Winged Wheels in Golden Age

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 24

Winged Wheels in Golden Age

The Call of Speed AUTOMATIC CONTROL Methods of travel which were common not more than 20 years ago now seem crude to a degree, and it is less than a. century since trains were pronounced by doctors as instruments of death —to travellers, says Professor A. M. Low in the “Weekly Despatch. About 20 years past prizes of man? hundreds of pounds were offered for flights which now occupy the beforebreakfast period, and motor-cars were invariably constructed bearing many attributes of their horse-drawn vehicular ancestors. Speed Gradually Rising The future is very fascinating, and, although at one time there was something demode in the attempt of a scientific person to depict the time to come, it has now crept into fashion as prominently as cigarettes or short skirts. The reason is not far to seek. There is no such thing as a fact. Science can merely attempt to explain the happenings of life, and to disprove yesterday’s fact, or to indicate why today’s possibility may be the truth tomorrow. It is a very common process to plot a curve and to examine a tendency in order to predict what may occur. This scientific process can be applied, within limits, to ordinary affairs such as motoring and general travel. A curve plotted to show the average time taken* to reach Brighton from London, spread over a period of 200 years, indicates a gradual rise in speed, and it is therefore very probable that this increase will continue, for we now know that speed is entirely relative, and that a man travelling at 500 m.p.h. in a closed box, without jerks, might well be standing still. Xhis is well known to everyone who has sat in a train at a station. It is only change of direction that is noticeable. Flag Memories Let it be assumed, therefore, that, a tendency which has been observed for many centuries is more likely to continue than otherwise, and that the . cars will gradually increase little by little until we regard to-day, when Cabinet Ministers habituallv break the law by travelling at over 20 m.p.h., as being equally as funny as the time when red flags were carried in front of motor-cars, or when gentlemen travelled with hooped ladies in cattle trucks which, to them, were ideal. •

This phase of comfort contains the explanation of the second direction in which motor-cars are altering. The first is speed, but comfort is all important. Men and women are increasing in general average mentality. There is ample scope in the latter instance. They will not allow their thoughts to be subject to interference by their physical bodies. Floating Home One has only to notice that the mo-tor-cyclist likes silencer handlebar muffs to warm his hands, and that the omnibus of to-day is gradually becoming a luxury motor-coach, where meals may be served, if necessary, in a form which is far from tabloid. The motor-car, to the average man. is no longer an interesting piece of mechanism, in which he sits, without doors or screens, while rattling chains accompany his thought. It is rather a floating drawing-room which protects him from the elements, and enables him to forget the means of travel. A few fast sporting cars still are popular, but they are somewhat in the position of cock-fighting in England. Even the sportsman is beginning to demand electrically warmed gloves, and travels fast in order to reduce discomfort. It is vitally necessary for everyone to-day to travel at the highest speed. No one would be willing to secure safety at the expense of a few extra hours on a journey. Motoring Mastery

It is equally important to secure physical comfort; so that protective bodies with footwarmers. cushion cleaners, electrically operated screenwipers, cigar lighters, and pretty flower vases are not incongruous on the car of to-day. Only thirty years ago they would have seemed ludicrous. Modern motorists do not want to know about mechanics, but they must enjoy an absolute mastery over their cars. Even now, there are advances taking place, all of which are designed to enable the driver to forget the car by means of one control from one pedal. It is probable that the supercharger, now enjoying so marked a vogue, is merely a stepping-stone to the petrol steam turbine, or the injection engine, where control of the actual fuel is in the hands of the driver. Even such advances as these can but lead to the electrical era when distribution and storage by capacity have reached such a pitch that elec-

trical vehicles will render ©nr street more silent, and clean from bjrnr gases.

Electrical power is more qui-klv converted to mechanical energy* kv any other, and it may be, in the distant future, that motor-cars, ana even airplanes, will travel along iinin t cresting roads by inductive powei from cables, or even by radiated power by wireless, fed to them throuS, a slot meter, like any house supnh-to-day. vy

The demand for comfort, we hav« seen, has proceeded side by side with the great essential of speed. Speed and comfort are necessary to everv business man, and he will demand k vehicle which gives him the opportunity for work, in which he is i n con* stant contact with his office by wtrel less, and in which his dwindling pbv* sical needs can be fed by tabloids and by the passage of light which remain, usefully in his body. Wireless Control The necessity for comfort win totally alter the design of all fast cai-k All closed cars—and all cars will be closed —will certainly be of streamline form. These vehicles, fitted with superchargers, air cleaners, exhaust extrad tnrs, servo steering and brakes, wire! less, and every* possible form of comfort will enable us to travel in smoothness, in constant touch with our homes or offices, and w*itb a luxury undreamed of by the most accomplished bein*% of to-day.

Drivers will half-recline while wireless control takes them over uninteresting routes. They wall travel on roads, or in tubes, lit by* flood lighting, without a ridiculous street lama glare shining into their eyes and upon little else. It is impossible to believe that, with our long, straight, new roads, wh«re speed loses all its charm, motorists will be content to travel over a small country* like England. They will Resent the need for constant transportation by sea, and thev will be met by the unpleasant fact that the roads will become saturated with automobiles of every description. Even to-day there is not the slightest pleasure in travelling along the Brighton Road on a summer Sunday. London To Moscow

To streamlined cars, covered in flexible glass, lightened by* the use of new alloys of steel and aluminium, and having engines of immense power for small weight, what is more important than the use of the air from recognised “hopping-off” places along the great national routes? The time is rapidly approaching when London to Moscow will be as easy as London to Manchester. Is it inconceivable that the same type of motor-car will be in use, any more than that the airplane should never have been invented, or that railways should reign in the form originated by Stephenson? Flying Motor-Car These changes are taking place before our very eyes. It is difficult to say how the particular requirements of an airplane or a motor-car can be coordinated and employed upon one vehicle, but it is possible that a detachable winged machine may be devised and used rather as a motor-car that can fly over uninteresting or difficult country than as an airplane which could travel upon the ground. Small airplanes are not comfortable, neither are they interesting, but they avoid loss of time and they avoid the feeling of “shortness” which is beginning to make the progressive motorist look elsewrhere for his sensations of speed and time. Unheard-of Pace

In the near future I believe that we shall have motor-cars with multicylinder engines in excelsis. They will be more comfortable than many modern homes. They will travel at speeds which would shock us to-day. Cheap motor-cars are essentials of modern life, but it must never be forgotten that there are living to-day mental savages who remember the dangers of coaching, and who are quite unable to grasp that in a few years time we who live to-day, and our cars with us, will be little more than fit subjects for an instructive lecture.