What may be called the 1911 type of model aeroplane looks every inch a racer. Every unnecessary stick and string has been cut away. When skids are used they are of the lightest possible material and the simplest construction. The miniature rubber-tired wheels, with ball bearings, which made many of last year's models so attractive, are rarely used. The plane surface has been reduced fully one half. One great secret of success is in the cutting down of weight. When your propeller has but half the work to do, the length of the flight is, of course, greatly increased.
Our amateur aviators are attacking one great problem of aviation which the pilots of man-carrying crafts are perhaps neglecting. Model aeroplanes are built to maintain their equilibrium in the air automatically. They must not only rise from the ground, prepared for a long flight, but must be contrived to resist all manner of baffling air currents aloft. Watch the successful model as it gains its altitude, settles down to a horizontal flight, is perhaps knocked off its course by a cross current, and steadies itself with a graceful curve and proceeds on its way.
All these problems must be anticipated. The young aviator must ingeniously arrange his planes and ballast in advance. The regular sky pilot, on the other hand, meets the problems of the air as he encounters them, by flexing his wings against disturbing currents or by banking to maintain an even keel at a turn. If the man-carrying airship had to be prepared to meet all these problems before it left the ground, the problem would be, of course, much more complicated.
In other words, if the motor of a large machine were started and the aeroplane launched without a pilot, would its chances of flight be as good, in proportion to its size, as those of our best model aeroplanes? A model aeroplane which flies 300 feet performs as remarkable a feat as would a large machine flying, unguided, a mile or more. The progress in the construction of model aeroplanes, in brief, already deserves serious scientific consideration.
The last twelve months have brought out a surprising number of new aeroplanes, while notable progress has been made in the standard types. To realize the immense strides or flights forward in the construction of heavier-than-air machines, one need only set the 1911 models beside the aeroplanes of a year or two years since. Even to the eye of the layman in such matters, the older machines are beginning to appear obsolete. In a previous volume, it was suggested that within a few years the aeroplane of to-day would appear like cumbersome stage coaches to one familiar with racing automobiles, and certainly the prophecy is being quickly realized.
The general tendency is in the direction of greater simplicity in design in passenger-carrying craft, as in model aeroplanes. Both the monoplane and biplane types are being developed side by side, and each continues to have its enthusiastic advocates. The increase in the passenger-carrying qualities is realizing the most sanguine hopes. Aeroplanes have carried fifteen passengers for several miles. The speed qualities of machines have developed correspondingly.
If the development of model aeroplanes leads the way in perfecting heavier-than-air machines, as many believe, the monoplane form seems destined to replace all multiplane types. During the past year practically all of the biplane forms have been abandoned by model builders. As a result of wide experiments, it has been found that the monoplane exerts more sustension per unit of surface than any two or three-plane machines. In theory, it is, of course, possible to increase the sustained force by setting one plane above another, but in practice it has been found that the planes must be set so far apart that the arrangement is impracticable. When planes are separated, they must, of course, be stayed and trussed to keep them rigid, and all this adds to the weight and complexity of the machine.
A good specimen of plane building.
