HUMAN FLIGHT.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 296, 15 August 1908, Page 2

HUMAN FLIGHT.

M. Marcel Deprez, a French savant, an engineer and a member of the French Institute, claims to have solved definitely the problem of human flight. In an interview, M. Deprez said be had discovered the secret of the flight of birds. “ I have not the least doubt,” he added, “ that in a very short period, in a very few years, it will, on any day on which there is sufficient wind, be quite a common thing to see thousands of beings soaring about in mid-air, just as you see thousands of people skatino- when there is ice on the lakes o and livers.” “ Have you actually succeeded,” he was asked, “in making a- heavier-than-air instrument that will support the weight of a human being, and enable him to fly ■?” “ Yes,” he answered. “ I have not only made such a machine, but what is better still, I have made it soar in mid-air with the weight of a human being.” “ Have you flown with it yourself ?” “ No, that is a matter for much younger men than I —for men who, like Santos Dumont, Delagrange, and Earman, look on aviation as a sport. lam very shortly about to give a practical demonstration before a small committee of the French Institute, and then before press representatives. “ The question of equilibrium I have —it goes without saying—also solved, but some practice is required before the average person could safely soar. That is why we want the aid of sportsmen and aviators.”