“Beyond scout duty I do not think the machines would be of much help to the navy, but when the battleships attack a fortified city, they could send aloft a score or more of aeroplanes which could blow all the forts to fragments with dynamite.”
It is the belief of Hubert Latham that both the monoplane and the biplane will exist in types of the airship of the future. He says that each embodies essentials that are lacking in the other and that are necessary for the proper navigation of the air.
“The aeroplane is perfected even more than people think,” said he. “I could fly practically to any place that a train can go and to many places that it cannot go. If a good prize were offered I should agree to cross from Los Angeles to New York. The airship of the future will be commercialized. It will practically do all of the express, mail and parcels post business. It will be the touring car par excellence for those who wish to see the world. It is being simplified and with an automatic stability device which I think is coming rapidly, it will be every man’s machine. They do not cost much and this will be greatly reduced during the next few years. It will make a better race of men and women when they fly. They will be healthier and will have a clearer idea of things as they are. I do not look forward to any great change in the type of machines and think the engine and the stability device will absorb the attention of the inventors and manufacturers of the future.”
As might be supposed, Eugene Ely, the first aviator who ever flew from a man-of-war, has decided ideas of the coming aeroplane. He does not believe the airship will be very effective in dropping bombs on warships, but no one can imagine its terrible power for destructiveness for armies and cities. Mr. Ely said:
“I can carry about 350 pounds of the highest explosive known to mankind at present. Imagine that I was successful in dropping this explosive on a warship of the enemy. What would happen? Nothing. But listen to this. In Hampton Roads we tried the experiment of placing 350 pounds of nitro-glycerine against the armored side of the turret of the Puritan. It was set off and it was discovered that not even the sighting mechanism of the turret had been injured. So you see that even if we were successful in hitting our mark we could do little damage. But imagine this great explosive dropped into the midst of a regiment of soldiers. They would be annihilated in a second. If it was dropped on the roof of a skyscraper in a city, what would happen? It would be demolished in a trice. So cities are at the mercy of an army equipped with aeroplanes, and the development will be along this line.”
“I have seen trials of wireless transmission of electricity and I firmly believe that the future will see aeroplanes operated by this wireless transmission of current, and then the greatest problem of all, the engine, will be solved. With electric motors we could attain a speed which sounds foolish. We could get a lifting power from the speed which would carry hundreds of pounds. The machines would be made smaller and if they had folding wings they would be no longer than the ordinary business man’s automobile. With these machines he could annihilate distance and a friend living a hundred miles away would be his next-door neighbor.
“The perfection of the flying machine will mean a greater rural population, as has the automobile. It will be possible and comfortable to live a hundred miles from the city and observe business hours there.”
P. O. Parmalee, who drove the Baby Wright Flyer at Los Angeles, is certain that the coming aeroplane will do all express, scouting, mail carrying and will even transport light freight.
“With my Wright machine I can take up 500 pounds beside myself, and go anywhere that I want to. If I double the engine capacity of my machine and double the wing space I can carry 2500 pounds, so I think that the future aeroplane will be a larger affair for commerce and a smaller one for pleasure and touring. There will probably be some sort of wing adjustment which will enable the flyer to start from the ground with a wide wing area, and after he has attained his height and speed to reduce gradually the wing area and make greater speed, and when he desires to alight extend his wing area to its limit and land easily.
“I predict that within a year a great deal of the government mail, parcels post and express matter will be carried to out-of-the-way places by aeroplane. Motors are being perfected every day, and steering and stability devices are becoming better, so that the everyday man can soon fly a machine as easily as he can steer an automobile. Speed will be a great factor in the aeroplane of the future. The Baby Wright, which was wrecked at Belmont Park, was the fastest thing that man ever flew in. It made ninety miles an hour and could do better. The matter of speed has been solved for the ordinary use of an aeroplane. It is to the lightning service required by mail contracts that attention is now directed.”