AEROPLANE FOR £100.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2381, 23 December 1908, Page 2

AEROPLANE FOR £IOO.

A BALLOONIST’S PREDICTION. “It is like gliding over sparkling water, where you can see the bottom,” wrote Mr. Frank Hedges Butler, a well-known balloonist, who returned to London a few weeks ago from Le Mans. He was describing u. trip in Mr Wilbur Wright’s aeroplane. “There is no sensation whatever,” he said. “It is as if man had always flown. There is a perfect feeling of security and stability. Turning the corners and tipping the wings is like skating on th© outside edge. Wright feels bis levers aryl looks at liis planes as the skipper looks at his sails to see if they are full.” As to the future, Mr Butler says:—Lighthouses on land will be erected by the Trinity Board to mark the way at night. Lamps on mroxilanes or flyers will be used. With smaller planes speed will be terrific, 200 miles an hour. Twenty-one miles across the Channel means a very few minutes, the winds at sea blow steadier than on land. Aeroplanes can be made to float on the water and raise themselves. There is no reason if now they can carry equal to three passengers, an reroplane should not carry more with larger planes and engines. The North Pole,, tropical forests of Central Africa, Australia and the Sahara Desert will he new fields for the explorer to glide over. In less than ten years the cost of a machine will be £100.”