A New London Industry

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 161, 4 February 1902, Page 3

A New London Industry

Any one may buy a flying machine now—that is, any one who can afford £950.

M. Santos Dumont’s daring: flights and the success that has favoured the brave have induced the Motor Power Company to make r flying machines or steerable balloons: for sale. Their production is. called the Napier Flying Machine, and they are prepared to taka orders' at once. The day of general aerial navigation so long dreamed of in unsatisfied wonder is in sight. The machine now offered to 4he • public will be, broadly speaking, on the lines of those in which M. Santos Dumont has lately been flying gracefully around the Eiffel Tower. Tha balloon is 75ffc diameter, has a capacity of about 25,000 cubic feet, and is fitted with an . air-bag for equalising the pressure. The balloons are to be .nade by Mr Spencer the wellknown aeronaut, and will carry his guarantee. There is -an emAer-frame <Soft long, taking the form of a latticed girder, and for lightness it is to be made o! aluminium or other smb-: able material. • The engine—the mover, the life of the machine—is a 4-cylinder Napier water-cooled, petrol motor with electric ignition, gmng' hot less than 14 b.p. on the brake. The 'connection of the motor with < the propelling shaft is by means of sanction -clutch as used on motor cars. The machine is steered either by a irndder or by altering the direction of the propeller. The lifting power 6f this rapid ait-ship is about 140001 b—after subtracting its own weight. Mr S. F. Edge, director of the company, divides the 14001 b as follows:—Weight of the motor and gear, about ■ 5001 b; frame, about 8001 b; sundries, tanks, petrol, water, and so on, 2301 b; and it 'is estimated that the ’aeronaut would himself weigh something like 1701 b and would take 2001 b of sand up with him*