WHAT OUR FATHERS THOUGHT OF FLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 25

WHAT OUR FATHERS THOUGHT OF FLIGHT

Flight, the secret'; of. wnich was kept for more than a century after his life expired,., was one of the many:, matters which, occupied the curious mind of Dr. Samuel Johnson, writes' Major■; C. ,C. Turner in the "Daily.Telegraph." As early as p. 753 the Sag© wrote in '' The Adventurer":—

"A voyage to the moon, however romantic and absurd the scheme may now appear, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century, who began to doat ' upon their glossy plumes, and fluttered with impatience for the hour of their departure." , .' ■ ■ ' ,-■■'.■■.

In another issue, he wrote: "Many that presume to laugh at projectors would consider flight through the air in a winged chariot, and the movement of a mighty engine by the steam of water, as equally the .dreams of. mechanical hinacy."

Years later in "Easselas" there is. a chapter called "A Dissertation on the Art of Flying.?'■' In the "Happy Valley" there was an artist eminent for his knowledge of mechanical powers. Easselas found him building a flying chariot, and he explains to the prince:—

"I have long been of opinion that instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots man might use the swifter migration of wings; that the fields of aJT are open to knowledge, and ..that only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the ground."

The artist admits that the "labour of rising from the ground will be great, "as we see.it in the heavier domestic fowls" (which shows that Dr. Johnson had renl understanding' of the problem), But "as wo mount higher

and higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished, tilr we shall arrive at. a region where the man will'float, in the air without any tendency to fall." Agahvthe artist says:— y ■.' "If men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them-all to fly. But what would'be; the-security of the! good, if the bad-could at pleasure invade' them from the sky! Againfet an army sailing through the clouds neither walls, nor mountains,' nor seas, could afford any security."

In a year 'a time the machine was made, and the artist leaps from a promontory and falls into the lake beneath. Another author in the middle of the eighteenth century reflects the iuteTes,t taken at that period in the subject. Robert Paltoek's "Life and Adventures of Peter 'Wilkins" (1751) was probably the first novel of aviation. Far away in the South Seas the hero discovers a strange race of human beings who are "born with wings. The treatment of the subject shows that, the author had"thought profoundly; one has read less scientifically plausible stories by famous writers of our own time. And one is rather surprised to find the' following passage:— "The whole' trouble of flying is itf mounting from the plain ground; but when once you are upon the graundee (the wings) at a proper height all the rest is play, a mere trifle. Get but once fairly on the wing nothing can hurt you afterwards."

The wings are flapped, and in getting off Hat ground it is necessary to run forward until the air gives lift. Races a,re held, and there is a war in the air.