To be able to navigate a machine at ten, or fifteen miles an hour, would scarcely be interesting enough to merit a paragraph; but such an accomplishment would be of far more value than all of Pequod's feats, and be more far-reaching in its effects than a flight of two hundred miles per hour.
CHAPTER VIII
KITES AND GLIDERS
KITES are of very ancient origin, and in China, Japan, and the Malayan Peninsula, they have been used for many years as toys, and for the purposes of exhibiting forms of men, animals, and particularly dragons, in their periodical displays.
THE DRAGON KITE.—The most noted of all are the dragon kites, many of them over a hundred feet in length, are adapted to sail along majestically, their sinuous or snake-like motions lending an idea of reality to their gorgeously-colored appearance in flight.
ITS CONSTRUCTION.—It is very curiously wrought, and as it must be extremely light, bamboo and rattan are almost wholly used, together with rice paper, in its construction.
Fig. 33 shows one form of the arrangement, in which the bamboo rib, A, in which only two sections are shown, as B, B, form the backbone, and these sections are secured together with pivot pins C. Each section has attached thereto a hoop, or circularly-formed rib, D, the rib passing through the section B, and these ribs are connected together loosely by cords E, which run from one to the other, as shown.
These circular ribs, D, are designed to carry a plurality of light paper disks, F, which are attached at intervals, and they are placed at such angles that they serve as small wing surfaces or aeroplanes to hold the structure in flight.
Fig. 33. Ribs of Dragon Kite
THE MALAY KITE.—The Malay kite, of which Fig. 34 shows the structure, is merely made up of two cross sticks, A, B, the vertical strip, A, being bent and rigid, whereas the cross stick, B, is light and yielding, so that when in flight it will bend, as shown, and as a result it has wonderful stability due to the dihedral angles of the two surfaces. This kite requires no tail to give it stability.