AN AEROPLANE MARVEL

Shannon News, 16 April 1926, Page 2

AN AEROPLANE MARVEL

WILL HiY BY ITSELF. A gigantic air express, which, though it weighs. more than eight tons and flies at more ■ than 100 miles an hour, in able to fly itself, without a human hand upon its controls, is to be used on night flights Uy Imperial Airways between London and Paris (says the London "Daily Chronicle"). Gyroscopes will do ' what hitherto the airman has had to do. A gyroscope, consists of a heavy flywjietel, which, rotating at great j-pced, tends by its resistance to a .change of axis, its own plane, and (he .plane of anything to which it is fixed. There* will be gyro-control of the rudder, and of the "ailerons," or hinged balancing planes, at the tips of the wings. The gyroscope will control- the ailerons so that, should a wind-gust threaten to tilt the machine sideways, they will automatically bring i! back upon an ov.ii keel. After ho has ascended, and made an allowance for the wind, (lie pilot will set the gyroscope in motion, and the big machine, driven by engines of more than 1000 h.p., will then fly for hour after horn- upon the indicted course. All he will have to do then will be to control the height of the machine above, the ground. Apart from this the giant craft will \steer and balance itself.