The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-26

By victor Lougheed, in the March Pop ular Mechanics Magazine
 |"HE lightest practical aeroplane cap | able of carrying man weighs, with | operator and enough fuel for flights
 of reasonable duration, about 1000 pounds. Such air craft are sustained, as are the
 birds, by the complex but highly effective (dynamc reactions of the air streams flow ing under their wings.
 The volume of 1000 pounds of air Is about 15.OOO cubic feet-the approximate contents of a. sphere 30 feet in diameter. By sub stituting for this volume of air some
 thing weighing less than 1000 pounds, the something weighing less will float static ally in the air, just as anything weighing less than water, volume for volume, will float in water.
 AS a successful flying vehicle, the aero- plane is a development of no more than g. very few years. Yet consistently since it's advent 1t has evolved faster than any other device in the history of transporta- tion. It's genuinely utilitarian applica- tions are already considerable. Its ap- plications to warfare are even now | proved success.
 Yet the problem of the aeroplane is in herently complex.
 The laws governing it's action are ex- ceedingly obscure. The limits of it's eff
 fciency are still unknown. Its best form is still undetermined. The difficulties Of it's equilibrium will still take much solv- ing. And at every turn the aeroplane of- fers a field for investigation that seems as unlimited as it has proved fertile. While it's structures are simple and cheap | to build, their design is so baffling ana involved, so demanding of the finest abll- | tiles of the best engineers, as to rank the l nroblem of dynamic flight as one of the most difficult that modern science has | to face.
 The balloon as means of travel is still of negligible utility, despite the numerous | and long continued efforts to make use | of it in many fields. Without counterpart in nature. it has proved without justifica- | ton in fact.
 Yet the problem of the balloon is in- herently simple.
 | The laws of it's action are obvious. The limit of its lifting capacity is the easily ascertained weight of the air. The prob lems of it's propulsion, steering and navi- gation are inescapably definite. Yet m | the 5O years the dirigible has existed, it has not undergone a single fundamental change or improvement. Its changes nave heen changes in detail It's improvements have been improvements in degree Al though tremendously expensive to puiid' and almost impossible to keep built, the problems of floating a balloon structure in the air are so inherently simple as 10 be easily understood by, and thus appear to the veriest tyros in mechanical science. Vet on this much punctured bubble of | sohr;o enveloped gas, it is conservative lv estimated that there has been expended within the past 60 years-most Of this | within the latter decade of this period not less than $50,000,0O0
 E,xneriments with dirigible balloons within comparatively recent years have cost. in Germany. s6SOo.0Oo; in England, over s2.oO0, 900; in the United States, s400o,- oOo. in France, $5,0O0.000 and in other countries of Europe and in Japan not less l than s500O,0o0 more. These figures do not include the costly and long continued ex- perlIleHtdtloH uuililS du cdIiler pciioh VI
 development; nor do they include the ex> penditures in non-dirigible ballooning. which has been mare a costly hobby to which American and foreign millionaire
 sportsmen are even yet much addicted apparently under the impression that they
 are furthering aeronautical research. 1 The cost of gas for each filling of a large balloon is alone enough to place 1t out
 of the question for performing commer- | cial travel at reasonable cost. Not less than s1o00 worth of hydrogen on the basis of the most economical production pos sjble. is required for each imitation of a
 Zeppelin balloon. which, though 450 feet long and nearly 50 feet in diameter. pos-
 sesses reserve carrying capacity of only three or four tons. Moreover, with a century of experimenting, no balloon builder as yet has been able to improve materially upon the first envelopes of var nished sillr-which still remains the most impermeable material-and at the present time no dirigible balloon has ever suc- ceeded in staying in the air for more than S6 hours.
 The conclusion is inevitable, from any competent and unbiased consideration of both the shortcomings and the merits of the balloon, that it can never really com pete with the aeroplane as a practical means of travelling in the air. Mere going , up in the air io another matter, but f0l