AEROPLANE EXPERIMENTS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1269, 26 October 1911, Page 7

AEROPLANE EXPERIMENTS.

MB. ORVILLE WRIGHT'S NARROW ESCAPE. Br Telesrr&pli— Press Association—CopyrleM ; New York, October 24. Mr-. OrriUe Wright, one of tho Wright brothers, the well-known American ariators, narrowly oscaped death at North Carolina through his glider orortuming in mid-air' and falling to earth. Mr. Wright was slightly 'injured. New mechanism, designed to keep the aeroplanes on an even keel, was being subjected to experiment at the time of [ tho accident. Mr. Wright is maintaining secrecy regarding tho rosult of his , experiments. > A GREAT SUCCESS. ' (Rec. October 2G, 0.35 a.m.) New York, October 25. 5 Mr. Wright remained aloft for nine [ minutes with the glider, travelling at a sneed of fifty miles an hour in tho wind, 'fho experiment is regarded as a great success. £ FUTURE OF FLYING. AUTOMATIC STABILITY OF AEROPLANES. Tho most striking featuro of the discussion on flying, for which the inathe- , matical and engineering sections of tho '■ British Association joined forces at tho • recent congress, was tho attack made upon the notion of automatic stability. >t At the present time a great many designers of aeroplanes are working at this problem. It is generally regarded as tho next great lino of advance in the cony struction of flying machines. _ Yet both J Professor Petavel and Sir William White derided tho idea. No subject, raid Mr. Berriman, tho 6 opener of tho discussion, was of greater d interest to the public than flying. So ;s far tho art had progressed by Teason of y the daring of airmen and the enterprise f of aeroplano builders. Now it ought to '' attract minds which had matured in other directions, and which should bring in the aid of science to increase tho safety and tho efficiency of flj-ing macliines. Dr. W. N. Shaw, fho well-known meteorologist, discussed tho difficulty which wind put in the airman's way—a difficulty which ho thought could only be ovcreoine by greater speed. This, however, would not get over tho trouble of "holes in tho air," into which aejot planes fell evory now and then, with results greatly direonoerting to their pilots. Meteorology was trying to discover what these holes in the air were, b They might bo duo to variations in tho velocity of wind. Profassor Petavel, just returned from 0 a month's flying on Salisbury Plain, ■d threw doubt upon the possibility of obtaining automatic stability, and even said . he did not think it was noee.ss.iry or desirable. Tho tricycle was stable, and the bicyclo unstable, but almost all riders preferred tho latter. Any mechanism worked by gluts of wind for ensuring automatic stability would probably be dangerous in other ways. With this view Sir William White agreed. He said lie felt an instinctive ' distrust of automatic appliances. Tn his opinion there was nothing like human power, directed by a strong will and careful observations. As to the general question. "What could scifnee do for aviation?" Sir William White said that (lying nroblems must be attacked as tliev had been—experimentally. The help tho mathematician could give was in analysing the results obtained by experiment. Professor Troug'nton looked forward to the day when aeroplanes would be as big as Atlantic liners, and could afford to disregard the small holes in tho air that had been mentioned.