ÆRIAL NAVIGATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 106, 25 October 1911, Page 8

ÆRIAL NAVIGATION.

THE FLIGHT OF THE VULTURE. ■Keen curiosity will be aroused in scientific circles by the announcement that Messrs. Orville and Wilbur Wriglit " believe they have discovered the secret of the vulture's flight." Ever since mankind first turned its attention to the air, observant people have been wondering what mysterious' power enabled some birds to float on outstretched pinions without apparent effort of any kind. The duck must move at a high speed and flap its wings continually in order to keep itself aloft. Its flight resembles that of the aeroplane, which must be driven forward rapidly all the time it is atiove. the earth, and will fall like a stone if it fails to maintain the rush of air under its planes. But the vulture, like the eagle and the albatross, knows how to hover in the air. Scientific | men have watched it hanging in the J sky above the American deserts, and: have convinced themselves that it can remain at approximately the same level without any apparent movement of the | wings for twenty or thirty minutes at a time. It seems incredible that the airman can ever perform this teat, but a claim that would be preposterous in the mouth of an ordinary inventor cannot be-dismissed lightly when it is put forward by the famous Wright Brothers. The world was frankly sceptical when news came from Ohio in 1'905 that the Wrights had produced a flying machine and had been seen in the air, and it was not until Santos Dumont flew a couple of hundred yards in Paris in the following year that Europe ceased to regard aeroplanes as the dreams of writers of fiction. The two Americans flew in public in 1908 and 1909, but lately they have been busy in their workshops, and it has been stated that they are continuing the studies and experiments that proved so brilliantly successful six years ago. If the Wrights are led now to expeot that "the present methods of flight will be revolutionised," the mere layman will wait with some confidence for sensational developments.