Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

MECHANICAL FLIGHT AND AERIAL NAVIGATION. AS the beginning of last century witnessed the development of steam locomotion by Z—\ land and sea, and its last decade the rise of the gas-driven automobile, so are the first years of the twentieth century witnessing the growth of a means of transit which holds out greater possibilities than any of its predecessors. There is no need to review the many abortive strivings of man to emulate the way of a bird in the air— attempts which were doomed to failure because they ran far ahead of the mechanical science of the time. In human progress there has been, and always must be, an ordered sequence. The locomotive was an impossibility while tools were crude and the means of making rails in bulk not yet available. The growth of the petroleum industry, the in- vention of the pneumatic tyre and of the internal combustion engine, and the existence of good roads, prepared the way for the motor car. And now we seem to have reached a period when, thanks to mechanical skill and scientific knowledge, the solution of the problems of aerial navigation cannot be delayed much longer. Though critics may scoff, facts are facts ; and among the facts with which they have to reckon are that men have travelled hundreds of miles in dirigible balloons, and that men have flown on self-lifting machines for long distances at high speeds. Success seems to have come quite suddenly. In 1852, Henry Giffard devised an air- ship that propelled itself at a low velocity ; in 1884, Renard and Krebs produced one that proved considerably more successful; in 1900, Count Zeppelin first moved a dirigible with the aid of a petrol engine ; in 1902, Santos Dumont won the Deutsch Prize with a short flight round the Eiffel Tower. These achievements sum up the progress made till seven years ago. To-day dirigible balloons are numerous ; flying machines that can fly are to be counted by the score, and their number increases every week. vol. in.