The Aerodrame.

Manawatu Herald, 6 March 1897, Page 2

The Aerodrame.

♦ ■ - ■ -...—. ProfeßSor 8. P. Langley's invent* tion, the aerodrame, bas demonstrated to the satisfaction of its: inventor the ability to fly. On November 28th the machine, launched from a specially constructed stage, flew 1500 yards in a horizontal direction, aud when its power was exhausted gracefully dropped. The machine is almost entirely made of steel, and contains a peculiar steam engine of rather more than one-horse power During the last trial the engine generated sufficient power to tarn the propeller something more than a thousand revolutions per minute. The weight of the machine itself is thirty pounds, and the boiler carries two pouuds of water. The moveable parts of the machinery weigh twenty-six ounces. The fuel employed is gasolene, converted into gas before use. Apropos of balloons, the investjgar tion of the conditions in the highest attainable attitudes, of the atmosphere by means of hydrogen balloons, has yielded some interesting results. Balloons were sent up simultaneously from Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and other places, with self-recording apparatus. The French balloon brought back the best results, it having reached an altitude of nine and a half miles. It came down in Belgium. The diagrams show that the balloon rose rapidly, and when at a certain altitude, remained for a long time stationary. It reached fifteen thousand metres in . about forty minutes, and then oommenoed to fall very slowly. . The temperature diagrams show 68deg. below zero. The ascent proved that there is hardly any appreciable difference, between diurnal and nocturnal temperatures in the higher regions of the atmosphere.