DOUBTS ABOUT THE AEROPLANE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9992, 12 March 1910, Page 4

DOUBTS ABOUT THE AEROPLANE.

In spite of what aviators have achieved, there ia still considerable doubt in scientific circles as to the ultimate practical success of , the aeroplane. The serious accidents — some of them fatal—that have occurred recently to aeronauts, have caused the question to be raised—ls aviation to be merely a "hair raising" sport, like Alpine climbing or tigerhunting, or isjt to be a common and useful method of travel? A New York technical paper, the "Engineering Magazine" discusses this question in a recent issue, and its attitude on the matter is somewhat pessimistic. The popular imagination has bridged the eulf between the feats of the skilled aviator as we know him at present, and the commercial utility of the aeroplane, and when the public were reading of such achievements as those ?f Orville and Wilbur Wright and the ill-fated Delagrange, the day did not seem so very far distant when the aviator would rank even above the sea captain in.popular esteem, for the certainty with which, against greater difficulties, he mi?ht be < relied on to land his passengers safe and sound at their journey's end. However, there are grave doubts as to whether emotion has riot run away with reason in this regard, the Hat of disadvantages under which the aeroplane at present labours being indeeda formidable one. In a comparison with other standards of locomotion, the flying machine does not Com? out at all well. A vehicle in which one passenger made an aerial journey, and in which possibly two might have been carried, occupies in over-all dimensions probably nearly as much space as a passenger coach. Its weight in proportion to the load it can carry is much than is the case with other, vgb j cles lt needs as much m m g noe „ vr j ng as a J .,v»aO-ton ship. It needs not a great deal less power plant than a to\Stings automobile capable of carry • ing six Or eight passengers with equal speed. Suitable atmospheric conditions occur at a maximum perhaps one day m three—perhaps only one day in five. Except in unusual environment it is more helpless in a mishap than a ship without sea room or anchorage. It is more fragile than a birch-bark canoe, and finally, to complete the catalogue of its sins, the mental and manual alertness of the operator can be compared only with those ot an expert juggler. Enthusiastic believers in the future of the aeroplane quote the humble origin of the ocean liner of to-day, but the pessimists score by pointing out that the cases would be more nearly parallel if Pulton's original steamboat, instead of depending on power for propulsion only, had depended on her own power also'for flotation. However, critics of the areoplane admit that with a new and growing science conditions may alter rapidly, and they may do so with aviation.