WINGLESS FLIGHT PREDICTED.

Taihape Daily Times, 30 September 1918, Page 2

WINGLESS FLIGHT PREDICTED.

“Men now fly 20,000 ft, in the air, and what I want you to note,” Professor Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone at a recent meeting, “is that theoretically the machine at that height should be more efficient by flying faster and more economically. Supposing your propeller has the same push at that height where the air is rarer, you should get more speed.” Dr. Bell then gave a scientific Explanation )of vtfliy j the airplane should travel faster at the greater height. A change of gear, as in a motor-car, which wo(uld make the propeller travel faster, he pointed out was the solution of this problem, and he predicted the day when the flying machine would attain such speed that the wings may be unnecessary. “Now if we have machines flying without wings, how about flying without engines? All other things that fly fly without engines. Consider the albatross, which without the movement of its wings, can overtake a ship even when the bird is travelling against the wind. The flying of these birds is a problem open to science.’ ’