These glasses, by showing where the air waves are all of one direction, may reveal a current flowing in one way, while they may make great masses of air flowing in some other direction appear as of some other colour, say red, for instance; or, again, in another direction, all may look green, and it will only be necessary to keep where all is pure white.
Entirely new types of machines have been recently constructed in France called "aviettes" and "cycloplanes." These are machines like gliders which are mounted on bicycle wheels and small aeroplanes with wings which have aerial propellers turned by the pedals which drive them along the ground and through the air.
A contest was held in France in June, 1912, for a prize offered by the Puegeot Bicycle Company for the first machine of this type to fly a distance of about forty feet and later a second prize for the first machine to fly over two tapes one meter three feet nine inches apart and four inches high. Both of these prizes were competed for by machines without any motor and driven solely by man power. Over two hundred entries were received by the promoters of the contest, but no one accomplished the flight on that date of the public contest. Three days afterward, however, Gabriel Paulhain succeeded in winning the prize put up for the second test. He flew eleven feet nine inches on his first trial and ten feet nine inches on the second, which was made in the reverse direction.
There seems to be great interest in this form of human flight, which was the original way of attacking the problem of flight itself. When the gasoline motor was perfected mechanical flight followed very quickly and was rapidly developed to a high degree of practicability. It is possible that with encouragement human flight may also become more common than it now is.
[PART V EVERY-DAY FLYING FOR PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR BY GLENN H. CURTISS WITH CHAPTERS BY AUGUSTUS POST AND HUGH ROBINSON]
[CHAPTER I TEACHING AVIATORS HOW AN AVIATOR FLIES]
Teaching another man how to fly is a very important matter, in whatever way you look at it.
You can take a perfect machine and select ideal conditions and let everything be right for making a flight and then it is directly up to the pupil–he must do the operating of the machine, no one else can do it for him. In a single passenger machine, the instructor can clearly show how it is done and then the other fellow must do it. The trick in learning to fly is self-confidence and that must be gained by personal practise. Any man who wants to fly badly enough can fly.
Almost all of the aviators that have flown and are now flying Curtiss machines, like Hamilton, Mars, Ely, McCurdy, Beachey, and Willard and the army and navy aviators, have been practically self-taught although now we have a regular school under the supervision of Lieut. J. W. McClaskey, U. S. M. C. (retired), who has had great success with his pupils. I have been flying for over four years and I feel that I don't know much about it yet.
The would-be aviator should go to a good school where the best facilities can be had and where there is a good large place to fly, without obstructions. The machine should be thoroughly mastered and every part understood. Training a man to fly does not, as I regard it, consist in putting him in an aeroplane and letting him go up before he knows how to get down again. Anybody may be able to go up in an aeroplane, but it requires skill and practice to come down without damage to man or machine.