THE HYDROPLANE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 314, 2 July 1912, Page 5

THE HYDROPLANE

A USEFUL MACHINE. A special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, describing the hydroplane and its performance in the manoeuvres of the British fleet, wrote frora Weymouth on May 8: The new Admrralty water-plane has made a brilliant debut, and she lias done all that it is claimed for her that she can do. Early this afternoon a crowd, gathered on the heights overlooking Portland to see her beautiful performance. King George, from the deck of the Royal yacht, looked on. She was brought out of her slied in the harbor and run down to the water on wheels. Once she is in the water the wheels cease to act and she is then supported on a couple of large cigar-shaped cylinders. When she was launched she skidded along the water at a tremendous pace for a quarter of an hour or so, making a series of revolutions round about the Royal yacht. Then, as if she were tired, she floated on the water like a duck. A signal was then given, she shot forward at a great speed for about half a mile, and then rose gently out of the water. Out of the water she looks much like an ordinary bi-plane but for her cigar-shaped appendages. First she made "a short (light round the lines of the first battle squadron, and, coming back, dropped at a sharp angle between the Victoria, and Albert and the Enchantress. The King on one side and Mr. Churchill and his guests on the other had a close view of the marvellous craft. She skimmed the water again for a few hundred yards, rose again, and took a much wider flight than before, circling high over Weymouth Bay, to the delight and admiration of thousands of spectators. Then she returned, and when sufficiently near she planed down at a gentle angle, and -was speedily run. back into her shed. The double flight had taken just half an hour. Experts here are enthusiastic about the results of the tests, and say that Mr. Short, the inventor, has supplied to the navy what is wanted—a machine which can float <m the water, rise into the air on her own power from thence, and alight on it again. She weighs just a ton.