Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/397

Rh have placed the rudder in front, where it proves more effective than in the rear, and have placed the operator horizontally on the machine, thus diminishing by four fifths the resistance of the man's body from that which obtained with their predecessors. In 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1903 they made thousands of glides without accidents and even succeeded in hovering in the air for a minute and more at a time. They had obtained almost complete mastery over their apparatus before they ventured to add the motor and propeller. This, in the judgment of the present writer, is the only course of training by which others may hope to accomplish success. It is a mistake to undertake too much at once and to design and build a full-sized flying machine ab initio, for the motor and propeller introduce complications which had best be avoided until in the vicissitudes of the winds bird-craft has been learned with gravity as a motive power.

Now that an initial success has been achieved with a flying machine, we can discern some of the uses of such apparatus, and also some of its limitations. It doubtless will require some time and a good deal of experimenting, not devoid of danger, to develop the machine to practical utility. Its first application will probably be military. We can conceive how useful it might be in surveying a field of battle, or in patrolling mountains and jungles over which ordinary means of conveyance are difficult. In reaching otherwise inaccessible places such as cliffs, in conveying messages, perhaps in carrying life lines to wrecked vessels, the flying machine may prove preferable to existing methods, and it may even carry mails in special cases, but the useful loads carried will be very small. The machines will eventually be fast, they will be used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers. To say nothing of the danger, the sizes must remain small and the passengers few, because the weight will, for the same design, increase as the cube of the dimensions, while the supporting surfaces will only increase as the square. It is true that when higher speeds become safe it will require fewer square feet of surface to carry a man, and that dimensions will actually decrease, but this will not be enough to carry much greater extraneous loads, such as a store of explosives or big guns to shoot them. The power required will always be great, say something like one horse power to every hundred pounds of weight, and hence fuel can not be carried for long single journeys. The north pole and the interior of Sahara may preserve their secrets a while longer.

Upon the whole, navigable balloons and flying machines will constitute a great mechanical triumph for man, but they will not materially upset existing conditions as has sometimes been predicted. Their design and performance will doubtless be improved from time to time, and they will probably develop new uses of their own which have not yet been thought of.