Future Types of Craft
The shape and general build of the aeroplane has not thus far changed materially from the original models of Orville and Wilbur Wright, save that the majority of the modern machines are tractors (i. e. with the engine in front), whereas the older types were “pushers” (with engine at the rear). The new principle has naturally both advantage and disadvantage. With the tractor engine, the machine has a great speed, and is able to climb at a much faster rate, but the inherent stability of the craft is seriously affected—by shifting the engine 80 per cent. of the total weight is moved from the center to the nose of the aeroplane. To compensate for this the wings have had to be extended, and this has added considerably to the weight in aggregate. But this evil has again been remedied, by bringing the extreme ends further to the rear, and slightly indenting each wing-tip: in a word, constructing the aeroplane more and more after the fashion of a bird in flight. Such is the peculiar working of the human mind, however, that when some new theory or substance is evolved, similar to the one in question, it is content to concentrate on the original formula, and develops that rather than apply the same principles to an entirely new formula. Thus, after some twelve years of flying, we have only four distinct types of craft: the balloon, the airship, the aeroplane, and the seaplane—the two former being very similar both in principle and shape, as also the two latter. Exception cannot be made for the “triplane,” for that machine, with three planes, has the same shape as the aeroplane.
The principles of aero-statics, and aero-dynamics by no means confine the constructor to these two standard forms; and in the near future the aeroplane will be built on similar lines to the ocean-going liner, and the airship very much on the same principle.
Development in size and speed depend on future experimenting, and flights have already been made both in France and Russia by giant aeroplanes, in which, in one case nine, and in the other fifteen passengers, exclusive of the pilot were carried at one time; while the later Zeppelins are capable of lifting to a height of over 12,000 feet, a crew of thirty odd, with a further weight of bombs and war material aboard, and flying distances of over 800 miles. Again, there are the orthropic and the ornithropic types of craft, which their inventors claim to be capable of rising vertically from the ground to a height of 10,000 feet. Combining these principles we ought within the space of ten years to be in possession of aircraft capable of flying at over 150 miles an hour, with a cargo of many hundred tons aboard, and with a radius of over 3,000 miles, able to start and land with ease in a confined space about the size of Leicester Square. The aerial landing grounds will be the flat roofs of gigantic buildings specially constructed in the center of London. Automatic lifts will convey the passengers from the air level to the street level, where they will be deposited in electric trains, running in all directions. Impracticable, say the critics, but so they said when Count Zeppelin and the Wrights first started their experiments.