Page:The Fun of It.pdf/242



HERE is a mighty difference between the bedecked balloons of the eighteen hun­dreds and aircraft of today. The vehicles have altered so much in design and usage aeronauts of a century ago, were they to revisit the earth, would recognize few familiar features in modern aeronautical activity. What will be the steps in the next hundred years? Will the distance covered be as great as that in the last?

Of course, it is more than futile to make prophe­cies—aviation ones especially. They usually turn out more or less like the famous pronouncement of the sour and distinguished scientists long ago. They declared, you remember (and proved mathe­matically), that a heavier than air machine, capable of lifting itself off the earth could never, never be built.

I can remember being told as late as 1924 that air cooled radial motors of more than 60 h.p. would never be successful. Now practically all motors on commercial aircraft are this type and some of them develop more than 600 h.p. I can also re­member hearing it said that commercial flying at night would prove an impossibility. The United States now maintains 17,500 miles of lighted air­ways over which 63,000 miles are scheduled daily between sundown and sunup.

But prophesying has two sides.