ADVANCE IN FLYING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1735, 27 September 1917, Page 1

ADVANCE IN FLYING.

14 YEARS’ PROGRESS. WORK OF THE PIONEERS. Two bombs dropped from an aeroplane on the palaee in Peking have re-established the Chinese Republic! This may well be an omen. The aeroplane was horn yesterday. It will dominate to-morrow. The aeroplane may decide, indeed, whether Europe is to be militarist or democratic. The destinies of man hang in the air. On December 17lh, .1003, the Wright Brothers made their first llight in a motor-driven aeroplane. Only fourteen years ago. The llight took place in North Carolina. It lasted fifty-nine seconds. The distance covered was ‘2GO metros! A metro is rather longer than a yard. Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian, flew 80 yards at Bagatelle, outside Paris, on October 23rd, 1000, and all the world wondered. A year later Henry Farman, a French subject, but the son of an Englishman, Hew 311 yards. On January 13ih, 1008, Farman succeeded in (lying just over 1,000 yards at an average speed of 34 miles an hour. These men, the Wrights, SalilosMnmont, and Henry Farman, were the pioneers of aviation, but they inherited (ho results of generations of experiments. The most valuable of the spade work was done by Chanute in America and Ferbcr in France. 169 MILES AN HOUR. In 1909 Farman -flew forty-two miles. From less than 300 yards to forty-two miles in six years! in 1910 Sopwith (lew 109,miles! In 1911 Panlhan, the French aviator, prophesied (hat Ihe aeroplane would one day be used for military purposes on land and for naval work at sea. Think of it ! Only six years ago the military value of the aeroplane was only a. possibility. Mr Charles Turner, in a book published in 1912, foretold the construction of aeroplanes capable of travelling a hundred miles an hour. Nowadays planes travel two hundred miles an hour. When war broke out in 1914, Great Britain was si ill sceptical concerning the aeroplane’s, military employment. We had few machines and few aviators. France, always eagerly interested in the new, was ■ much wiser. Germany was wiser, too, only, happily for ns, .she,pinned her faith to Zeppelin and the dirigibles. The British air service Ims developed amazingly. Our airmen have proved themselves supreme in skill and daring. The enemy has observed and profited. The achievements of British aviators have taught the enemy the enormous possibilities of the aeroplane as a weapon of offence. There is a terrible chance that wo may have taught him how to conquer — while we have, in elderly slothfulness, ceased to learn and improve.