One may say, without much fear of contradiction, that the war has done more towards the development of aviation, and has rendered more things possible to be done in two years than would have been accomplished in ten years under pre-wartime conditions.
It has necessitated the production of many thousands of craft of varying degrees of size and shape, and the number of factories engaged upon the production of aeroplanes, airships, and spare parts for the respective craft has trebled. For one trained and experienced aviator, in 1914, there are to-day at least ten, if anything more capable, and certainly better experienced.
As a test of the durability and the capabilities of aircraft, flying under war conditions cannot be equaled, for various reasons. Firstly, maneuvers, which in times of peace would be considered risky to life and thus avoided, must be endured daily by pilots flying over the battle area. Flying under shell-fire frequently necessitates maneuvers, entirely unaccounted for by the constructors of the machine, which put a very great strain on the framework, wings, struts, etc. To compensate for such strain, every wire, strut, and part of the framework is constructed of a strength at least eight times greater than that of the actual strength required. Thus the weak points of the machine are discovered, also the centers at which the greatest strain takes place.
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.
Properties of War and Peace Machines
There is not, and there never was, on this earth a new idea so well deserving of examination as the science of Aeronautics. The history of that science deals with the most momentous invention in the history of civilization. No other science allures the imagination so far forward into the dim future, when the business of the world will be carried up from the level of the sea and the land to that of mid-air, and when travel will be so rapid and safe that space will almost cease to be an obstacle to man’s communications.
The proudest inventions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are but of yesterday when compared with those of the aeroplane and airship. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should consider how the development of aeronautics will affect the future of the human race. Under the present war-time conditions, there exists a grave danger that the aeroplane and the airship will be developed too much for war purposes to the detriment of future commercial uses. The qualities mainly required by the war machine, speed, ability to climb quickly, and compactness, differ entirely from those required by the peace time or commerce-bearing aircraft, which have ability to remain in the air for a great space of time, and to fly greater distances. The extra speed required by the war machine may easily be dispensed with in the commerce-bearing machines, as also may altitude, for whereas the war machine must fly at a height of over 12,000 feet, a height of between 2000 and 3000 will suffice under ordinary conditions, and it will be at this altitude that the best part of the flying will take place after the war.