-up And no figures as to Japan's
activity in this building line are
available. In the last year the aero
plane has been used to great advan-
tage In four wars, and it's use has
been amply demonstrated even to the
ordinary army intelligence"
Since this is so, and we are at
least equal in brain power to other
nations. there is every reason to hope
that the native manufacturer of aero
planes will be encouraged by news of
appropriation for the establishment
Of an adequate aeroplane corps and
equipment. Airships are i~ndispen-
sible in war, therefore we should have
them.
"Statisticians are not lacking to
prove by their figures that air sailing
is not extra hazardous. The Aero
club of France shows that for 100, 900
kilometers flown in 1911 there has
been but one death, while in the pre-
vious period the rate was one death
to every 10000 kilometers. To the
average onlooker the risks seem to be
much greater than in any form of chris
tan endeavor. In the same period In
France there were 13, 600 cross-coun-
try flights, and $4,000 passengers
were carried while the total distance
flown was nearly 3,000,0 900 kilometers.
Also a new angle of the game is dis
closed by an English life insurance