First Flight of the Wright Brothers’ First Motor Machine.
This picture shows the machine just after lifting from the track, flying
against a wind of twenty-four miles an hour.
Their speed and effective radius of travel place the air-ship in the first rank among the engines of war. The value of the free or captive balloon has, of course, been clearly proven. It has been of the greatest value for general observation work in the field. It has been readily raised out of effective range of the enemy’s batteries, and from this position, has looked down upon the forts, cities, or encampments. It thus became a signal station which might direct gun fire with absolute accuracy, and has been the only safe and reliable method for locating the presence of mines and submarines.
The dirigible balloon possesses all of the qualities of the free balloon and many more. It can attack by day or night. Its search lights enable it to look down upon the enemy with pitiless accuracy. It may thus gain information about forts and harbors, which otherwise could not be approached. The most completely mined harbor in the world has no terrors for such a visitor. The great problem in warfare of patrolling the frontier of a country against possible invasion seems to be solved by the dirigible. Two or three men aboard a dirigible, with a traveling radius of several hundred miles, could do more effective work than several thousand men scattered along the frontier line.
For dispatch work the flying machine is expected to be indispensable in warfare. The bearer of dispatches has always played an important part in war. His work is often of the most perilous nature, and his journeys, at best, are slow and uncertain. The dispatch bearer, driving an air-ship fifty miles an hour, could ride high above the range of the enemy’s guns. These same vehicles of the air would doubtless be equipped with wireless telegraph apparatus, so that they might send or receive messages, and the aviator might talk freely with the entire country side, directing a battery here, silencing one there, ordering an advance or conducting a retreat, with unprecedented accuracy.
These aërial fleets may also carry on deadly aggressive warfare. The over sea raid will have greater terror than any ordinary invasion. A fleet of dreadnaughts dirigibles, assisted by fast cruisers of the air, and many aëroplane scouts, would be extremely formidable. An enemy’s base line would be at the mercy of such an invasion. Within a few hours, such a fleet might destroy the enemy’s stores, its railroads, and its cities, by dropping explosives or poisonous bombs.
In several recent aëroplane flights, “peace bombs” have been aimed to strike a given mark, and the shots have proven surprisingly accurate. By using various instruments to determine directions, it will be possible to drop such bombs with mathematical accuracy. The bombs or missiles will be suspended by wires from beneath the air-ship and released by an electric current, to give them a perfectly vertical direction. When dropped from great altitudes, the effect of such explosions will be difficult to withstand. Our great war-ships, despite their steel sides, will probably have to be completely remodelled before they can fight with this new enemy.
When an air-ship drops a bomb from a point directly above a fort or ship, it will be absolutely out of the range of the enemy, since to shoot directly up into the air would be to fire a boomerang which would quickly return and inflict serious damage. An actual test was recently carried out in England, when a thirteen pound gun fired at a balloon 1000 feet in the air. Although the gun had an effective range of 4000 feet, and the balloon was held captive, it was not until the seventeenth shot had been fired that it was brought down. It has also been proven that a rifle ball will be deflected by the draught from the propeller of an aëroplane. The flying machine promises to revolutionize warfare.
