The Ekalaka eagle. [volume] (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, 1914-07-24

Ar ANS mastery Of the mystic
ries and hazards Of air travel
seems assured. The aero
plane has now attained a
speed of 12O miles an hour. has climb
ed to a height Of 10000 feet and has
an endurance record of 1900 miles
during thirty-nine consecutive days.
It has flown across the Alps and the
Sahara, and this summer the transat-
lantic passage may be essayed. Its
death roll has been long, owing chief
ly to freak" flying and the inability
OF the aviator to Judge as to the fore
and aft balance of his machine. The
perfection of the automatic stabil1zer
removes this uncertainty. The latest
British aeroplane is a giant Of eighty
feet spread Of wings and 24O horse
power, carrying a crew of four or five
men and a two inch quick firing gun.
The dirigible balloon is the passen-
ger liner or Dreadnought Of the air.
Some now in service have a speed Of
fifty miles an hour, have assembled to
10000 feet and can cruise for more
than 1000 miles carrying a two ton
armament. A mammoth Astra-Torres
dirigible, now completing for France,
has a length of 361 feet, an extreme
breadth Of sixty-two feet and a total
lifting power of about twenty-eight
short tons.
WaAAkeS SnnANaAte nannoee~ne
Recent spectacular wrecks have pro-
duced a widespread and i'm
preston as to the danger of those air.
ships despite the fact that for twelve
years the huge Zeppelins carried thou
sands Of passengers over thousands of
miles without loss of life. Their chief
danger is the explosion of the gas
used to initiate the envelope. Exhaus-
tive experiments are now being made
to discover an unintlammable gas.
Air craft are fated to have a far
reaching effect on the worlds history.
National frontiers, now measured on
the earth, must extend into the air
space above, and to meet the aviator's
revelation of the location and move
ment Of troops and fleets strategy and
tactics must undergo startling changes.
The Wrights, Wilbur and Orville,
were the first to demonstrate that a
heavier than air machine could be
made to fly. Before them for many
generations men had tried to solve the
problem of aerial navigation, but the
spherical balloon up to 1903 practical
" had been the only air craft that
could be relied upon to carry passen-
gers.
One Of those pioneers in the search
for flying honors previous to the sue
cess of the Wright brothers was Pro
fessor Samuel +. Langley, one time
secretary of the Smithsonian institu-
from the derision heaped upon him
when "Langley's folly" refused to fly.
Flying Of Lansley's Machine.
His famous old tandem aeroplane
which hung in the Smithsonian insti.
tuition in Washington for a decade
after that attempt raised itself from
the ground by its W power with the
efforts Of Glenn H. Curtiss w Lake
Keuka, New York. recently. This is
the identical machine that was hauled
out Of the Potomac river after its see
ond and last failure to fly on Dec. s
1903.
Professor Samuel p. Langley gave til.
best years of his life to this aerOplan'
and died in sorrow and disappointment
His friends said his heart was broker
by the ridicule heaped upon him rs
modern Darius Green. Congress Il
the last, accepting the public's atti
tude, refused money for further ex
periments, and Professor Langley ap
parently lost his courage as an in
ventOr.
Glenn H. Curtiss had the machin,