"Lieutenant ——, while experimenting yesterday morning, met his death by the overturning of his machine at an altitude of 300 meters. Death was instantaneous, and the machine was completely destroyed."
The machines used by the two men were of the same manufacture, as Pequod used a stock machine which was strongly braced to support the inverted weight, but otherwise it was not unlike the well known type of monoplane.
Beachy has since repeated the experiment with a bi-plane, and it is a feat which has many imitators, and while those remarkable exhibitions are going on, one catastrophe follows the other with the same regularity as in the past.
Let us consider this phase of flying. Are they of any value, and wherein do they teach anything that may be utilized,
LACK OF IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES.—It is remarkable that not one single forward step has been taken to improve the type of flying machines for the past five years. They possess the same shape, their stabilizing qualities and mechanism for assuring stability are still the same.
MEN EXPEDITED, AND NOT THE MACHINE.—The fact is, that during this period the man has been exploited and not the machine. Men have learned, some few of them, to perform peculiar stunts, such as looping the loop, the side glide, the drop, and other features, which look, and are, hazardous, all of which pander to the sentiments of the spectators.
ABNORMAL FLYING OF NO VALUE.—It would be too broad an assertion to say that it has absolutely no value, because everything has its use in a certain sense, but if we are to judge from the progress of inventions in other directions, such exhibitions will not improve the art of building the device, or make a fool-proof machine.
Indeed, it is the very thing which serves as a deterrent, rather than an incentive. If machines can be handled in such a remarkable manner, they must be, indeed, perfect! Nothing more is needed! They must represent the highest structural type of mechanism!
That is the idea sought to be conveyed in the first paragraph quoted. It is pernicious, instead of praiseworthy, because it gives a false impression, and it is remarkable that even certain scientific journals have gravely discussed the perfected (?) type of flying machine as demonstrated by the experiments alluded to.
THE ART OF JUGGLING.—We may, occasionally, see a cyclist who understands the art of balancing so well that he can, with ease, ride a machine which has only a single wheel; or he can, with a stock bicycle, ride it in every conceivable attitude, and make it perform all sorts of feats.