The Curtiss Aviation Book

by Glenn Hammond Curtiss; Augustus Post

The radius of action in the hydroaeroplane is now from four hundred to five hundred miles, for the machine can carry a barrel of gasoline, or fifty-two gallons, and as the engine uses about seven gallons an hour this would mean about seven hours running at from fifty to sixty miles an hour in still air; if the wind were blowing twenty-five miles an hour in the direction in which the machine was flying it would add two hundred and fifty miles to the distance covered in ten hours.

These machines can be equipped with more surface and they can be specially built to carry as much as two barrels of fuel, which would enable them to fly nearly twelve hundred miles if the wind were steady. They can also fly in very high winds up to almost one hundred miles an hour, which is the speed at which some of the higher air currents flow, as proved by the flight of balloons. This would of course tremendously increase the distance covered. All this is possible to-day and it seems that the aeroplane has already done every thing possible to be done on land. Bleriot crossed the English channel, Chavez crossed the Alps, and Rodgers crossed the American continent, passing over the Rocky Mountains, and making over four thousand miles in the air.

The only thing now left is to cross the ocean. An attempt has been made to cross the Atlantic in a dirigible balloon. You all remember how Walter Wellman flew out over the ocean from Atlantic City in one of the largest dirigible balloons ever constructed here, the "America," remained three days in the air, and covered over twelve hundred miles, even though his motors were running only a part of the time.

He was fortunate enough to be rescued and brought back to land by the steamer Trent. And nothing daunted, his chief engineer Melville Vaniman constructed another large dirigible the "Akron," on which he met such an untimely end.

Another entrant in the world race to cross the ocean is Dr. Gans who, with the backing of the German government, plans to start in his dirigible balloon the "Suchard" from the Island of Teneriffe, one of the Azores, to attempt the crossing of the Southern Atlantic. He will endeavour to be the "Columbus of the air" and be wafted above the waves by the selfsame winds which always blow in that part of the ocean to the West Indies, just as the first man to accomplish this passage was driven over the surface of the sea with his small ships. Such great enterprises bid fair to embolden aviators in their aeroplanes to try to win the laurels due the first to be successful.

Many aeronauts and aviators seem to be focussing their minds at the present moment on this great problem. It seems always a condition necessary to precede the accomplishment of any great thing that popular thought should be centred upon it; then some one rises to the occasion and the thing is done. There is no doubt that such a flight is possible to-day, just as the flight across the United States was possible in even the early stages of aviation. For the machine and motor which actually accomplished this trip were almost the same as the very first models; but it took the man to do it.

It will no doubt necessitate a double machine, and will need two pilots, one to relieve the other, and possibly several engines to ensure against stopping of the motor. Mr. Grahame-White has predicted that within twenty years we will be flying across the Atlantic in fifteen hours upon regular schedule between London and New York. Mr. Grahame-White once even went so far as to say that the ocean in a few years would only be used "to bathe in" but I think he might have added "and to fish in," and left us that consolation!

Perhaps, backed by government aid, and with the co-operation of their naval vessels, a chain of ships could be stretched across the ocean, which would make it possible even now to fly with safety over the distance between Nova Scotia and Ireland, about two thousand miles. Already, Mr. Atwood who flew from St. Louis to New York, and Mr. James V. Martin, have seriously planned such a trip. Mr. Martin has submitted his plans to the Royal Aero Club of England. He proposes to keep in the track of steamers and to endeavour to secure the most favourable wind conditions possible. His machine is designed to have large floats and five powerful engines.

Storms pass across the ocean with great rapidity and a fifty-mile-an-hour wind would so increase the speed of an aeroplane as materially to help it on its journey.

The accomplishment of this great flight over the ocean will no doubt mean great things for the progress of the world but it also will require further development along the lines of a flying boat, where a substantial vessel will be provided, able to stand rough sea and yet able to rise and skim the surface of the water.