The Romance of Aircraft

by Laurence Yard Smith

Although these achievements in heavier-than-air machines were of far-reaching importance, they did not fully solve the problem of trans-Atlantic air passage. It remained for the great dirigible experiment in July to demonstrate that in all probability the lighter-than-air craft will prove more effective for this hazardous game with the elements.

On July 2 the British naval dirigible, R-34, left East Fortune, Scotland, with thirty-one men on board under command of Major G. H. Scott, and made the journey of 3200 sea miles, by way of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, to Mineola, Long Island, in 108 hours. The fact that weather conditions during this trip were very unfavorable adds to the value of the accomplishment. The return trip was made a few days later in 75 hours.

The R-34 is indeed a mammoth of the air. At the time of its flight it was the largest aircraft in the world, having a length of 650 feet and a diameter of 78 feet. It has five cars connected by a deck below the rigid bag and is propelled by five engines of 250 H.P. each. Its maximum speed is about sixty miles an hour.

The year following the Great War will go down in history as a marvelous period in aeronautic achievement. The Atlantic was for the first time crossed by aircraft and within ten weeks of its first accomplishment two trans-Atlantic flights were made, three widely differing types of aircraft being represented.

As a matter of fact we have but begun to explore the possibilities of aerial flight. During the last few years we have been thinking of the airplane solely as an instrument of war, and for that purpose we have bent our entire energies to developing it. When all the wealth of skill we have acquired during strenuous war times is turned to solving the problem of making the airplane useful in times of peace, there will be new and fascinating chapters to relate.

The war has done a lot for the airplane. It has raised up a host of aircraft factories in all the large countries, with thousands of skilled workers. It has given us a splendid force of trained pilots and mechanics. It has resulted in standardized airplane parts, instead of the endless confusion of designs and makes that existed a few years ago. And instead of the old haphazard methods of production it has made the building of an airplane an exact science.

People used to be afraid of the airplane and it seemed a long road to travel to the time when it would play any important rôle in everyday commerce or travel. The war has resulted in making the airplane safe,—so safe that it is apt to win the confidence of the most timid.

Yet the airplanes that we saw and read of so frequently in war time are not likely to be those which will prove the most popular and useful in the days to come. In war one of the great aims was for speed. Now we can afford to sacrifice some speed to greater carrying capacity. The swift tractor biplane may possibly give way to the slower biplane of the pusher type, which has greater stability. The big triplanes, such as the Russian Sikorsky and the Italian Caproni will come into their own, and yet bigger triplanes will be built, able to carry passengers and freight on long journeys over land and sea. The three surfaces of the triplane give it great lifting powers, and on this account it will be a favorite where long trips and heavy cargoes are to be reckoned with. We may expect in the near future to see huge air-going liners of this type, fitted out with promenade decks and staterooms, and with all the conveniences of modern travel.

There is a strong probability that the airship, rather than the airplane, may prove to be the great aerial liner of to-morrow. The large airship of the Zeppelin type, traveling at greater speed than the fastest express train, and carrying a large number of passengers and a heavy cargo, is apt before long to become the deadly rival of the steamship. A voyage across the Atlantic in such an airship would be far shorter, safer and pleasanter than in the finest of the ocean vessels. Gliding along smoothly far above the water, the passengers would suffer no uncomfortable seasickness, nor would they be rocked and tumbled about when a storm arose and the waves piled up and up into mountains of water on the surface of the deep. Their craft would move forward undisturbed by the turbulent seas beneath. We can imagine these fortunate individuals of a few years hence, leaning over the railing of their promenade deck as we ourselves might on a calm day at sea, and recalling the great discomforts that used to attend a trans-Atlantic voyage. It is amusing to think that our steamships of to-day will perhaps be recalled by these people of the future about as we ourselves recall the old sailing vessels that used to ply the deep a generation or so ago.

The airplane, if it is to hold its own beside the airship as a large passenger vessel, will first have to overcome a number of natural handicaps. In the first place, it is not possible to go on increasing the size of the airplane indefinitely, as is practically the case with the airship. For remember that the lighter-than-air machine floats in the air, and only requires its engine to drive it forward: whereas the heavier-than-air machine depends upon the speed imparted to it by its engine and propeller to keep it up in the air at all. Beyond a certain size the airplane would require engines of such enormous size and power to support it that it would be practically impossible to build and operate them. Modern invention has taught us that nothing is beyond the range of fancy, and we have seen many of the wildest dreams of yesterday fulfiled, yet it is safe to say that the airplane which would in any way approximate an ocean liner will not be built for many a year to come. In the meantime, however, we will have huge machines like the Caproni and the Sikorsky triplanes, driven by two or more motors and able to make the trans-Atlantic voyage with a number of passengers, freight and fuel for the journey.