Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/631

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 This may appear all right in theory, but actual experiments will at once demonstrate that any compact aeroplane machine, with sufficient aeroplane surface to support the accompanying weight, will sway, turn sideways and upset, with all manner of erratic and unexpected movements.

Some four years ago M. Ader, a French engineer, attracted a great deal of attention with a machine styled the 'Avion.' It had a car running on four wheels, two propellers forward to pull it along, and

two enormous bat-like wings. The wings were designed to assist in soaring and in sustaining the mechanical bird in flight, when enough speed was secured to carry it off the ground. The machine did fly a little, but, unfortunately, like Maxim's famous machine, described in the a few years ago, broke down just as it demonstrated that it had enough lifting power to get off the track. Fig. 14 shows the 'Avion' as it was designed to appear in flight.