Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1913-01-17

TUT@l VIII FiSh my skill against the ele
c. ii ments and win l will take to mysel
- the swiftness Of the meteor and tn
sureness of the seagulr / viii def
time. the wind the weather the, trackless waste
of the sky and the ocean Will make real tn
dream of me dreamer"
But Grahame- White is a true BTiton and as sucl
las hearty dislike for the grandiloquent He i
quite content with: I'll cross the Atlantic il
thirty hours'-as If the feat were the most matter
Df-fact performance in the world and the chance
are that he regards it a good deal in that light
AT first hearing, it sounds like idle boast
but those who have followed the career of thi
emlnently shrewd clearheaded and capable ali
man know that he is neither a boaster nor a Wis
lonary. If he says he will do thing it is certain
that he believes firmly that he can-and believes
1t because he has studied his facts and tested his
theories
1t is but short look back to the beginnings of
the aeroplane and in the brief time that that
wonderful machine has been In the hands of
men it has performed the very things that skep-
tics have declared impossible 1t seems almost
certain that at time not remote someone will
make the perilous trip overseas And why not
ErahameWhite
To the average earth-man who is satisfied
never to rise above the top stories of an Office
building the attempt, even under the best of
.ditions, appears reckless to the point of fool
hardness Not to the aviator Give the
kind of machine I'm thinking Of he remarks,
and the transatlantic trip would be just so much
duration hying-plain sailing"
Just there lies the nub of the question of air
navigation from Europe to American the ma
chimes. They must first of all have speed great
speed; they must have lifting capacity enough
TO carry the required amount of fuel they must
have motors capable of standing the strain of
terrific and stupendous distance they must have
instruments that will locate the with ac-
curacy
All those elements must have been considered
long and carefully by Grahame- White before he
made his recent announcement. He must be
satisfied that he has aeroplane that ful1ls all
the conditions. SO far little detail has leaked
out to the of equipment he will use.
1t is known only that he is building machine
which will carry four engines. arranged in indie
pendent pairs and each rated at ESQ horsepower.
He has said that he is convinced that he
show enough lifting capacity to carry the
quired fuel and enough speed to rush him to
these shores in thirty hours.
That may seem simple to the unthinking but
consider. Roughly speaking, it is 5000 miles
from coast to coast and at Grahame-Whites reck
oning of thirty hours that means that he has
machine which he trusts for at least one hundred
miles an hour, minute after minute without in
Eruption
What course he will choose has not yet de-
veloped, HI has the whole great to choose
from 1t has been limited that the steamship
lanes are the natural path for the adventurer
to give some measure of protection in of
accidents If he chooses that from Queenstown
TO Sandy Hook lghtship he must traverse $500
miles; If from Plymouth to Sandy Hook. 1862
miles; if from Southampton to Sandy Hook
300; IL from Havre to Sandy Hook, 3,170 miles;
snd if from Cherbourg, 3644. The Mauretana
has made the passage in four days ten hours and
forty-one minutes. The aviator proposes to clip
ct enc sweep 6341 minutes from that record
To be sure there are other roads which are
said to be safer. There is that which leads from
the Azores to the Bermudas one that allows for
two relatively short hops and a long one from
mainland to mainland Then there is that other
favored by those who have planned out the
not for aeroplane but for a power
dirigfbe
This second course is practically the same
which Columbus was waited across by the kindly
trade winds centuries ago. From a meteoro
logical standpoint 1t is said to be the best It
lies from Cadiz to Tenerife. distance of 807
miles; from Teneriffe to Porto Rico distance
of 22i9 miles: from Porto Rico to Havana dis
tsnce OF 1.124 miles; and thence to the main
land Th2 lies in a varying little
from twenty degrees north latitude and in the
winter and spring offers fair weather and wind
with a velocity Of fourteen to sixteen miles an
hour
The matter of wind however. seems to have
troubled Grahame-White little 1t is probable
that he viii select of the northerly courses
and ii is probable that he may fly even as far
north Labrador BY choosing that a point
of landing and Ireland as point OF starting he
might reduce his distance by hundreds Of miles
Whatever his course however. he must have
speed Even at his estimate of thirty hours
the nervous strain of guiding aeroplane for
that length of time without sleep would be ter.
rife end would increase immensely with every
added hour
Grahane- White has always been a believer in
the speed possibilities of his air crafts. Some
tine ago he held that 100 miles an hour was no