The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-05-12
Frederick Haskin's Letter
Especial cor-ssps
MAKING AVIATION SAFER

oring, the air will be asceaaing
Patches OF the ground where it il
cooler than elsewhere Nearby
cause the the air to descend. These
movements of the air are a men
ace to flying, particularly when the
machine is flying low.
Storms are a more important
menace to safety in flight, how
ever. Electrical storms encouut-
cred over forests or mountains
where a landing is impossible. are
responsible for many fatalities Not
only may the aviator become lost
in the clouds, unable to Judge
whether his machine is on an even
keel, il that expression may be
used. but the eddies and whfrIs of
wind tend to whip his ship around
so that it sideslips toward the
ground, noses down, or noses IN
into a STALL so that flying speei
is lost Any of these things hap
pening is more than likely to bring
a crash in a storm before the flyer
can extricate his machine from its
predicament.
A highly organized service to
keep flyers constantly advised Of
storm and wind conditions in all
localities is put forward as the best
means of combating this obstacle
to safe flying. Then flyers could
be informed up to the last moment
before taking off just what they
might expect to encounter in fly
ing in any direction for any length
of time. Storms could be avoided
in nearly all cases.
Flyers Fear Fire.
There are many other periIs,
among which may be mentioned
the danger of fire. 1t does not mat
ter whether the machine itself is
infiammable or not, so long as gas
oline must be used as fuel. There
have been cases of flyers horribly
burned to death in "all metal"
planes The gas in the tank be-
comes ignited AS a remedy for
this, tank which could be dropped
from the machine, much as bombs
are detached, has been suggested.
Then the flyer could take his
chance on gliding down and max
ing some sort of landing rather
than face the certainty of burning
to death.
Another peril which has been re-
sponsible for lots of trouble is the
difficulty of landing anywhere ex-
cept on regularly prepared fields
Landings must be accomplished at
a considerable speed, particularly
with the faster types of afTplanes.
Flyers and scientists have long
been at work on this problem, but
without any noteworthy success as
yet
Fogs cause lots of trouble. and
have been responsible for many
deaths. The same conditions as il
for obtain on a lightless night. par
ticularly when flying over water.
The perfection of instruments is
working to lessen this danger, hut
much remains to be done in this
line.
Engine troubles cause difficulty
Careful inspection keeps troubles
from this source down to a minis
mum, but still it crops up now AID
again. A clogged gasoline feed
line. poor ignition, and many other
troubles of a similar nature may
cause forced landings, which al
ways are accompanied by danger.
Recently the country was hOrri-
fed by an accident to a big new
dirigible, in which many lives
were lost. This is because il has
been necessary to use highly in
fiammable gas to initiate the bags
by which the dirigibles were made
buoyant. Non-inf1ammable gas is.
of course, the means of overcoming
this difficulty, and in helium this
gas has been found. However. the
production of helium gas has been
so expensive that it has been prac-
tically out of the question. Now.
however, progress is being made
toward making this safe. buoyant
gas at very much cheaper figure.
figure that soon a process
will be perfected whereby helium
can be produced at little If any
more than the cost of the highly in
hydrogen gas which has
been used almost altogether The
great step toward making balloons
safe then will have been taken.