At first, as I have just said, aviators could not believe in the powers of the machine; we used to trim down our garments to the lightest point, to avoid extra weight, whereas now we bundle up in heavy furs, or wear two suits, one over the other, to meet the intense cold of the upper air; and a great surplus of weight can be carried by almost all machines. We used to wait for a calm almost absolute before going up it used to be a regular thing to see aviators wetting their fingers and holding them up to see from which direction the faint breezes were coming or dropping bits of paper to see if the air was in that complete stillness we used to think necessary for successful flight. When I was waiting for just the right moment in Albany to begin the Hudson Flight which, because of the unusual and absolutely unknown atmospheric conditions over a river flowing between precipitous and irregular hills, had to be timed with unusual care the Poughkeepsie paper in an editorial said the "Curtiss gives us a pain in the neck."
Even after I had made the flight the Paterson Call made the wait a reason for denying the use of aeroplanes in time of war, pointing out how amusing it would be to see in the newspaper reports of the wars of the future, "Battle postponed on account of the weather!" Whereas now we go up without hesitation into what is actually a gale of wind, and under weather conditions that would have made the first flyers think it absolute suicide.
This discussion of the future of the aeroplane will have more of a basis of solid fact for its prophecy than if it had been written a couple of years ago. Some ideas the world has as to the future of the machine we have had reluctantly to abandon or at least indefinitely to postpone, but so many new fields of activity have opened that one may only sketch the principal lines along which it is reasonable to expect the aeroplane and the art and science of mechanical flight to develop.
The most practical present and future uses of the aeroplane in the order of relative importance which it seems to me that these uses will naturally take, are: for sport, war, and special purposes which the aeroplane itself will create.
SPEED–PRESENT AND FUTURE
In saying "for sport" I mean both for the aviator himself and for the spectators interested in watching his aerial evolutions and enthusiastic over results; over sporting competitions, speed races, and record flights of all kinds. Such flights provide as much fun for the fellow who looks on as the fellow who flies and gives an opportunity for those who take pleasure in acting in an official capacity to exercise authority to their hearts' content!
Speed will always be a most important factor in the development of the sporting side of aviation. Almost all races depend upon speed and activity; and the aeroplane, the material embodiment and symbol of speed, equals and in many cases surpasses the speed of the wind.
Speed will have no bounds in the future. As I have already said briefly in passing, aeroplanes will soon be going considerably over one hundred miles per hour. A motorcycle has gone at the rate of one hundred and thirty-seven miles per hour and an aeroplane should be able to go even faster. With the help of a strong wind blowing in the direction of flight, two hundred miles an hour ought to be possible of attainment. Machines for high speed, however, must have some means of contracting the wing area or flattening out the curve in the planes so that when we want to go fast, we can reduce the amount of surface of the machine to lessen friction and so that when we want to go more slowly and land, we can increase the size of the wing surface.
The Etrich machine built in Austria has been constructed so that the curvature of the planes can be changed by operating a lever near the pilot; this enables the machine to attain high speed in flight and to fly more slowly in starting and landing.
The record is one hundred and eight miles an hour now (September, 1912) and we will not be surprised to see it climb up in proportion as rapidly as the altitude record did in 1911.