big cities are so dangerous. The sides of a building drop away from
the roof. An error in judgment and the machine is over the edge.
It is even more dangerous to take-off. An airplane motor is ten times
as likely to develop a weakness while it is cold. A motor starting a
flight is never well warmed up, and fifty feet from the edge of the
roof it may give out, with awful consequences. As a practicable thing,
roofs are at present impossible. There is not a flying-officer in the
world who will not agree.
An interesting series of experiments has been carried out in England
on what has been known as the helicopter machine. This machine is not
dependent upon speed to fly, but merely on engine power applied
through a propeller of great pitch. The idea is not new, but is along
the lines specified by Orville Wright when he said that a kitchen
table could fly if it had a good enough engine.
The effort is being made to make a machine which can hover, can hold
itself in the air by brute force of its propeller blades beating the
air. The thing sounds impossible to adapt, say some aeronautical
engineers. Those who have seen the experiments, however, express great
optimism.
A machine of this sort would land and take-off in a very small space,
and might be adapted to use around cities. It might even make flying
over cities safe but for the human equation of the engine again. This
machine is dependent on engine power. Apparently there would be two
engines, or two driving mechanisms, one operating the lifting
propeller and the other the pulling propeller.
For the present the great need is for landing-fields as near the heart
of most American cities as possible. There should be quick
transportation to the business section provided, as well as hangars
and mechanics. When that is done we may very well say that aerial
transportation for passengers and freight is an accomplished fact.
VIII
THE AIRPLANE'S BROTHER
At the end of 108 hours and 12 minutes of sustained flight, more than
four days, the British dirigible R-34 swung into Roosevelt Field, came
to anchor, and finished the first flight of the Atlantic by a
lighter-than-air airship. To the wondering throngs which went down
Long Island to see her huge gray bulk swinging lazily in the wind,
with men clinging in bunches, like centipedes, to her anchor ropes,
and her red, white, and blue-tipped rudder turning idly, she was more
than a great big balloon, but a forerunner of times to come. She had
come to us, a pioneer over the sea lanes which are to be thronged with
the swift dirigibles of the future plying their easy way from America
to Europe.
The performance of the R-34, undertaken in the line of duty, has
eclipsed all the previous records made by dirigibles and is, in fact,
a promise of bigger things to come. There was that Zeppelin, which
cruised for four days and nights down into German East Africa and out
again, carrying twenty-five tons of ammunition and medicine for the
Germans who were surrounded and obliged to surrender before help
arrived.
The R-34 started from East Fortune, Scotland, on Wednesday, July 2,
1919, at 2.48 o'clock in the morning, British summer time, and
arrived, after an adventurous voyage, at Mineola, Sunday, July 6, at
9.54 A.M., American summer time. She had clear sailing until she hit
the lower part of Nova Scotia on Saturday. Electrical storms, which
the dirigible rode out, and also heavy head winds, kept her from
making any progress, and used up the gasolene. About noon of Saturday
the gasolene situation became acute, and Major G.H. Scott, her
commander, sent a wireless message to the United States Navy
Department at Washington, asking for destroyers to stand by in the Bay
of Fundy in case the gasolene should run short and the airship get out
of control. Destroyers were immediately despatched, but in the next
few hours the weather improved, and the ship was able to continue on
her journey. It was feared, however, she might run out of fuel before
reaching Long Island, and mechanics were sent to Chatham and to
Boston to pick her up in case of trouble.
The big ship surprised everybody by appearing over Long Island about
nine o'clock Sunday morning. The officer in charge of the landing
party having gone to Boston, expecting her arrival there, Major John
Pritchard "stepped down" in a parachute from the airship, and, landing
lightly, took charge of the landing of the big machine.
An approaching cyclone, which would have made it almost impossible to
handle the airship at Mineola, was responsible for a rather hurried
start back at midnight of Wednesday, July 9th. She visited Broadway in
the midst of the midnight glare, turned over Forty-second Street a
little after one o'clock in the morning, and put out to sea and her
home airdrome. The voyage back was mostly with favoring winds, and she
landed at Pulham, the airship station in Norfolk, after 75 hours and 3
minutes of flight. The voyage back was practically without incident
except for the failure of one engine, which in no way held back the
airship. She was turned off her course to East Fortune by reports that
there were storms and head winds which might hold her back in case she
kept on her way.
The voyage was probably the most significant in the history of
flying. It brought home to the public the possibilities of the airship
for ocean commerce as nothing else could have done. The ship remained
in the air longer than any previous airship, and pointed the way clear
to commercial flying. It is, in fact, only considered a matter of time
before companies are started to carry passengers and mails across the
Atlantic at a price that would offer serious competition to the
fastest steamships.
The airship has been very much neglected by popular favor. Its
physical clumsiness, its lack of sporting competition in comparison
with the airplane which must fight to keep itself up in the air, its
lack of romance as contrasted with that of the airplane in war, have
all tended to cast somewhat of a shadow over the lighter-than-air
vessel and cause the public to pass it by without interest. It is a
very real fact, therefore, that very few people realize either the
services of the airship in the war or its possibilities for the
future.
During the war the airship was invaluable in the ceaseless vigil for
the submarine. England early stretched a cordon of airship guards all
about her coasts and crippled the U-boats' work thereby. The airship
had a greater range of vision and a better downward view than any
sea-vessel; it could travel more slowly, watch more closely, stay out
much longer, than any other vessel of the air. The British credit
their airships with several successful attacks on submarines, but they
give them a far greater place in causing a fear among the under-sea
boats which drove them beneath the surface and greatly limited their
efficiency.
The German Zeppelins, on the other hand, stand out in public
imagination as a failure in the war, especially because the British
shortly established an airplane barrage which proved to be their
masters. This view is correct only in so far as it applies to interior
raiding, for which, indeed, the Zeppelin was not designed. How untrue
it is of the Zeppelin as the outpost for the German fleet British
officers will readily admit. Indeed, they credit them with the escape
of the German fleet at Jutland, one of the deepest regrets in British
naval history. As eyes for the German fleet in the North Sea, the
Zeppelins, with their great cruising range and power of endurance,
proved almost invaluable.
Airships have, then, behind them a rich heritage and before them a
bright future. Much work that the airplane can do they cannot do;
while, on the other hand, much work that they can do the airplane
cannot. The two services are essentially different and yet essentially
complementary. Between them they offer nearly every facility and
method of travel in the air which could be desired. Each must be
equally developed in order to increase the efficiency and the value of
the other.
The great difference, of course, between the airplane and the airship
is that the former sustains itself as a heavier-than-air vessel by the
lifting power of the air in relation to a body driven hard against it
by its powerful engines, while the latter sustains itself as a
lighter-than-air body because of the large amount of air displaced by
a huge envelop loaded with gas much lighter than the air itself. The
contrast is obvious; one vessel is small, agile, and very fast; the
other is slow and clumsy. The airship cannot attain anything like the
speed of the airplane, nor can it go so high or maneuver so quickly,
but on the other hand, at least for the immediate present, it can stay
afloat very much longer and carry much greater weight.
Moreover, the airship has certain other easily perceptible advantages
over the airplane. Ordinarily an airship need not fly at much more
than a thousand feet, which not only makes far less cold traveling
than at higher altitudes, but also allows the passengers to enjoy the
view far better than from an airplane, whence the world below looks
like a dull contour map. An airship also flies on an even keel; it
does not bank as an airplane does nor does it climb or descend so
quickly.
At present airship travel gives a greater feeling of comfort and
security. Sleeping is a calm experience; moving about comparatively
simple. Also there is less noise than in an airplane where the engines
beat incessantly and the wind rushes through the wires and struts. An
airship has no wires and can at the same time slow down and even shut
off its engine, so that it need be no more noisy than a motor-car.
Engine failure also is not so serious as in an airplane, for the
gas-bag will always keep the ship up until there has been a chance for
repairs.
Up to the present, too, the airship is less of a fair-weather flier
than the airplane. A surprising record has been attained in the war by
British airships, as is shown by the fact that in 1918, a year of
execrable weather, there where only nine days during which their
vessels were not up. This is, of course, in considerable contrast to
airplanes as at present developed, but it may reasonably be expected
that the latter will very soon develop to the same point of
independence of the weather.
Of course, the great difficulty of airships has been their ungainly
size and the difficulty of housing them. The sheds, particularly those
for the Zeppelins, have been most costly, but the British have
recently developed a system of mooring masts which make much of this
expense unnecessary. If such a device can be successfully put into
every-day use it will enormously increase the ease of loading and
unloading passengers, which now makes for considerable discomfort and
loss of time.
Some of the plans for future airships are unbelievable to one who has
not followed their development carefully. Already there is planned in
England a monster ship known as the "ten million," for the reason that
it will have a gas capacity of ten million cubic feet, over four times
that of the largest Zeppelin. The length is placed at 1,100 feet, the
speed at 95 miles an hour, the cruising range 20,000 miles, and the
cost at about $1,000,000. As a matter of actual practice, however,
the best division of the space and lifting power of this airship would
be for it to carry a crew of about 20, a useful load of 200 passengers
or 150 tons of merchandise, and 50 tons of petrol, which would give it
a non-stop run of about 5,000 miles.
Airship travel would undoubtedly be expensive. The gas alone to
maintain such a vessel as described is expected to cost about $30 an
hour, which, added to the original investment for the ship and its
house and the wages of the crew and the 200 or more skilled men at
each station, would come up to a high figure. At the same time, the
airship would not afford the element of very high speed which is so
certain to justify any expense which may have to be put into the
airplane. Nevertheless, with the improvements that are sure to come,
with the ability to reach places not touched by other methods of
travel, the freedom from all the delays, inconveniences, and expense
of trans-shipment, this preliminary charge will be largely compensated
for.
Those who sponsor the airship urge that it will be used almost
exclusively for long-distance flights beyond the range of the ordinary
airplane and very little for short local flights. For transatlantic
travel, for instance, it is being particularly pressed, as ships even
of to-day have all the capacity for such a voyage, without the dangers
which might surround an airplane if its sustaining engine power were
to give out.
There are several records which would easily justify it. Besides the
flight across the Atlantic by the R-34 and the four-day trip of the
German airship from Bulgaria to Africa and back, a British airship
during the war stayed up for 50 hours and 55 minutes, and another,
just after the armistice, stayed up for 61 hours. An American naval
dirigible a short time after the armistice made a flight from New York
to Key West, 1,200 miles, at 40 miles an hour, for 29-1/2 hours, with
one stop at Hampton Roads. As an example of some of the difficulties
of airship travel, this landing was possible only after the ship had
circled the town and dropped a message asking the people to go to a
large field near by and catch the dirigible drag-net when it
approached the ground. Even at that, however, the time of less than a
day and a quarter for what is usually a very arduous train trip from
New York down the coast to Florida gives some indication of the
possibilities of this method of travel when properly developed.
Practically all the new airships contemplated look to a much greater
speed than the pre-war speed of about 40 miles an hour. It is not at
all uncertain that they will not run up as high as 100 miles, though
at the present time that figure is extreme. But granted that they no
more than double the pre-war speed and reach the actual figure
contemplated of about 75 miles an hour, they still would triple the
best passenger-steamer speed, which would make them a matter of the
utmost importance in all long ocean voyages.
Just how the balance will be struck between airplanes and airships is
a big question. It is interesting to note, however, that the
supporters of the airship have worked out a general theory that the
lighter-than-air vessel with its already demonstrated cruising and
weight-carrying capacity will be used for all long routes, and for
that almost exclusively, while the heavier-than-air vessel, with its
great speed and facility for maneuvering, will be used for local
flights. This, in their viewpoint, would mean that the world would be
girded by great lanes of airships, fed from a few main centers by
swift-scurrying airplanes radiating in from every direction.
IX
THE CALL OF THE SKIES
The day of the air has undoubtedly come. The old order of the world
has been entirely changed. A new life is breaking in over the near
horizon. Almost in a moment the span of the world has shrunk to a
quarter of its former size, so that where before we thought in terms
of countries very soon we must think in terms of continents. The world
is shortly to be linked up as it never has been before, till the great
continents are brought as near as were the near-by nations of the past
years.
Any one who doubts the future of aviation should realize the
helplessness of the science after the armistice because of the
complete lack of international laws to make possible its application
in Europe, where it was most highly developed. With men and machines
ready, they had to hold to the ground largely because there was in
force no treaties assuring them the right to cross frontiers. The
broad plans for international routes were held up because aviation
itself was so big in its expanse that it could not meet its just
fulfilment within national lines.
As a result a new law must be written. The law of the air will be one
of the most intricate and the most fascinating in the world. It
presents problems never before presented and covers a scope paralleled
only by the laws of the sea. Very fortunately, however, aerial
international law may be written at the very start of the science by a
common international standard and practice, thus obviating the
greatest part of the divergences which long years of habit have
grafted into the maritime laws of the various nations. The slate is
clean so that uniformity may be assured in a law which is soon to come
into the most vital touch with the daily lives of the nations.
Who, for instance, owns the air above the various nations? Obviously
the individual landowner has rights, especially as to freedom from
damage. The nation also has rights, especially for its protection and
for police work. How high, however, does this jurisdiction go? Some
assert that a maximum altitude should be set, say five thousand feet,
above which the air would be as free as the seas; others that each
nation must have unqualified control to the limit of the ether.
Then comes the question of passports, customs, registration, safety
precautions, and damages. As already shown, the man on the ground is
helpless against the airplane which chooses to defy him. People and
goods can cross national lines by the air without passports or
customs. There will be no main ports of entry as in sea or train
commerce, and it is too much to think that any nation can patrol its
whole aerial frontier in all its various air strata. Undesirable
immigrants or small precious freight can be smuggled in with the
greatest ease through the route of the air.
Obviously the most elaborate international rules are necessary. Planes
must have some method of international registration and license, just
as in a more limited sense ships on the seas have what amounts to an
international status. Landing-fields must be established and open to
foreign planes, each nation providing some kind of reciprocal landing
rights to other nations. Arrangements must be made so that if a
monkey-wrench drops out of a plane a mile or two up in the air proper
damages can be collected. For such things there is to-day but little
precedent in law.
This but sketches the problems. It shows, however, how closely this
new science will bind the world together and obliterate national lines
and nationalistic feelings. As the sea has been the great civilizer of
the past, so the air will be the great civilizer of the future.
Through it men will be brought most intimately in touch with one
another and forced to learn to live together as they have not been
forced to live together before. The artificial barriers that have
stood so firm between nations in the past are now swept away and a
great common medium of intercommunication opened.
Let it not be understood that all this will take place overnight. Far
from it, for the experience of the war has taught only too well that
the organization of an air force takes time and patience. Up to date
the essential fact is that the science, the value, and the
possibilities of flight have been proved in a thousand different ways.
Vistas of travel and experience have been opened up which but a few
months ago would have seemed fanciful. Everywhere men are dreaming
dreams of the future which challenge one's deepest imagination.
Already Caproni, the great Italian inventor, has signed a contract to
carry mails from Genoa to Rio Janeiro.
Now comes news of an airplane with room for ninety-two passengers.
Engine power and wing space have gone on increasing in a dazzling way
till one is almost afraid to guess what the future may hold. But,
omitting all prophecy, the actual accomplishments to date are so
stupendous that there is no need to speculate as to the future. If all
technical development were to stop just where it stands, the factories
and workshops of the world could well be occupied for years in turning
out the machines necessary for the work awaiting them. Scientific
development has gone so infinitely far ahead of actual production that
as yet aviation is not being put to a fraction of its use.
Even more serious, however, is the general public failure to realize
the gift which is within their reach. Flying was first a circus stunt
and later a war wonder. The solid practical accomplishments have been
lost sight of in the weird or the spectacular. People who marveled
when a British plane climbed up nearly six miles into the air, or
30,000 feet, where its engine refused to run and its observer fainted,
failed generally to analyze what the invasion of this new element
would mean in the future of mankind.
What is now needed is a big, broad imagination to seize hold of this
new thing and galvanize it into actual every-day use. There are many
skeptics, of course, many who point out, for instance, that the
element of cost is prohibitive. This is both fallacious in reasoning
and untrue in fact. A modern two-seated airplane, even to-day, costs
not over $5,000, or about the price of a good automobile. Very soon,
with manufacturing costs standardized and the elements of newness worn
off, this price will fall as sharply as it has already fallen during
the war.
But what, after all, is cost in comparison with time? Modern
civilization will pay dearly for any invention which will increase
ever so little its hours of effectiveness. The great German liners
before the war lavished money without stint to save a day or two in
crossing the Atlantic. The limited express trains between New York,
Boston, Washington, and Chicago have for years made money by carrying
busy men a few hours more quickly to their destination. What will not
be paid if these times of travel can be reduced practically to half?
The element of danger has been reduced to a minimum and will be still
more reduced as emphasis is laid on safety rather than wartime
agility. Many men, of course, will meet their death in the air, just
as in the early days many men met their death in ships and in railroad
trains, but this will not be a deterrent if the goal is worth
attaining. There will be accidents in learning to fly, there will be
accidents of foolhardiness and of collision or in landing, but they
will decrease to the vanishing-point as experience grows. Already the
air routes which have been established have a high record of success
and freedom from fatalities.
The great need of aviation to-day is faith--faith among the people,
among the manufacturers, among the men who will give it its being. Its
success is as inevitable as that day follows night, but the question
of when that success is attained, now or generations from now, is
dependent on the vision which men put into it. If they are apathetic
and unreasonable, if they chafe at details or expect too much, it will
be held back. If, on the other hand, they go to meet it with
confidence, with coolness, and with a realization both of its
difficulties and its potentialities, its success will be immediate.
The task is one of the greatest, the most vital, and the most
promising which mankind has ever faced. With the general theories
proved and demonstrated, the great crisis of invention has passed, and
the slow, unspectacular process of development and application has set
in. Now has come the time for serious, sober thought, for careful,
analytical planning, for vision combined with hopefulness. It is well
in these early days, when flight is with the general public a very
special and occasional event, to remember what has happened since Watt
developed the steam-engine only a few generations ago, when Columbus
set the first ship westward, or when America's first train ran over
its rough tracks near the Quincy quarries.