Evening Star Newspaper, November 19, 1922, Page 70

9 - THE - SUNDAY ' STAR, ‘WASHINGTON, D. C,' NOVEMBER 19, 1922—PART 4. Motorless Air Champion Gives Story|TEA GUESTS AT GANNA WALSKA'’S Of Sailplane and Glider Development|roy ressats Amng the Pessos of romiseace Who May Be Mt a Beastit Paris _ Mansion—In Spite of Grandeur and Her Latest Jewels, She Believes She Cannot Be Really and Truly Happy Until Her Voice Has Brought Success—Polish Beauty Came to New York Penniless Refugee Eight Years Avo, This is the firat detailed account of the development of metorless avia- tion to be written, by ¥. H. Hentzen, Germany'es celebrated technical stu: dent and aviator, who has been show- | ered with homers for his recemt re-; markable aailplane and glider fights | at the Rhoen mewntains, W—ny.lg Since Hentsen's fiight, the saflplane and glider sport has spread rap ever Europe. In England partieular- | Iy 1t et with the enmthusinstie ' aupport of amateur sportsmen and thelr own motoriess plames. } i Introduction by Brig.| Gen. William Mitchell,| Assistant Chief of Airi Service, United States! Army. ‘ AM glad that Hentzen has written | his own story of the sailplane and , glider development. The march of civilization may be | punctuated into perfods coincident | with the ability of man to saddle the | Power of tie elements and make them | do useful work to serve his purposes. | The power of the air currents moving | about the earth has been little known | or little utilized. Man was able to harness the lorizontal properties generations ago. and to use them to drive ships across the sea. Through | the medium of windmills, he was able o saddle much of the drudgery on the same element. ot until recent years, however. have we been able to derive energy from the vertical component, and when | the Wrights succeeded in soar! nine minutes and fifty-four seconds | fn 1911, the significance of their ac- | complishment was unknown. The action of the inter-allied com- | mission control for aeronautics in{ prohibiting Aying in Germany. in anv aircraft equipped with a motor. cen- tered the attention of German aero- | nautical experts on the possibilities | of gliders. The results have been as- | tonishing. For some inonths past the world has been eagerly watching the results of | the soaring experiments conducted in | France and Germany. i The Wright brothers are undoubted- | !y the first ones to ever soar as well as to accomplish powered flight. The unexpected duration of soaring flights and the beginning of their use as carriers have centered the atten- tion of the world on their possibili- ties. No one, 1 venture, is qualifled to prophesy what will ultimately be ac- | complished. Studies of air currents will unquestionably lead to a better knowledge of meterology. Perfe tion of gliders will reveal much in- formation that will improve the effi giency of powered aircraft. And the henefits accruing will undoubtedly be tremendous, because there will cer- tainly result a great deal of knowl- ~dge in the building of the gliding portion of an-girplane which will be reflected in the construction of more ~Mclent machines for commercial and military purposes. Soaring as a sport is certain to be popular and will be 2 means of giv- ng a great number of people an in- sight into fiying, In exactly the same way that tke interest in radio has tended to develop the knowledge of the average American in this subject, | L3 g Hentzen Presents Expert Explanation of }*\f Use 9{ ‘Air Currents in & cent Great Scientific Achievement—Success £ I [ £ — e | Pty Glider of the Academic Group of Flyers &t Hanover HENTZEN'S DIAGRAM OF HIS OWN SAILPLAN same as the rowing, but stationary): the “finch’s” flight (which again is the same as the “rowing,” but Inter- rupted by stretches of forward pre- cipitation); the “rowing” flight, inter- ng for | Fupted by stretches of “gliding.” and,in the path of the wind, which it the “sailing” flight. Ocoasionally the same bird will use all these methods of fiving in quick succession. In the “rowing” flight the bird beats its wings regularly, in an el- liptical line, up and down and at the same time forward. The breast mus- cles must take the strain of the for- ward and upward impulse. We find | this method of flying mostly in crows | warmed stretches of sand, desert, and pigeons. The “shaking’ flight is only a spe- cial form of the “rowing” flight. be- {cause here the bird beats its wings | strongly and rapidly. but omiy to remain suspended in the same spot. In Germany there is & bird of_ the falcon family, which uses this meth- od and has therefore become known as the “shaking falcon.” But this method of flight is most frequently and most .characteristically {llus- trated by the colibri. The “finca’s fllght” is called so after | | the bird that uses it most conspicu-|aititudes, and in that case causci by ously. This bird, at times, draws in its wings completely, for long stretches, so that they offer no re- sistance to the air, but afford no car- rying ;'ane either. which occasions a sharp downward dip in the bird's flight. Having thus fallen for a short | space, it suddenly puts ite wings into ' can | action again, climbs by the power of | curve and angle to meet the new afr their stroke, stays “shaking” for a bit and lets itself go down again. Birds of the "rowing” kind often cut into their flight by “gliding.” They simply epread their wings wide and | glide. downwatll, more or less quickly. | method of “sailing” with an evealy { There are no special points about this | rising current is called "static”; while sort of flight. The kind of flight which has most greatly interested men since the Cameas Result of Naturalists' Study of Bird Flights—Americans Credited With Pioneer Assistance—Effect of Versailles Treaty. the World's Most Re- feewee [ than the escalator'’s upward speed, he will be slowly carried upward. Birds sail in approximately this man- ner upon upward air currents Such curents are caused by obstacles | must overcome by rising above them; |they also occur when the air over a | certain piece of the earth's surface 'hns been warmed so that it rises and deflects a straight horizontal wind in an upward direction. The first of these two kinds of rising air current, | called “hangwind” s formed in mountainous ‘or undulating regions. | The second kind occurs over sun- { beach, rocky mountain sides and such. | This kind is well known to aviators | 2nd acronauts as “lonnenboen” dnd “air pockets."” | Furthermore, birds gain power for | “sailin| from the undulations of air | currents, which may occur in very | quick succession. These take the form | of puffs of wind. or “boen,” when the | wind alternately gains. and loscs | strength and speed, or when it is de- | | flected from fts course. Both kinds, |are often found jointly, and mostly | near the surface of the earth, which | conditions them, but also at higher | the meeting of two contrary currents | Which pile up between them an air mass { of strong upward trend. These condi- | tions are also well known to the !‘IVIgtor. Birds use them as lifting |power. The construction of their | wings makes this possible, for they instantly be adjusted in size, ! condition. The tightening or relax- !ing of muscles makes the wings rigid or elastic. In this way birds can and do always turn any condition to their | advantage. The first mentioned | | “safling” upon undulating currents, wind puffs and fHockets is called| i “dynamic.” | there continued to work on the fifteen-meter high hill he had himsel? erected for the purpose of his experiments, he flew, wjthout & run- ning start, on -a wing surface of eighteen square meters, almost hori- sontally against the' wind. When the wind was stronger, he was simply lifted from his hillitop, then sailing slowly against the wind, reaching points of altitude that often were considerably higher than the point of departure. In such flights the machine some- times remained stationary in the air for some time, so that Lilienthal could hold conversations with the ob- servers below. His method of steer- ing consisted of bending his body forward, backward or sldeways. When there were upward wind puffs, he sometimes had to perform a veritable dance in the air in order to preserve the balance of his machine. Lillenthal had séveral pupils. The foremost among those were the Amer- ican, Chanute, and the Englishman, Pilcher. Chanute carried his teach- er's idea with him to America and it, to- gether with his asaistant, Herring. He accomplished without accident sev- teral hundred gliding flights up to 110 meters long. His particular claim to & place in the history of fiying is that he was the teather. in gliding, of the Wright brother: Thegp two engineers are to be | creditdd for the second imposing step forward in the technique of flying. Their work in the domain of motor- equipped sviation is world famous, but it is based on their experiments with gliders, especially the kitty hawk, with which they worked ex- tensively on the coast of Chesapeake bay. * % % ¥ Il\' 1911 the Wright brothers’ took up their glider experiments once more. On October 24, 1911, they |set up records that were not beaten unti]l ten years later. In a wind of meters per second Wright was jlifted from the top of a dune about 25 meters high. rose upon wind puffs (boen) to an altitude of 75 meters and remained in the air for 9 minutes 46 seconds, cov ‘ing a distange of 400 meters. During another flight, lasting 7 minutes 15 seconds, the ma- chine remaining stationary, hovering in the ajr for 5 minutes 11 seconds. On these flights the Wrights used again a biplane type of machine. This was made necessary because they were obliged to balance the bad aerodynamic effectiveness of a thin profile in gliding against a smaller specific weight upon the sur- fac From the single viewpoint of flight, their achievement ranks among the foremost in the world. For many years nothing to compare with it was done anywhere else. During the following years, €x- periments with gliders were made in various places in Germany, but with- out any notable results. Then came the war. All gliders were put in the service of the quickest possible de- | velopment of motor-driven airplanes. ‘The efforts toward achieving a per- { fect glider or saflplane were subordi- { nated to other tasks. The treaty of Versailles deprives us, for the time being, of the right to build motor- driven ariplanes, o that the highly developed German airplane industry was completely put out of commis- slon. Then it was that some builders turned their attention again to motor- |less gliders and sailplanes. The first Rhoen contests took place | on the Wasserkuppe mountain range fom July 15 to September 7., 1920. BY KARL K. KITCHEN. ' HE prince passed the tray of pastry. As one of his com- panions refused the proffered eclair he laughed. “It is all right—on my word,” he protested, still laughing. “What's the joke?” I asked, for, the three others Russlans with whom 1 was sitting could hardly~ contain themselves. There was a momentary lull and then I was “let in” on the laugh. “Prince Youssoupoff is the man who killed Rasputin,” explained my | companion on my right. “Yes?” 1 nodded. | “Well, he had planned to kill him with poisoned eclairs, but as Ras-; putin wouldn't eat them he had to shoot him.” No wonder the companions of{ . Prince Felix Felixovitch Youssoupoff laughed when he assured us that lht“ eclairs were not filled with poison. It was at Mme. Ganna Walska's—! or Mrs. Harold F. McCormick it you prefer—that this little incident took place. The occasion was &an afternoon tea, to which I had been invited. And in the upstairs draw- ing room of her magnificent home— the former James Gordon Bennett| mansion—in the Rue de Lubeck, l; heard the story of Rasputin's end from the man who killed him. The dramatic incidents that led up to the: murder of the evil genius of the late czar's household were related be- tween sips of tea in the most non- chalant manner. And from time to time they were interrupted by laughs trom the prince's friends. The main outline of the story, of course, was familiar to me, but the which the speaker the top and that its future, for the next five years at least, is assured. “Do you know I get great reports from our factory in Russia,” he said suddenly, switching the conservation from Chicago to Moscow. “Our plant near Moscow—I'm chairman of the board of the Harvester company—is running to capacity. Tt never was | our superintendent in jail a few times, but the plant never shut down and today it is doing the biggest business in its history. We've not amazing detail pd 2 supplied held me epéllbound. Ras- bolsheviki,” he added in lowered veritable | tones, for the four Russian princes putin must have been & Samson. “And. would you believe it sald Prince Youssoupoff, as he finished the story, teacup in hand, “Rasputin pos- sessed such tremendous vitality that when his body was recovered from the Neva canal his torn finger lps showed how he had clawed at the ice, | despite the fact that he had six bul-, lets in him.” “But no eclairs?’ I interrupted. “But no eclairs,’ repeated prince, putting down his teacup. The arrival of Mme. Walska in our Icorner of the room put an end to all us conversation. | were chatting nearby. “And your health?" 1 queried “I'm feeling llke a two-vear-old.” he replied. 1 had hoped-that he would go more Intd detail about his health, but the four Russian princes inter- the seriol “You are neglecting me shame- fully,” she said reprovingly. “And, what is worse, you are neglecting the | sandwiches.” i E: D all of us to take another caviar sandwich while the butler took | cups. o one can refuse dme. Walska anything,” said Prince ‘Youssoupoft ‘ll-[ lantly. . “Madame is irresistible, said the, princeling—with a long name ending in “Pouloftski"—who had been sitting at my left And suiting the action to lhe} {word he kissed the outstretched hll’ld[ of the famous beauty. Merely as a matter of record it must be admitted that Mme. Ganna Walska, | as the wife of Harold McCormick pre- | orth; f their | fers (o bo called, was worthy of el /gy HAD SIX BULLETS IN HIM. In her rose-colored afternoon gown THE gallantry. 1 she made 2a beautiful picture, wh(fll‘ P SPITE our protests she forced| o that Insull has put the company over|coloratura parts are so stupid—not like Zaza and Tosca, where one cin | show much. But I can sing with success—that is all 1 ask.” ‘The earnestness with which Mme. Walska spoke made it plain that her success on the operatic stage is the dominant thought in her life, Price- less jewels, wonderful gowns from the smartest couturiers and gorgeous | And all this in spite of her flasco with the Bracale Opera Company in Havana, her flight from the Chicago | Opera Company before her long- | of her friends. For when Mme. Waiska married Alexander 8mith Cochran and became the mistress of millions, her closest friends urged her to abandon her operatic aspirations. And it was her insistence to coptinue her “career” that led to the break with the ) YET HIS FINGERS HAD CLAWED ICE. nationalized. Oh, the bolsheviki put|homes mean little or nothing to her.|and only money she ever earned or | the grand opera stage. To be sure she discarded yellow diamonds she wore in N | York before she became the wife of i had any serious trouble with the | heralded premiere and all the advice | Alexander Smith Cochran, for th: [wxm. tones which he gave her, but {as the la: ‘Diamond Jim"” Brad: |used to eay, “them that has 'en |wears ‘em.” Besides, every one knows that hite stones are in bette: taste than yellow ones. Seriously, the earnestness of th ]Polilh beauty, who came to N ! York a penniless refugee less tha: eight years ago and. in turn, marric the foremost neurologist, the riches bachelor and then the greatest har vester king in America, was touch ing. “I take five lessons every day.” sh went on. “I work, work, work. I g0 nowhere, except to the opera and occasional concerts. Nothing else in- terests me—I live only for music. “It's fortunate that Mr. McCorm: is interested in the same thing." suggested. “He is as much interested in m) career as I am.” che replied. “He has always been interested in me as an ,artift—long before he thought of tapything else. He is confident that | will win the success in opera that ! have struggled for all these vears.' | A glante at the clocl showed me that 1 had overstayed my time, and after felicitating her on her new happiness. 1 took my departure. As 1 walked down the great stair case to the carriage entrance I in wardly expreseed the desire that he: hopes will triumph over past ex- periences. And I promised to be on ihand at her firet concert. After all, it's a mean man wix \‘won'z promise. Insect Chemistry. | QOME years ago there was maus was further enhanced by ita frame— | rupted us to offer their good-bve and, wealthy vachtsman, who, by the way one of the most tastefully appointed | a moment later he hastened to Mme. | is stone deaf. drawing rooms in the French capital. Walska's side. Indeed, his eves never| “I will elng~1 will sing.” | On this occasion, the Aerosclentific | Student Association of the Technical | the very singular discovery tnn: she re-o the image of the moth known ac dicranura vinula secretes Caustic WENTZEN'S FAMOUS SAILPLANE EQUIPPED WITH FOOT BALLS INSTEAD OF WHEELS TO L!;SSEN 'WIND RESISTANCE. & % 5 ao will the sport of gliding produce 2 [ awakening of man's desire to fly the rge class of desirable men who will | air, has been the sailing flight, the &0 into seronautics and may form a |flight without beat of wings. reserve that could be depended upon * % % % im case of national emergency. High School of Aix-la-Chapelle made the most notable showing. With the monoplane glider belonging to this group, Klemperer made a flight cf .| 1,830 meters in 2 minutes 22 seconc. {losing 330 meters in altitude. The | most distinctive points of the mono- | plane in which these flights were made are free spreading wings with the Junker's proflle (so called after its Inventor) and the absence of outer propping wires. Other remark- able flights were made by the young and promising von Lossl. Unfortun- ately he fell, in consequence of the breaking of a rudder, on August 9 I (the anniversary of Liltentnars |aeath), and succumbed to his in- | Jurtes. “At the second glider contest in the Rhoen, in 1921, there were several g0od machines, also a number of bi- planes, with apparatus for the pilot to hang from in the manner of Chanute, but fmproved. Because of their low aerodynamic effectivene: | none of these biplanes, however. could achieve any notable success. The suc- cessful types were entered by the technical high achools of Aix-la- Chapelle, Hanover and Stuttgart and the Bavarian Aero Club. The monoplane of the Aix-la-Cha- pelle group differed from that of “|the year before only in that ft w. HE history of motoriess flight {s|lishter. “closely linked with the history of | The Hanover group brought their man's efforts to fly in heavier-than- | “Vampyr” only a few days before the air machines. The first attempts|ond of the contest. This machine was It might be added that the three strands | of pearis around her neck—I happen to | know they cost $700,000~a b3-carat| heart-shaped diamond ring on one hand | and a large emerald on the oth:h—dldi not detract from her appearance. i I I may be permitted to drop from my usual Cardinal Newman English to the vernacular of Broadway, Mme. Walska, as ehe faced me, looked like 2 million dollars. “Please sit down and tell me all about yourself,” 1 pleaded, for it had been many months since I had seen the cele- brated beauty. “I can't sit down while I'm the hoat- ess,” she explained. “But remain after the others have gone and I'll tell you all about myself—that is, nearly all” she added with a smile. ‘While she moved away to look after her other guests—in addition to the four Russian princes there were sev- eral American and French musicians —I had & chat with Harold McCor- mick. Our conversation ranged from grand opers to bolshevism. “I'm not the only one who had a nervous breakdown from running the Chicago Opera Company,” sald the former son-in-law of John D. Rocke- feller cheerily. “It put Sam Insull to bed for a while. It's no joke run- ning & big opera compan: ad od from the ground. Ip & strong wind Harth has succeeded in rising from the ground without help. In lower were made in motorless machines. /DUt by the students, W. Blume, A.| ;45 e used the generally smployed he was talking to me. * ¥ *x ¥ ORTUNATELY, all the other guests left shortly afterward and Mme. Walska beckoned to, me to-sit down beside her for our promised chat “What do you want to know?" she began with her usual directness and with the most winning of smiles. “It is very different here from my life in left her while | New York, isn't it?” “As an old friend, may 1 ask you it you are happy?’ I began. “Yes—and no,” she replied. “I mean, I will be as soon as I sing and make a success,” she explained. “I am going to give twenty concerts in France this fall, some of them f Paris in November. And in Decem ber I am going to sing ‘Rigoletto’ in Paris—the captracts have all been signed. I am coming to New York for Christmas and expect to give a concert there. If I am a success 1 will be happy—really and truly happy-” “And not until then?" “Not really happy,” she repeated. “I must sing—IL must sing with suc- cess. When I am a successful singer, then I will be happy. “I have discovered that my voice is more coloratura than dramatic— d 1 don't like the idea becau “puffy,” and varied between twelve and sixteen meters per second. There was an unusually quick take-off. The machine was free, but instantly the . BY F, H. HENTZEN. N August of this year the third Germsan flight cont between ‘motoriless planes, and “sailplanes,” took place at the Wasserkuppe. in the Rhoen mountains. On August 13 the telegraph wires 1hroughout the world buzzed with the news that the pilot of & motorle airplane had stayed up for more than an hour. During the following days the time DAY we know that the thing ‘which makes “sailing” possible is not within the bird, but an out- side condition. The air itself gives the bird the power of flight without | beating of wings. When this certain condition does not exist in the air, no bird can remain suspended or soar higher without “rowjng,” “shaking” With the Introduction of the first motor, the paths to progress of both branches were separated’ For.a long time there appears to be no connec- tion between them, and very little work and research is devoted to motorless machines. Only in yecent times do we see the two paths com- or “gliding.” Thus it appears that ing closer together again. birds make a most extensive use of rising air currents for “sailing.” The proceas is as follows: A bird glides with outspread wings Otto Lilienthal was the first to re- veal to us the possibility of over- coming the law of gravity and float- ing through air. The goal of his en- Martens and the writer, from the drawings by Engineer G. Madelung. In our work we had the benefit of the of Prof. Dr. A. Proll and En- gineer H. Dovner, one of our oldest fiyers and airplane builders. * & % % HE successes of 1921 did not cause the buflders to relax their efforts. Work was eagerly carried forward. The students of the Hanover Tech- nical High School set out deter- minedly to improve the Vampyr. strong wind began to buffet it hither and yon. I had to concentrate all my attention on the steering, and so had no chance of watching the lovely landscaps unfolding itself below me, as on my two-hour flight. ° 1 rose_very quickly. I saw the spectators at a graet distance below. Then the Edith also took off. It did not soar quite as high as the Vampyr, but flew just below. We both traced figures 8, one superimposed on the other, with an even space between After some time the Edith method of starting, which is as fol- lows: At the nose of the machine there is » hook, open at the downward side. To this & ring is hooked, from which depends a long double rope of rub- ber, about as thick &s & man's fin- ger. At each end of this rubber rope three men are stationed, pulling it taut. Two more men hold the wings one at each wing. On the order “Go,” the men start running against the wind with the machine. After run- | peated again and again. I will make | the public admit that T am a singer.” | I tried to get the former Mrs. Coch- | ran to talk about her jewels. She admitted that Cartler's—the famous | Paris jeweler—has offered her a mar- velous pearl necklace for 10,000,000 ! francs—pearls that had been in the | Louvre for years and which the French government is now trying to dispose of. But she declared they didn't interest her. The emerald on | her right hand, a gift from Mr. Me- ! Cormick, she casually admitted. cost $47,000, but the only piece of jewelry { she was willing to talk about was a | 1ittle charm for which she had paid | ,000 francs. | “I bought it with the money ]' earned singing at Monte Carlo last| winter,” she confided—which ex- plained everything. ok ox % ME. WALSKA'S single perform- ance at the Monte Carlo Opera last winter was kept a secret even | from her closest friends. She sang | under another name and even refused | to accept her fee. The management, however, insisted that she take the money, and with it she bought a little charm which she treasures above all L i ‘Then were lying on the ground. Hackinack went down and landed on the Wasserkuppe. ; A fine rain had begun to fall, but it stopped after ten minutes. It be< gan to grow darker. Below, the shivering spectators stood around a fire they had lighted. Its clear brightness struck against my ma- chine. I had been up more than three hours. Night was beginning to close in. I could no longer make out de- tails on the ground. For that rea- son I flew past some steep mobntain slopes to Gersfeld. High up above the little town I flew in great circles, going lower and lower with the intention of lgnd- potash, which it uses for penetrat- ing the cocoon ingwhich it is inclosed Caustic potash is a powerful cav tery that destroys the skin whe: brought in contact with it. That it should be secreted, or formed. in the mouth of an insect, is indeed curious The dicranura moth—the game means “forked-tail"—mnot only appear to be insect chemists of no small skill, for their larvae secrete formi. acld, but they are very interesting on other accounts. g In the larval, or caterpillar. form they inhabit poplars, willows and similar trees in midsummer, and pos sess an 0dd means of defense againe! the annoyance of small fiies. Thei: forked talls consist of two tuber. each of which contains a long thread- | lke organ, and when the caterpillar is irrftated it runs out these threads and lashes the sides of its body with them. It has long been known that the forked-tail moth used some liquid 1~ soften the cocoon when it was read: to emerge, but Latter's experiments for the first time disclosed the nature of that liquid. He inclosed the moths in artificial cocoons and, collecting the liquid which they jected in breaking their way out, subjected it to chemical analys 'The record had been broken: The success of thie flight is no: due to myself alone, The long, slow development of the art of flying was necessary, and many pioneers of the air had to make the sacrifice of thel: lives, s0 that these great successes should be ours today. The problem of motorless flight, off 2 mountain slope, on rising sir cur- rents, is now solved. Remains the problem of “sailing” flight over fiu: ground. There is much slow end wearying work to be done before this problem is also solved and our goa! attained. Motorless flight over flat ground is certainly possible, for there is energy, power in the wind Several changes were made and &|,,, . 4 few yards the machine usually | them. which it is our task properly to records went rapidly up end up. All dally newspapers reported end il- lustrated the success of the motor- less fiylng machines. ¥Rt apart from the epecialists, very few pec- pie could understand the processes of motoriess gliding, especislly as the successful motoriess flight differed little in appesrance from the flights of motor-driven airplsnes and thers are no visible signs that would ex- plain ‘the “sailing” of the motorless fiying ‘machines. * Let me then first expizin the term of “salling flight.” There is a cartain kiind of bird flight that is thus desi, nated.” If we observe the birds, our senchers in the conquest of the air, s -they wing through their element, the air; we sse that they use by no means a)1 the same method and prac- and merely steering its course, in a|deavor was motorless flight as we new system of cross steering was rises. On the pllot's order, “Free!” made a landing. I remained up. forward and downward lpe, accord- ing to the law of gravity; but since this sinking takes place in an upward afr current, this lifts the bird con- stently in. the same proportion fin ‘which it would sink without this cur- rent; that is,*it remains at the same height, retaining at the same timse the spesd of its torward motion. This is one kind of “sailing” flight. If the bird sinks at less speed.than the air current lifts it, the flight takes an upward 1line corresponding to the dif- ference between the two speeds. If this s reversed, the bird slowly sinks lower. In & way this process could ‘be compared with & man going-down an upward rolling escalator. If he walks down faster than the escalator rolls upward, he will eventually resch have it todsy. Through systematic} yseq ynder the supervision of Mr. observation and painstaking experl-|yyriong This has proved extremely .ments extending through the Whole| . . .eqru]. N of his life, be succeeded in discover-| ppe Rhoen sailplane and glider com- ing the most important principles of | ;o1 itiong of August, this year, I shall Buman flight. being undaunted by the | jover forget. Among my own and many failures that strewed his CATeer. | 1o other technical high schools of After his untimely death through &|Germany, there was keen rivalry. fall with his machine, others could|yony were represented and almost all carry on his work, based on the|ypy wxcellent machines and filers. principles laid down by him. | My own Technical High School of The most fruitful secret he learn- | Hanover was represented by Greif ed from the birds was that wings| (Pegasus) and Vampyr, both mi need a certain curve and thickness|chines having been built at the Han- in order to develop carrying DPOWer.{over car factory. They were piloted At first hes preferred single planes. | by Martens and by me. already pro¥ided with fin-shaped sails | May & few words be interpolated for the purpose of stabilising the |here on the manner of taking off of machine when changing the angle of | the machines during the contest of its approach against the air and for|this year? all eight men let g0. The ring with the taut rubper rope falls from the hook to the ground, and the machine floats freely upon the air. 1t is & wonderful sight to see these sailplanes fily away like great white birds over mountains and precipices, without any noise at sll. It is quite possible to talk with the pilot while he is fiylng, snd it often happened that jokes dropped from the air ‘were received by the enthusiastic specta- tors below with & veritable tumult of joy. Oun August 24, the last day. of the contest, there was a great deal of fiying, as & strong wind blew, which made the_conditions very favorable. Toward 2 p.m. I took the Vampyr to the bottom: if the two speeds are tGentical, e will remain at the same height; if his downward speed Is less tice.. These are the principal kinds of bird flight. The “rowing” .flight; sy “shaking” fiight (whioh is the the sidewiss direction of fight. His The gliders with hanging pilots the starting point.. I wantsd to try * X ¥ K N the “Geheimrat” was brought to the starting place. The ma- chine made s brilliant ascent and soon reached my own height. I recognized Hackinack in the pilot's seat and waved a greeting to him. We 'were both flying in & way S0 as not to interte: with each other's course. Once Hackinack climbed above me, though his maximum climb is 330 meters, while my own record climb above the starting point is 350 meters. At one time our two machines were suspended, in relation to the earth, motionless in space, side by side, for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time I had no need of touching the steering sear, the wind blowing so ing. Just before touching the ground, and skimming barely above it, I suddenly saw a row of telegraph poles dead ahead. I ducked my machine under the wires, to avoid shooting out over a field bordered with trees at the far end. At the precise mo- ment ‘of touching ground, I gave my machine a sharp turn about, so that it stood still almost instantly, with- out rolling to & standstill. A great crowd had gathered around the landing place snd helped me to dismantle the machine in complete darkness. 1 could very well have stayed up longer, but the night was already too far sdvanced for safety in landing upon unknown ground. The young folk of the country-side escorted me into the little town, singing the 1 fiights can almost bes charscterized |used the pilot's feet to run ssainst as “salling” flights. From the top of } the wind until the machine was lift- steadily and the machine 1yiag 0 |song: “Hallet aus in to beat my own record of two hours o quietly on it that it seemeéd as if, we (“Hold on Ven the tempest roars;”) in the air. The wind was very III(IHICA How to do this is our next goal. * k k% XPERIMENTS with motoriess fiy ing machines promise a healthier development of flying machines in general, which has theatened to be come more and more wasteful through the exsggerated increase of motor power. In the future, we ghall learn to byild airplanes capable of excel- lent performance with a minimum 'motor power. However, the work further developing motorless planes must not be abandoned. Stai ing from the basis of successes al ready won, & very great deal more can still be achieved for the advance- ment of human flight and the ad- vantage of the whole civilized world. (Copyright. 122, Oaited st Orest 8 tat. - Al wts “Reoswrved ) < rights Reserved.)