THE FUTURE OF FLIGHT
It is a hopeful augury, to those concerned with aviation, that public
interest in flying should not only be keen, but should be growing. In
the early days, even when aeroplanes were so great a novelty, it was
difficult to induce people in any numbers to witness a flying display.
The first meetings, though they were organised with enthusiasm, ended
as a rule with a heavy financial loss; and this fact of course, when
it became known, had a discouraging influence on those who might, had
these early meetings proved a success, have been willing to finance
aerodromes and the building of machines. But as it was, business men,
who are quick to form conclusions, said that people would never be
induced to pay to see aeroplanes fly. But here they failed to reckon
with the fact that, though public interest in flying has been of very
slow growth, yet at the same time it has been a steady and continuous
growth. From month to month, and from year to year, as aeroplane
constructors and pilots have continued at their tasks, overcoming
technical difficulties and personal risks, the interest of ordinary
people has grown perceptibly. Even before the war--which has done so
much to focus attention on flying--the attitude of scepticism and
apathy had been greatly changed. When the London Aerodrome at Hendon
was established, there were shrewd men in the city, men who are
ordinarily very sound in their conclusions, who declared the public
would never go there in appreciable numbers. How wrong they were, how
little they gauged the change that was taking place in the public mind,
is shown by the fact that, on a popular day at this aerodrome, as
many as 60,000 people have paid for admission.
In the immediate future, as in the immediate past, aviation will be
concerned largely with the building of naval and military craft. This
will, so to say, be the foundation of its development in other
directions. War for instance, notably in the fitting of craft with
duplicate power-plants, will provide data that is invaluable in the
building of commercial craft, and in machines also for the use of the
tourist. In aerial touring there lies an important field for the
development of aircraft--one which may serve to bridge the gap between
a relatively small, purely pleasure-type machine, and a craft which
has utility in the fields of commerce. The motor-car provides an
enjoyable means of travelling from place to place; but in the
aeroplane, once it is airworthy, reliable, and comfortable, the
tourist has a vehicle which is distinctly more pleasurable and
exhilarating. The day was dawning before the war, and will now be
hastened, when, garaging his aircraft at the London Aerodrome as a
convenient starting-point, an aerial traveller will tour regularly by
air, using his flying machine as he would a motor. Already, dotted
about England, are aerodromes he may use as halting-points on his
flight, and at which he can house his machine and secure the attention
of mechanics; and the number of these grounds should grow rapidly in
the future.
In the aeroplane for the tourist, for the man who buys a machine and
flies for his own pleasure, it is necessary to combine comfort and
safety. As regards comfort, though much remains to be done in the
perfection of detail, the occupants of a machine are now more studied
than they were in the pioneer days. Then a pilot sat out on a crude
seat, exposed fully to the rush of wind as a machine moved through the
air. Now he is placed within a covered-in hull, a screen to protect
him from the wind. From this stage, as was the case with the motor-car,
rapid progress should be made in a provision of comfort.
When touring by air under favourable conditions, there should be no
more risk with an aircraft than with a motor-car. One of the most
frequent causes of accident, as we have shown, has been the structural
weakness of a machine. Now, with the experience of the war on which to
draw, and with many clever brains focussed on the development of the
industry, this risk may be regarded as almost non-existent; as
negligible a factor as it is possible to make it, remembering that
aircraft, like other mechanism, have to be built by human hands.
Another risk, that of engine failure, may, as we have explained, be
eliminated by the use of more than one motor. In the application of
such systems there is still much to be learned; but the obstacles are
not insuperable. One advantage that can be offered the aerial tourist,
reckoning him as a pilot of no more than average skill, who needs all
the aid that science can give him, is that he can obtain a machine
which, owing to its automatic stability, requires merely to be taken
into the air and brought to earth again, and which will practically
fly itself, once it is aloft.
One of the needs with a touring machine, to which makers must devote
their attention, is that it should be able to leave the ground quickly
in its ascent, and so permit its pilot to rise even from a small
starting ground. And it is equally necessary that, on occasion, a
machine should be able to alight safely, and at a slow speed, in quite
a small field. An aviator who had given up aviation temporarily, after
a long spell of cross-country flying, was asked one day when he was
going to fly again. "I shan't do so," he said, "till I can buy a
machine with which I can alight in my own garden."
Already there are craft which, provided high speeds are not expected
of them, and they are given ample plane-surface, will alight at quite
a moderate pace; but in the future, by the use of machines which have
the power of increasing or reducing their wing-surfaces while in
flight, it should be possible to descend in a space no larger, say,
than a garden. In the construction of variable-surface machines,
technical problems need to be faced which are unusually difficult. The
theory with such craft is that their sustaining planes, either by a
telescopic system, or by some process of reefing, are built so that
they can be expanded or contracted at the will of the pilot. Thus in
rising, when a machine is required to ascend with a minimum run
forward across the ground, a large area of lifting surface would be
exposed; and at the moment of alighting, also, when it was desired
that a machine should make its contact with the ground at the slowest
possible speed, a maximum of plane surface would be employed. But when
aloft, and in full flight, the pilot would be able if he so desired to
reduce the area of his lifting surface, and so increase materially his
speed. With a machine of this type, when perfected, it should be
possible to rise quickly, and descend slowly, and yet at the same time,
when well aloft, attain a high speed with moderate engine-power.
The commercial possibilities of aviation are vast and far-reaching:
not for nothing, after centuries of striving, have men conquered the
air. The aeroplane is destined, by the facilities it offers for
communication between nations, to play a vital part in the growth of
civilisation. The construction and perfection of a commercial
aeroplane, a machine which can be used for the transport of passengers,
mails, and goods, represents largely a question of time and of money.
Technical problems still need to be solved. But none of them are
insurmountable. All should be overcome by an expenditure of money and
in the process of time--granted of course that research is directed
upon the right lines. A sufficient amount of money for experimental
work, which in aviation is very costly, was one of the prime
difficulties before the war. Capitalists were chary of aviation; they
had no faith in it. Now, after the work aircraft have done in war, and
with the need to provide the world with air fleets, the industry need
live no longer from hand to mouth. There should be funds available for
experiments with commercial-type aeroplanes.
As to the factor of time, this depends largely on the facilities that
are obtained by the industry--apart from its work on naval and
military craft--for test work with other machines. But in five years' time,
granted progress continues on the lines now promised, we should
have a service of passenger aeroplanes, each carrying fifty or more
people, flying daily between London, the Midlands, and the North;
while in ten years' time it should be possible to cross the Atlantic,
from London to New York, by means of a regular service of aerial craft.
The commercial aeroplane, even when perfected, would not be likely to
compete successfully with other means of transit unless it could offer
the advantages of a greater speed. Here, indeed, in the speeds they
will attain, lies the future of aircraft. The air will be our highway
because, in the air, speeds will be reached that are impossible on
land or sea. As civilisation extends--this is of course a
truism--there grows with it a need for speedier travel; and we have
seen land and sea transit striving to meet this demand. But both have
reached, or are rapidly reaching, a limit of speed--a limit imposed by
the need to carry their passengers and goods on a remunerative basis.
On the sea, by burning excessive quantities of coal, it is possible to
add a few knots to the speed of a great liner. But then the problem
becomes one of profit and loss; while with trains--so nearly under
existing conditions have they reached a limit of speed--that a
difficulty is experienced, even on long runs, and under favourable
circumstances, in saving a minute here and there. It is not of course
to be assumed, when the spur of a greater necessity comes, that land
and sea transit will fail altogether to increase their existing
speeds. There is the mono-rail system of land traction, electrically
propelled, which has yet to be tested in a practical way; while on the
sea, perhaps, under pressure of competition, and with an increasing
demand for greater speeds, it may be possible to adapt with advantage,
even on large craft, some principle of the hydroplane.
But by way of the air, granted even a speeding-up on land and sea,
should go the high-speed traffic of the future. By a greater
efficiency in lifting surfaces and by reductions in the resistance a
craft offers to its own passage through the air; by the provision of
systems which will permit a pilot to reduce plane-area when his
machine has gained altitude and he desires a maximum speed; by the
equipping of craft with motors developing thousands of horse-power for
a very low weight--by such means, and by a general improvement in
design, it should be possible, eventually, to attain flying speeds of
150, 200, and even 250 miles an hour. From London to New York by air
liner, in less than twenty hours; such, for instance, should be an
attainment of the future.
It seems probable, in the development of the commercial aeroplane, we
shall have machines for touring and for pleasure flights--craft not of
large size but in which efforts are made to obtain a greater
reliability and comfort. Then it appears likely that aircraft may
reach a practical use as carriers of mails and of light express goods;
first of all in localities, and under conditions, which favour
specially an aerial transit. And from this phase we should move to the
passenger-carrying craft; to the days when we shall be able to spend a
week-end in New York, as readily as it has been the habit to do in
Paris; when we shall be able to reach any part of the world in a
journey by air lasting, say, a week or ten days. Then, as a recompense
for the lives that have been lost, and for a conquest that has been so
dearly won, the world will enter upon an age of aerial transit--the
age when frontiers and seas will act as barriers no longer, when
journeys that now last weeks will be reduced to days, and those of
days to hours; when first of all Europe, and then the world, will be
linked by airway.
THE END.
INDEX
AERODROMES, their evolution, 14
Age, its relation to flying, 11
Alighting, operation of, 51
BIPLANES and tuition, the "pusher" type, 16
Bleriot, Louis, study of his methods as a pilot, 84
CERTIFICATE of proficiency, tests for, 54
Cody, S. F., 90
Commercial possibilities of aviation, 107
Conneau, Lieut. J. ("Beaumont"), 87
Constructional weakness in aeroplanes, risks of, 60
Controllability of aeroplanes, problems of, 33
Cross-country flying, pupils' first experiences, 92
DUAL-ENGINE machines, 79
ENGINE failure, risks of, 65
Enjoyment of learning to fly, 12
FARMAN, Henri, pioneer work as an aviator, 86
Fees for tuition, 13
First flights, pupil as passenger, 39
HEALTH and flying, 10
Human factor in relation to accidents, 71
IMPROVEMENTS in aircraft which spell safety, 76
Industry of aviation, its expansion, 100
Instructors, qualifications necessary, 15
LATHAM, HUBERT, temperamental study, 86
Learning to fly not dangerous, 11
MANUAL dexterity, need of, 12
OPPORTUNITIES for the newcomer in aviation, 101
"ROLLING" (handling a machine on the ground), 43
SCHOOL aeroplanes, types of, 16
---- aeroplanes, need for ample supply, 15
---- biplane, its controls, 34
Schools, modern, their conveniences, 18
Sensations of flight, 41
Speed in its relation to flying, 31
Speed, promise of the future, 109
Straight flights, 44
Sustaining planes, their operation, 32
TEMPERAMENT, the ideal for flying, 22
Time required in learning to fly, 19
Touring by air, 105
Turning in the air, 46
VEDRINES, Jules, his piloting, 90
Vol-plane, the, 48
WEATHER, its effect on tuition, 38
Wind fluctuation, dangers of, 62
---- flying, 80
Wrights, Wilbur and Orville, 82
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Some books selected as being likely to appeal to a man, without
technical knowledge, who contemplates learning to fly._
"THE AIRMAN," by CAPTAIN C. MELLOR, R.E. Published by Mr. John Lane,
the Bodley Head, London. (3s. 6d.)
Describes the author's experiences, in France, while obtaining a
brevet on a Maurice Farman biplane.
"THE ESSAYS OF AN AVIATOR." Obtainable from "Aeronautics," 170, Fleet
Street, London, E.C. (2s. 6d.)
A series of admirable papers, written by a pilot and from a pilot's
point of view.
"THE AERONAUTICAL CLASSICS." A series of booklets issued at 1s. each
by the Aeronautical Society, 11, Adam Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.
Describe authoritatively, and very interestingly, the work of great
pioneers.
"FLIGHT WITHOUT FORMULAE," by COMMANDANT DUCHENE, of the French Genie
(translated from the French by John H. Ledeboer). Published by
Longmans, Green & Co., 39, Paternoster Row, E.C. (7s. 6d.)
Instructive discussions, clearly expressed, on the mechanics of the
aeroplane.
"PRINCIPLES OF FLIGHT," by A. E. BERRIMAN. Obtainable from "Flight"
Offices, St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. (2s.)
"AERO ENGINES," by G. A. BURLS. Published by Charles Griffen & Co., 12,
Exeter Street, Strand, London, W.C. (8s. 6d.).
* * * * *
AUTHORS' NOTE.--The above list does not, of course, pretend to
be in any way complete. It is designed merely to act as a
suggestion for the novice.--C. G.-W., H. H.
* * * * *
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH, ENGLAND