A remarkable series of tests has been made this year in France with an automatic stability device based upon an entirely new principle. The rudders are operated automatically, in this case by a vertical fin opposed to the wind. As the pressure of the air varies, the rudder is forced up or down, thus bringing the aeroplane to an even keel without the assistance of the aviator. It is reported that model aeroplanes equipped with this device have been flown in three hundred experiments without a single accident.

The day is approaching when the air conditions will be observed and announced for the benefit of aviators exactly as the weather is foretold to-day. An aviator who is about to start on a cross-country flight will thus be able to study the conditions of the air lanes and lay out his route just as an automobilist looks up good-roads maps. In crossing a particular piece of country he will therefore know whether to take a low or a high air lane, that is, one of few hundred feet above the earth or the one several thousand feet aloft. The pressure of the air on the regular air lines will be announced as well. In this way aviation will be made much safer than it is to-day, when the aviator must venture without any knowledge of conditions aloft except those he may gain from the ground surface weather maps. During the year 1910, fully a score of lives might have been saved had aviators had such information.

The first of these observation stations is actually in operation in Germany to-day. Each of these stations is supplied with a number of rubber balloons equipped with automatic apparatus for recording atmospheric conditions in the upper air lanes. The stations also contain the proper apparatus for measuring the ascensional force of the balloons, with the gas generators used for inflating the balloons. When the balloons are sent up for great heights their altitude will be measured by means of the theodolite.

The soundings of the air are taken twice daily at eight o'clock in the morning and two in the afternoon whenever the weather permits. In the summer the morning observations are made much earlier. The movements of the balloons are then carefully observed at various altitudes until they are lost. These observations are then telegraphed to the central station at Lindenberg and sent out much the same as the regular weather forecast.

CHAPTER XVI RULES FOR CONDUCTING MODEL AEROPLANE CONTESTS

PREPARED BY THE WEST SIDE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, NEW YORK.

GENERAL RULES AND CONDITIONS FOR 1911.

  1. These General Rules and Conditions shall apply to the events conducted by the West Side Y. M. C. A.
  2. Each and every contestant for a prize shall accept without reservation the conditions laid down by the West Side Y. M. C. A. and shall abide by the decision of the referee. Each contestant must register his name, age and address before the event.
  1. All contestants in Class "A" must be 18 years of age or over.
  2. All contestant in Class "B" must be under 18 years.
  1. Every machine competing must be made by the operator (no toys admitted), and it must be built along practical lines, that is, a model from which a practical man-carrying machine can be built.
  2. The Committee shall have the right to reject any entry, the rejection of which they deem advisable.
  3. The flights shall be accounted level flights and no allowance will be made for variation of height.
  4. A trial shall be considered to have ended whenever the machine touches the ground.
  5. Competitors shall decide by drawing lots the order in which they shall take their turns.
  6. Any entrant not ready to commence his trial when called upon will forfeit his turn to him who is next ready, and will fall back to the end of the list.
  7. The commencement of the distance flown shall in the case of machines on wheels be counted not from the starting line, but from the point which is determined by the judges as that at which such machines actually leave the ground. In the case of machines using the catapult, there shall be deducted from the total distance flown the equivalent of the initial impulse of the catapult.
  8. There shall be no restrictions as to the design, size, weight, form or amount of power, but the power must be self-contained in the model.
  9. All models must start from the ground.
  10. Each contestant shall have three trials.
  11. The longest flight in the three trials will be counted for the prize.
  12. All awards shall be made to the owner of the model and not to the operator, unless by special agreement between owner and operator.
  13. The contests shall cover a period of two hours, unless otherwise designated by the judges.