THE MASTERY OF THE AIR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 87

THE MASTERY OF THE AIR.

BENSON'S AERODROME, 1842. (Progress, September 1.) We give in the present issue a reproduction of the- iUustiartdon of Henson's machine; Hanson never got to the flying stage with, his machine, never, got past the model stage. But b» deserves a. higk , place in the record of aviation, for he anticipated everything that has been done in our time. Be got the measure of the first stage of mechanical flight, and described it exactly. He worked oat has model on tn& very lines of the monoplanes we know to-day, and he declared 60 years before the Wrights that the very method of ascension adopted by the now famous brothers wae perfectly feasible, The, editor of Progress and Mr Rayward, of the firm of Baldwin and Rayward, proprietors of the journa' were searching tlie. records of the Patent Office- far material for an article designed tc- describe thehistory of the century of the flying art from the time oi Montgolfier, when they came acros* the remarkable invention of Henson. They at once gave it a place in their record, publishing an account of tbe model with an illustration copied from the drawings deposited with the specifications. The description was as follows-: — "The most noteworthy thing about this invention is its date. It wa& patented in the year 1842. Heiwon anticipated nearly everything in the way of prinoiple, though in detail be was as far behind as one might expect from ame who, besides living half a century ago, did not bring has invention into practice. Here is his own diescription taken from the records of the British Patent Office." Here followed the description printed on page 380. The machine was designed to represent a bird with wings and tail. The bird's body was a car carrying a steam engine of 40 h.p., the wings were outstretched above the body, each made- of a light, strong fxannework. of bambo? or other wood hollowed, covered with oiled silk; the tail waa arranged for raising or' lowerI ing the plane of flight. The wings wer* ! carried on two masts rising out of the car and braced to them, "making the whole one trussed beam of light construction." To supplement tine steering of the tail, which was to act vertically only, there was a vertical ruddier to do the lateral steering. The function of the wings was confined to that which is performed by the wings of a bird, when it is slumming through the air at speed, and they were to exercise a retarding power in descent, after the manner of tfie parachute. The inytentor, however, relied entirely on the tail action for bringing the .machine 1 down at such a flat incline that impact with the earth would be entirely without shock. For starting the machine he preferred aa inclined plane like the side of a hill, and he proposed to allow the machine to run forward down the incline, the propellers being first set in motion. He thought it would be found that in a short time they would act fcTifficiently upon the air to caure the machine to leave the incline and proceed in any desired direction. Tl>e«? propellers were fan paddle wheels working at the sides of the machine. J This machiae was never flown., though' , it was heard of again the next year as 1 tlie machine of Henson and Stringfellow. But whatever happened to it, its design was too remarkable to be passed over in silence. Tl»e design was the forerunner, the core, so to speak, of the inventioas of the present day. Oar illustration is from the copy supplied by the inventor to the Patent Offce. We have 'mly to add on the present occasion that the feats of the Wrights, Farman, Santos Dimont, Delagrange, 81-eriot, and others have all borne their testimony to the soundness of the ideas of the singularly prophetic inventor of the aerodrome of 1842, who anticipated all their details, and but for the lack of a light motor would have done what they ar« doing now 60 years ago. What those years might have brought forth after such a stimulus is an intorest£n& subject for speculation. It is useless, of Tourse, to follow the speculative line. But it is' permissible to &uggest. that in all probability the inmost part of the secret of flying by ma"l"P'» fl heavier than air might have been discovered; in other words, man might now be flying in machines of , hus construction without limitations from. distances, no matter how vast z nor from

wind conditions, no matter how boisterous and apparently baffling.