Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . , and it was mountedon two small boats after the manner adopted by speaking, it turned out to be very stable, and roseto heights of 150 ft. But it often fell into the river, over whichthe flight took place, and on one occasion it turned over com-pletely, sustaining serious damage. Lately a good deal has been heard of another type of flyingmachine. It is proposed to run the machine along the level bythe aid of a motor until such a speed is
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . , and it was mountedon two small boats after the manner adopted by speaking, it turned out to be very stable, and roseto heights of 150 ft. But it often fell into the river, over whichthe flight took place, and on one occasion it turned over com-pletely, sustaining serious damage. Lately a good deal has been heard of another type of flyingmachine. It is proposed to run the machine along the level bythe aid of a motor until such a speed is reached that the FLYING MACHINES. 115 compression of the air suffices to lift it upwards. All these ex-periments tend to show that the crux of the problem lies largelyin the creation of sufficient kinetic energy to give the machine astart. For the sake of completeness, two other types ought tobe mentioned, viz., the paddle-wheel and the sail-wheel. Kochof Munich advocates the former ; the propulsion is effected bypaddle-wheels, placed below the sails of the machine. ProfessorWellner advocates the latter, which consists in mounting the. Fig-. 67.—Wellners flying machine. sails on the surfaces of revolving drums, and thereby causingthem both to support and propel the load. Even if the reports from America about the Wrights arelargely discounted, it is quite certain that substantial progresshas been made of late years in the design of flying therefore does not seem to be unduly optimistic to supposethat the twentieth century is likely to solve this problem and toproduce a flying machine, capable of doing work of a really use-ful nature. The difficulties mainly lie in producing flight inthe direction of the wind, and still more, in a direction at rightangles to that of the wind. It is far easier to move againstthe wind in a machine of this kind than in a dirigibleballoon. i 2 CHAPTEE X. KITES. The kite was probably invented at least 200 years before thebirth of Chris
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