Evening star., 1926-06-06
IN STERLING HEILiG.
PARIS. MAY =

%HE aerial bicycle is again being
Importantly experimental with.
Some of the greatest construc-
4 tors, like the Peugeots. are
taking it up--Since the great
and unexpected success of the motor
less airplane. To objections that the
motorless airplanc starts on the air
from a height II Is answered that
there is no objection. at the beginning
TO the air-bike rushing down hill TO
get its first support on the air in
creased. If the wind be in its face, 80
much the better.
The world moves.
Nobody would have thought four
years ago that motorless airplanes
could navigate OH high. az they have
done.
With the air-bike. country boys will
skim over fences and fields to school
They will hit the ground. pedal on
their wheels again to gather force, at
need. and rise into the air again.
Mamma, in the evening. seeing
Henry home so early. viii ask: How
did you Gomez" with worried intuition.
The boy will brag, proud and guilty:
II cut across over BigelOw's." Then
mamma will fling UP her arms and
holler: do you hear that, father?
Henry has been flying high again"'
In cities. boys will plague their par
ents for permission to join some sub
urban ''aviette" links.
"Will YOU promise never 10 jump
the creek?' says mamma. "Remem-
ber the boy who tried to skim the
shacks in shanty-town and broke his
leg! Do you hear me. OSWALD"
An aviette said to be backed by the
flNla firm has a fnfaf yyni1ht
very light wood and thin varnished
Sikh of Al pounds, the bicycle itself
alone weighing "a pounds. BY scien-
tific calculation, 1t ought to rise. 1t IS
established to quit the earth at a roll
ing speed Of % 1-3 miles per hour.
Gabriel Poulain. former bicycle
champion. on q machine similar in
weight and spread. has already quit
the earth and SKINNED" the 10
yards Of the Decametre purse for
aerial bicycles. founded. years ago. by
Robert Peugeot. but the Decametre
conditions require the 10 yards to be
tance, in the same trial. The 10 yards
distance must be done at 10 yards
altitude.
Poulain, they say, beats the 10 yards
distance, even double or treble; but IN
doing 70. he does not get or maintain
the 10 yards altitude. Also, they say.
he has made his 10 yards altitude all
right; but in going in for altitude, he
side-slips or otherwise capsizes.
1t has been done before. Remember
the name of Frank Rettich. He is the
lad whose air-bike, before the year
1920, rose and SKINNED 3 feet and
then IL feet, at the height Of a mans
knees. Rettich got off the earth by
n dad MI u n q
motor, without being thrown into the
air, without rolling off a height. He
rose and skinned IL feet distance by
his muscular force on the pedals.
Frank Rettich will so down in his
tory with Wilbur Wright and Santos
Dumont. He was the first bicycle
skinner of the air; and his exploit
was as humble and immense as the
crowds Of boys who will follow him!
Rettich did not win the Peugeot
prize; but the first Aviette Club, organ
ICED on the spur of the moment by
Paris Aero Club members, presented
him with a purse Of $3.50 as a, mark of
esteem.
The Rettich type of aviette, which
Poulaan and others have improved,
lacks some small trifie really to skim
the air---instead Of ade.slipping and
making Jumps" So did French
pilots before the wrights showed the
small trifle Of ''warping."
Warping was apparently a small
tYifie. yet the whole Of flying was in
that little modification of the planes
edges.
Rising and rfghting of the Rettich-
Poulain machine are already obtained
by q particularly ingenious device for
varying the slant of the planes.
The back wheel is regularly smaller
than the front one. On the bike is
fixed a sort Of biplane, the spread of
whose upper surfaces. 6M yards by 2
yards, gives a bearing on the air OF
about Is square yards. The lower
plane measures about 4 yards by IN
yards, and there is a small direction
rudder at the rear.
The pilot, on the saddle in the center
of the apparatus, is a little below it's
center of gravity. As the planes are
fixed rigidly to the bicycle frame. how
is he to vary their slant while rolling?
The part OF the frame resting On the
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