CONQUERING THE AIR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3762, 2 April 1907, Page 4

CONQUERING THE AIR.

Tin-; Future; ok the; Aeroplane;. Both C. B. I ( >y’s Magazine and the Pall Mall Magazine for February contain interviews with M. Santos Dumont on the subject of the Aeroplane and the Conquest of the Air.

M. DUMONT’S WORKSHOP. Mr C. B. Fry, who writes in his own magazine, gives a short account of the chief ballon experiments made before the flyingmachine came into existence, but main part of the article is devoted to the career of M. Dumont. In 1896, when M. Dumont was only twenty-three, he went to France and took part in many motor races, and it was thus that he conceived the daring idea of using the petrol motor in ballons. At once he set to work on the practical development of the idea, and began his name known all over the the experiments which have made world. In a room in his private house he reduces his ideas to models, and subjects them to miniture experiments. As soon as he is satisfied with these he himself makes full-sized machines in his shed at Neuilly. He is his own financier, his own engineer, and his own mechanic, and he accepts no substitute in the trials. a machine; he;avikr than air.

M. Dumont told his interviewer that he had always believed that the final solution of the problem of mechanical flight lay in the direction of a machine heavier than air, but when he began his attempts with the dirigible balloon the question of ‘ ‘ heavier than air ’ ’ was not ripe for practical experiment. At that time motors had not reached a sufficient degree of perfection. There was always the possibility of the motor going wrong at any moment, and, moreover, the motor was still much too heavy. At p'resent the dirigible balloon is capable of longer journeys, and its power of transport is much greater. It can carry more passengers and fuel, and it affords more genuine safety, SIXTY MILES AN HOUR. Now that the first and most difficult automobile flights have been made, automobile aviation will develop in a wonderful way. The aeroplane will have the advantage over its rival in point of a far greater facility. M. Dumont has already started on a machine to be equipped with a motor of 100 horse-power in place of the 50-horse-power motor al-ready used, and he hopes this machine will do sixty miles an hour. In two or three } r ears, he adds, this speed may perhaps be doubled. Theoretically there is nothing he can see to prevent the aeroplane navigating at a great height. In war this might be of value, but in ordinary practice, he says, it is sufficient to fly only a few 3'ards above the ground. The difficulty of descending with ease and safety which frightens so many people will solve itself with the continued experience of professors of flight. The essential point for the moment is to maintain the stability of the machine in the air, and to attain the greatest possibla speed In a forward direction.