The Romance of Aircraft

by Laurence Yard Smith

Now the time was ripe for the great public demonstration of the world's airplanes which took place at Rheims in August, 1909. The Rheims Meeting is probably the most memorable event in the history of aviation. It placed the work of a dozen or more earnest experimenters definitely in the limelight, and gave the chance for comparisons, for a summing up of knowledge on the subject of flight, and for a test of strength, which resulted in the mighty impetus to aerial progress which followed immediately afterward.

Here at Rheims were gathered many famous flying men who already had made their names known throughout Europe and America. There were Farman, Latham, Paulhan, Blériot, Curtiss, and the three who flew Wright machines, the Comte de Lambert, Lefevre and Tissandier,—as well as many others, for there were thirty contestants in all. Many unusual feats delighted the spectators. Lefevre, a student of the Wrights, and up to that time unknown, amazed the assemblage by his wonderful aerial stunts. He circled gracefully in the air, making sharp, unexpected turns with the utmost skill, and winning round after round of applause.

Curtiss and Blériot emerged as contestants for the speed prize over 10 kilometers, and after several breathless attempts in which records were made and broken, the honor was finally carried off by Blériot, who covered the distance of 10 kilometers (about 6¼ miles) in 7 minutes, 47.80 seconds. Curtiss replied by beating his famous opponent in the contest for the Gordon Bennett Cup, offered for the fastest flight over 20 kilometers; and Curtiss also was the winner of the 30 kilometer race.

It was Farman, in a biplane of his own design, who surprised every one by his remarkable performance, and turned out to be the victor of the occasion. Flying for three hours without stopping, round the course, he covered 112 miles without the slightest difficulty, and was only forced to make a landing because of the rapidly approaching dusk. For his feat he was awarded the Grand Prize, and was hailed as the most successful of all the contestants.

Finally Latham, in an Antoinette monoplane, proved he had the machine with the greatest climbing powers, and carried off the Altitude prize on the closing day of the meeting.

Among those who looked on at the famous Rheims Meeting of 1909 there were none more keenly and intelligently interested than the representatives of the French military authorities. They had come for two reasons: to ascertain at first hand which were the best machines and to order them for the French Government; on the other hand, to encourage to the fullest extent possible all those men present who were earnestly working in the interests of aviation. France was ready and willing to spend money freely for this purpose, and the Rheims Meeting resulted in orders for machines of several makes. Some of these were regarded as having great possibilities from a military point of view; and others, though not looked on so favorably, were purchased as a sign of goodwill and support to future experiment. It was this far-seeing patronage which paved the way for France's later aerial triumphs, for it gave her a diversity of machines and a devoted coterie of workers all following original lines of experiment.

Let us glance for a moment at the little group of machines which stood out by their merits most prominently at that Rheims Meeting of 1909, and which gave the greatest promise for the future. To-day they seem antiquated indeed, but for all their rather curious appearance they were the legitimate forefathers of our powerful modern airplanes. Among the biplanes, those especially worthy of note were the Farman, the Wright, and the Voisin; while the Blériot and Antoinette monoplanes gave a most excellent account of themselves.

Farman, who had first learned to fly in a machine designed and built by the Voisin brothers, was far from satisfied with his sluggish, unmanageable steed and at once set to work on a design of his own. His one idea was to construct a biplane of light weight, speed and general efficiency. He did away with the box-kite tail of the Voisin model and substituted two horizontal tail planes with a vertical rudder fitted between them. Instead of the vertical planes or “curtains” between the main planes by which the Voisins attempted to preserve the lateral stability of their airplane, Farman adopted the “wing-warping” plan of the Wrights in a somewhat modified form. The Wright machine, it will be remembered, had wings whose rear portions were flexible, so that they could be drawn down at the will of the pilot. If the latter felt that the left side of his machine was falling he simply drew down or “warped” the rear edges of the wings on that side. The air rushing under the wing was blocked in its passage and the greater pressure thus created forced the wing upward on the left side until balance had been restored. Acting on this principle, Farman attached to the rear edges of the main planes at each side a flap, or as it is called to-day, an aileron, which worked on a hinge, so that it could be raised or lowered.

Another novel feature of this first Farman biplane was its method of starting and landing. Below the planes had been placed two long wooden skids, and to these small, pneumatic tired wheels had been attached by means of strong rubber bands. In rising, the airplane ran along the ground on these wheels until it had acquired the momentum necessary to lift it into the air. When a descent was made, the force of contact with the ground sent the wheels flying upward on their flexible bands, and allowed the strong skids to absorb the shock. This underbody or chassis was a distinct improvement on anything that had yet been devised, for it was light in weight and efficient.

In one other important respect the Farman machine was superior to all those demonstrated at Rheims in 1909, and that was in its engine. Airplane engines up to this time had been nothing more or less than automobile engines built as light in weight as possible. But in France a new engine had made its appearance, designed especially for airplane needs. Hooted as a freak at the first, and rejected by experts as “impossible,” it carried Farman round the course on his three hour flight without a hitch and made him the winner of the Grand Prize. This remarkable engine was the Gnome and the reason for its excellence lay in its unusual system of cooling. The overheating of his motor was a thorn in the flesh of many an early aviator. An engine which gave good service in an automobile would invariably overheat in an airplane because of the constant high speed at which it must run. Now motor car engines of whatever type, and whether water-cooled or air-cooled, had fixed cylinders and a revolving crankshaft. In the Gnome motor the cylinders revolved and the crankshaft was stationary. Flying through the air at tremendous speed they necessarily cooled themselves. This was the secret of the perfect running of the Farman biplane. Though Farman had been the first to recognize the merits of the Gnome and install it in his machine, he was not the last, for after the Rheims Meeting it rapidly became the favorite of practically all builders.