Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/66

 Learning to Fly on Jets of Air ^

��Do you remember the ball that dances in a jet of water in every shooting gallery? Here's an instruction machine built on that principle

��IT'S expensive to train airmen. On the average, students break from one to two airplanes each before they have mastered the rudiments of the art and know how to fly. Private aviation schools charge heavily for breakage. Uncle Sam has to pay the bill him- self. In any event much money is wasted. The training of 5,000 aviators means the destruction of 6,000 machines at the very least, and each machine costs about $7,000.

Now airmen may learn at least the fundamentals of flying on a machine like that here shown. It's on the ground, for which reason students can't break much. Yet they go through practically all the motions of controlling a machine in a treacherous, gusty wind.

The machine in the foreground is a fan. Through the connecting tube it blows a strong current of air to the conical pedestal of the make-believe wings. Through the conical device the

���air is delivered at four points against the underside of the cross-shaped wings above. It is the fledgling aviator's job to sit up on top of this cross-shaped structure and to keep it balanced against those jets. The pupil-operator maintains his balance with regular airplane controls. You know that a ball held up by a jet of air or water dances constantly, even though it stays in the jet. Imagine then what a task a man has when the struc- ture that he is to balance is supported at four diff'erent corners only by flickering

���This air lady is learning all about flying — without leaving the ground. It is her job to keep the machine balanced against four air currents coming from the pipes beneath

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