Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1928, Page 82

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER _ 16, 1928—PART 4. AVIATION BY JOSEPH S. EDGERTON. WENTY-FIVE years ago to- morrow Orville clambered between tire many wires of a cratelike glider fitted with a puny 12-horse- power motor and, lying flat on his stomach across the lower wing, made the first airplane flight. He | flew only 120 feet in 12 seconds, | and none of the chilly, wind- bitten group of six men and a boy who witnessed the event realized at the time that he had seen the opening of a new era in human Pprogress. Tomorrow the aviation leaders of the entire world will gather on the sandy slopes of Kill Devil Hill, | near Kitty Hawk, N. C., the scene | of that epochal flight, to pay tribute to Orville and Wilbur Wright, whose final success after years of struggle and disappoint- | ment forms one of the bright pages in the annals of the Nation. Since that day aviation has| progressed with amazing rapidity and no year has witnessed such growth as the one now closing— the silver anniversary year of the first flight. On December 17, 1903, the first airplane wabbled along a few feet above the ground. Today airplanes have made records of 38,418 feet altitude, 65 hours and 25 minutes’ duration, 4,466 non- stop airline distance and 278 miles per hour maximum speed. This within only 25 vears, and the true development of aviation merely beginning! Other Pioneers Follow wright. Following the first flight came | the period of primary develop- | ment of the airplane and the air- ices; the entrance of express com- Wright | Panies into the field of aerial ex- press service; the combination of railroads and air lines on an im- pressive scale; an increase of more than 100 per cent in the produc- tion of airplanes for private ownership and operation; the ex- tension of national airways by the Department of Commerce; exten- sion of the air mail service; reduc- tion of air mail postage rates by splendid improvement in the per- formance, efficiency and safety of airplanes. Five-year aircraft building programs for the Army and Navy are serving further to stabilize the industry. The note- worthy efforts of the Department of Commerce and the Weather Bureau have been important fac- tors in aeronautical advance and the tests of the national advisory committee for aeronautics and the Bureau of Standards are lead- ing to material improvements in airplane design and constructior:. Elements Main Problem. In fact, on the sillver annivers- ary of the first flight, the press- ing problems of aviation deal not with airplane engineering so much as with man'’s battle with the ele- ments, chicfly fog, and with the uncertainties of navigation. So safe have airplanes themselves be- come that during the past year 97.75 per cent of licensed airplanes flew without a single fatality, the Department of Commerce reports, and the air mail flew 1,414,000 miles to each fatality to pilots and passengers, which means that airplanes flew a distance equal to 60 times around the globe for more than 50 per cent and a| WRIGHT MEMORIAL SITE MADE READY |Engineers Anchor Moving Hills to Prepare for Project. KITTY HAWK, N. C. (#).—The pale moving sand dunes of Kitty Hawk are to be turned into rolling green hills ! that will be stationary through the magic of modern engineering. Army engineers have already started operations that will eventually turn the wind swept waste that was the scene of the Wright brothers’ first flight into a national memorial park. The stiff wind sweeping in off the | Atlantic, which brought the Wright brothers to Kitty Hawk because it aided them in gliding, has kept the mountains of sand in constant motion. Hill Has Moved. Kill Devil Hill, the largest one in the vicinity, chosen by the Wrights for launching their gliders, has moved more than 600 feet in the last 25 years. Army engineers must “anchor” this hill, which is 92 feet high and several thou- sand feet in circumference, before they can begin the erection of a memorial. Other dunes in the vicinity must be made stationary to keep them from covering up houses and woods, which may be placed in the park. The “an- choring” project will be achieved by planting vegetation, which will turn the pale dunes into beautiful rolling green hills. Heavy weed like grasses, which root deeply into the sand, will be planted first and others will be added as the region is developed. The reservation, which will be pre- served as a national memorial park, now_embraces about 300 acres and is in the custody of the Kill Devil Hill Memorial Association. Plans include Asia; Africa, Europe and Australia Aerial Connec- tion Is Forecast. ROUT.ES ARE DISCUSSED Regular Atlantic Flights Are Called 5 or 10 Years Away by Aviator. BY COL. CHARLES A. LINDBERGH. RANSOCEANIC flight is the third I and final step in the develop- | ment of air transport. The in- auguration and_ organization of continental air lines is now weli under way, and it is time to consider the establishment of still greater sys- tems which will connect North with South America in the Western Hemis- | phere, and Europe with Asia, Africa and Australia in the Eastern. Transoceanic flight is the third and final step in the development of air transport. The inauguration and or- ganization of continental air, lines is now well under way, and it is time to consider the establishment of still greater systems which will connect North with South America in the West- ern Hemisphere, and Europe with Asia, Africa and Australia in the Eastern. This second stage will require the manufacture of new types of planes and equipment. In some instances the routes followed will lie over large bod- ies of water and will necessitate the use of flying boats. In others they will pass over inpenetrable jungles or above the high timber of the Northland, ofien in tropical heat or in sub-zero tempera- tures. At times suitable landing fields will not be available and a lake or har- bor will have to be used, possibly by the same plane which serves an inland AIR TRANSPORTATION LINKING AMERICAN CONTINENTS MADE EASY BY TRANSOCEANIC HOPS, LINDBERGH SAYS. ENGINEERS PRODUCING SPECIAL EQUIPMENT FOR PLANES “ We’ at Daybreak,” from the painting by Jean Jacques Pfister. (Courtesy of the Holt Gallery.) landing CHANGES OCCUR AT KITY HAWK !Orville Wright Will Find Kill Devil Hill Moved hy { l Winds. | KITTY HAWK. N. C.. December 15 | P).—When Orville Wright, the world's | first airplane pilot, returns to the scene of his first successful flight Monday he will find many things in this sandy sea- | shore village changed. Kill Devil Hill, from which he and his_brother Wilbur carried on their early experiments with gliders, has moved about 600 feet from the spot | where_the Wrights knew it 25 years lago. The stiff winds which blow across this low sandy stretch_without regard for season or weather have moved the sand mountain a little farther away each year. | Cows Graze on Spot. | Queerly enough, the flat sandy | stretch from which Orville took off on | his first flight in a power-driven ma- ! chine is covered with a stubby. brush- like grass. Had this grass covered the sand when the Wright brothers first i went to Kitty Hawk to investigate its | conditions, they would no doubt have | rejected it as a “landing” field. Today | cows are grazing around the historic spot. i Orville Wright. the surviving co- | inventor of the plane which made the historic flight December 17, 1903, has | not returned to Kitty Hawk since 1911, { when he spent some time he: British friend on vacation | The natives of the little seashore vil- |lage are anxiously awaiting the return of the man whom they admit, a bit re- | luctantiy, first tmpressed them as being “another one of those flying nuts.” Since ! the Wrights' first successful flights they | have been loud in their praise of avia- [ tion’s pioneers and have held the little man whom the world has come to rec- ognize as a “genius” in high regard. ‘William S. Tate, whom the folks down here know just as “Bill” is still as | enthusiastic ‘as ever in his relation of f the practicability of their operation un- | have suggested huge floating der all conditions and the cost per ton |fields so designed that the action of |the events that took place before and and passenger mile. the waves in rough weather would be fafter the Wrights' first flight. “Bill A rtoute by way of Greenland and |minimized. Others advocate the use|too, has changed in these 25 intervening Iceland would require many hundreds | of large flying boats and floating har- | years. A bit older, perhaps. and now of miles of additional fiying. A plane |bors. It seems a certainty, however, |the lighthouse keeper at Kitty Hawk plane engine, lasting until the outbreak of the World War. There were flights of increasing speed and longer duration. Inio the field with the Wrights came such cach fatality. Today there are 37 air mail, pas- senger and express air line com- vanies operating in the United States, operating over 21,765 miles city. In parts of the world it will be nec- essary to pass from sea level and a tropical climate to altitudes of 10,000 or 15,000 feet, over snow-covered mountain ranges and down again to turies, and many experiments were car- ried on prior to the first flight of the | Wright brothers. The real advance in | aviation, however, did not begin for some years afterward. The Wrights had great difficulty in convincing peo- the extension of this area to about 500 acres and the turning over of the prop- erty for control and development by the National Government. Road System Planned. th: instead of being at his old job as post- pioneers as Glenn Curtiss, who was the first to fly from and light on the water; Bleriot, Santos Dumont and Farman. On May 14, 1908, the first pas- senger flight was made when - Wilbur Wright took up with him Charles Furnas, an employe at the little Wright factory. Up to this time no airplane ever had re- mained in the air longer than seven minutes at one time. The first flight of more than one hour duration was made by Orville ‘Wright on September 9, 1908. The United States Army pur- chased its first military airplane in July, 1909, from the Wrights. This plane, before being accepted by the Government, met the offi- cial requirements in a 10-mile cross-country flight from Fort Myer, Va., with Lieut. Berjamin D. Foulois, now a brigadier gen- eral in the Army Air Corps, as passenger. The average speed was 42.583 miles per hour. The world saw its first am- phibian plane in the Autumn of that year when Wilbur Wright made a notable flight over New York harbor and the Hudson River as a part of the Hudson- Fulton celebration. He flew with a canoe tied between the landinz | skids. It is. perhaps, just as well he was not forced to use his makeshift device. Learned to Fly by Instinct. Prior to the World War the fly- ing “game” was in the hands of the professional flyer, recruited largely from the ranks of the bal- loon men. This period brought into the public eye such pioneers as Lincoln Beachey, Arch Hoxsey, Art Smith, Claude Graham-White, Eugene Ely, Harriet Quimby, Walter Brookins, Capt. Thomas Baldwin, “Sure Shot” Kearney and Jack Moisant. They called themselves “bird men” and they taught themselves the art of fly-| ing by pure instinct. It was a day | of reckless daring and no mon | went to sec an airplane flig] without the expectation of wit- | nessing a crash. Many were nol disappointed. The World Wer l2id the founda- tion for modern aeronautics. Prior to the war there had been | little demand for airplane flights except to satisfy a public crav- Ing for excitement, vicariousiy achieved. No one had the temer- ity to dream of commercial avi- ation. The war stimulated avia- tion engineers to feverish activ- ity. They turned out vastly im- proved designs: the governments distributed money with lavish generosity hither and yon and people did not stretch their necks with such spontaneovs abandon | when the roar of an airplane mo- | tor was heard overhead. The man who had not seen an ~ir- plane wss a provincial. The war development, perhans. was not on a sound engineering foun- dation because of the breath'ess haste with which eyervbodv went about the job, but it served teo point the way toward develon. ment of today’s exact science of aeronautics. | The close of the war found the governments with vast auantities of airplanes, motors and material on their hands and left the mush- room airplane factories withont o market. More than half of them failed. Out of the ch~os. contro- versies, investieations and reerimi- nations of the nost-v verind emerged the germ of commercin! aeronautics. The past 10 veor have witnesced the evawth of this germ into a lust eiant, whn todav only is beginning to find his strenath. Air Mail Service Starts. Commercial aviation received its first real impetus during the final year of the war when the Army Air Service and the Post Office Department combined to ;‘sl:.abllsh the world’s first air mail e. smong thedl. a brother of the writer, flew the mail during these first days. Later the air mail was turned over to the Post Office De- artment and was flown by civil- pm pilots. Then came the present 2ontract air mail system, which has proved one of the greatest boons to the development of com- mercial aviation in the world. In the wake of the air mail planes are coming great nassenger and exoress transport planes. Aviation progress in the United [next Soring. Another equally re- { luvury. A group of Army pilots,, i e ¢ KITTY HAWK IN DUNES. of airway each day and flying a daily average of 41480 miles. There are 9,341 miles of airway: equipped for night, flving with 1,474 beacons., 274 lighted inter- mediate fields and 19 radio weather revorting and communi- cation stations. ' There are 41 uoper air meteorological stations, chieflv at airports. On this. the twenty-fifth anni- versary of the first airplane flight, there are 15,128 miles of airwavs operating, as compared with 9,021 miles of railways on the twenty- fifth anniversary of the railroad. There are 800 air service oner- | ators in this country alone. it is estimated by the Department of Commerce and there are 6.026 pilots licensed or with license #n- nlications pending and 8,791 stu- dent pilots to whom licenses hove | been issned or for whom licenses are pending. 82 Types New Produced. Twenty-five years ago there was in existence one airplane, which nobody approved, for the reason that there was no one who knew anything very definite about it or its capabilities. Today there are 82 approved types of airplanes being produced with governmenta! | sanction in this country alonz. There are in actual fiying con- dition in this country nearly 7,000 airplanes which have either been | licensed or identified by the De- | partment of Commerce or for| which license or identification | applications are pending. ! To satisfy the demands of the aeronautical trade and the gen-! eral public for aviation news there | are 20 aeronautical journals pub- lished in this country, in addition | to the special aviation depart- ments conducted by newspapers | and magazines. ! The airport forms the point of | contact between the public and the airline, and to handle the; 2cowing volume of air business this country has established 386 | rmunicipal airports, 349 private flying fields, including the Na-' tional Guard and Reserve; 17 Navy fields, including the Marine Corvs, and 323 marked auxiliary and landing fields of all types. In oddition the Department of Com- merce hos been notified of 890 nronosed airports under construc- tion or =oon to be estahlished. Three New Combines. And, to demonstrate the hold which this aviation business of 25 | years’ growth has obtained on'the conservative financial men of our country, we have today three re- {cently organized commercial air combines with a financial rating of more than $10,000,000 each, each of which will put planes on {the airways next Spring—and then more airplanes. Surgrising as has been the developmeént of commercial flying this year, the development outlined for next year threatens to make the cur- rent accomplishments seem weak by comparison. The Wright plane at its best flew less than 40 miles per hour, the fir-t military plane could do | little better and the fighting vlanes in the World War wers wonderfully fast at 125 miles per hour. Yet tod~y we have the an- nouncement of a reliable manu- facturer that he is working on a six-nassenger commercial and meil plane which will have a top sne2d of 185 miles an hour and which will appear on the market liable manufacturer is producing a hn~e four-motored nlane which will carry 32 passengers and a ~rew of four in comfort and It trulv has been an amazing 25 yenrs for aviation, but, to quote the words of a popular enter- tainer. “Wait, you ain't seen nothin’ yet!” Scene of First Airplane Flight Dif- ficult to Reach. | The scene of the first airplane flight, | on the isolated sand dunes of the North | Carolina coast n»ar Kitty Hawk, is dif- ficult to reach bv ord'nary means of transportation. There is no steemship sorvice to the svene, the roads are of | deen shift'ne sond and the entir> area ! js unsuited to the operation of modern airnlenes. . Btates during the year 1928 has been notable. This year has wit- nessed the inauguration of regu- lar air transport passenger serv- Bids have been requested for a bridge to ronnect the North Carolina mainland with Kilty Hawk landing. how>-er. an” conerete roads lead'ng to the isolated section are projected. and commercial airvorts, 304 in- | termediate landing fields, 62 Army ! ficlds, or a total of 1,435 airports | North Carolina has already under- taken the building of concrete roads through the State from main highway toward Kitty Hawk and plans a system of highways that' will lead directly to Kitty Hawk and on to the scene of the first flight. The region is very inaccessible at the present time, with only the mo:t patient motorist succeeding in reaching the Wrights first “flying field.” Roads to Kitty Hawk from the mainland lead through swampy and sandy areas that are passable only part of the time. A ferry must be used between Point Har- bor and Kitty Hawk landing. Bids have been asked for the con- siruciion of a bridge three miles n length, which will connect Point Har- bor with Kitty .Hawk and eliminate the necessity of the present slow ferry system. . FIRST PLANE FLIGHT SITE TO BE MARKED New Jersey Sportsmen to Give Government 500-Acre Tract for Memorial Park. The establishment of a national me- morial park on the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, N. C, to preserve for future gen- erations the scene of the first airplane flights of ths Wright brothers has been made possible through the efforts of two New Jorsey sportsmen. Frank L. Stick of Asbury Park, N. J., first visit>d the region 17 years ago and 8 years after the Wrights h~d aban- doned their camp there. The world had paid little thought to marking the spot or to preserving the region in its original condition. Stick and several friends made a num- ber of hunting and fishing trips to the Kittv Hawk region and soon s.arted to buy large areas of the coast as pri- vate hunting and fishing grounds. ‘s'o- day Stick, Charles M. Baker and Allon |R. Hueth, all of Asbury Park, own 11,000 acres of the dune country near Kitty Hawk. Their original holdings included the Kill Devil Hills region, where the Wrights made their first glider flights. | This they turned over to a North Caro- lina memorial association in trust. They w have completed arrangements to :¢ to the United States a tra~t of 500 res, including the area of the first airplane flight, for a national memorial park. The Government memorial to the ‘Wright brothers and the National Aero- nautic Association tablet marking the exact spot from which the plane took off on its first flight will be central 1monuments in the park. Development of a modern airport is planned, as the aren is unsuited for the landing of mod- crn airplanes. A memorial Coast Guard {station is to be built on one end of the | reservation. Above, at the left, is one of the most recent of the fast, high-powered military airplanes, an Army Curtiss-Hawk pursuit plane, contrasted with “ane purchased by the United States Army and shown (upper right) in one of its offizial test flights at Fort Myer, Va.. in July, 1908. airplane, the first to carry a man in full flight, and with it is shown one of the modern; plane to fly the United States flag. ‘motored tranaport airplanes, which some high plateau city. The route recently inaugurated be-’ tween Mexico City and Tampico, for example, is_ over mountains 9,000 and 10,000 feet high. It is possible in fair | weather to find passss, but Mexico City itself is on a plateau more than 7,000 feet above the sea; and when a norther is over the Gulf of Mexico the clouds | often pile up against the mountain range, forming a dense fog, while on the west side the weather may be clear. Under these conditions the pilots fre- quently fly above the clouds during a major part of their trip. Special Equipment Needed. Special equipment is required to meet this situation. A possible forced land- ing in fog-covered mountains must be prevented by the use of more than one engine. Since the safety of a multi- motored plane depends upon its ability to fly with one engine stopped, and due to the high altitude the planes must maintain in crossing the mountains, there must be a large reserve of horse- power available for emergency use. On account of the temperature changes, the cabin must be both well ventilated and easily heated. Also, the engine and oil tank installation must be designed for operation under extreme conditions. Salt-water corrosion must be guarded against, and the heat of a tropical sun presents new problems in aircraft main- tenance. ‘With every advance in aviation new | problems are presented. The Wright | brothers completed their epoch-making | flight at Kitty Hawk only to be con- fronted by the problem of turning their sclentific achievement to commercial use. For years planes were constructed at costs which prohibited their use in commerce, and when_our engineers | finally did succeed in placing a product | cn the market which was both struc- turally safe and capable of economical operation it was found that in order |to compete with highly developed ground transportation aircraft would have to operate at night as well as day. Then came the development of lighting equipment and the night routes of the air mail. Now we are confronted with the necessity of operating through fog and sleet and being able to land by instru- ment without secing the ground. Obstacles to progress are being met and overcome in rapid succession by our engincers and flyipg personnel. A plane is hardly designéd and placed on | the commercial market before it is made obcolescent by new discoveries and im- provements. The life and dependability of motors is constantly increased, and | experiments now bejpg carried on with |new types indicate the possibilities of | future development. Thousands of | miles of organized airways are being |added to those now existing, and prac- | tically every city in the country has| or_is constructing an airport. Dependable commercial flying schools and colleges are beginning to rise above the poorly organized training schools which sprang into existence with .in- creasing public interest in aviation, and | are building up the standards and tra- | ditions for our future pilots and flying personnel. Men have dreamed of flying for cen- Below is the original eri:l: wi can carry 14 passungers all the com ple that their so-called experiment could ever be turned to practical use. Consequently the present status of the airplane and its operation is the result of a comparatively few years of inten- sive development, and in the light of ever-increasing scientific knowledge, backed by the experience of millions of miles of operation, the status of avia- tion todny appears insignificant com- | pared to its future possibilities. Regular transoccanic flight is still 5 or 10 years away. Aircraft and mo- tors must be improved, instruments for navigation developed and more exten- sive systems of meteorological observa- tion and reporting installed before it can become in any way feasible. We must wait until the development which is now going on, and which is so clearly indicated for the near future, brings about the construction of air- craft and the organization of operating systems which will make such flying practical. Let us consider the problems en- countered in contemplating any reg- ular airplane operation between the United States and Europe. Roughly speaking, there are four possible routes which may be followed. | The shortest, of course, is the great circle passing through Newfoundland. The ship lanes would offer many ad- vantages, although somewhat longer. Many hold that a route through Ber- muda and the Azores to the coast of Portugal is the best. In the Far North it is possible to cut down the maximum water flight to less than 300 miles by passing over Greenland and Iceland, and following the Faroe Island down to Scotland. Two planes of the United States Army'’s round-the-world flight succeed- ed in completing the Far Northern | crossing from Europe to America. The great circle route between Newfound- | lond and Ireland has been followed six times east and once west by planes which completed their attempts. Neither the ship lane nor the Bermuda-Arozes route has been followed successfully by heavier-than-air craft. In addition to the above, the N C A flew from Newfoundland to the Azores and on to the continent in 1919, thereby completing the first transatlantic flight in history. Lighter-than4ir travel is undoubted- 1y, at the present time, by far the safest means of flying over large bodies of water. Dirigibles have made five crossings without a single unsuccessful attempt, whereas only too many air- lanes have headed out over the At- antic never to be heard of again. The greatest disadvantage of the diri- gible s its comparatively slow speed and inability to cope with high winds. Also, so little is known about the com- mercial uss of this branch of trans- portation that we cannot make an in: telligent comparison between the air- lane and the dirigible in daily serv- | ce operation. Airship Development. The development of lighter-than-air craft should go forward, and at the first opportunity a commercial dirigible route should be inaugurated on regular schedule in order to determine definitely fort and luxury of a car, . leaving New York would pass over a | fairly well populated country as far as | Quebec, then over a northern wilderness l to the coast of Labrador, where a basz would have to bz established for service | and refueling prior to the flight over | Davis Strait to Greenland. A second base would be necessary on | the western coast of Greenland, and | still a third on the eastern. The inte- | rior of the country is covered by an ice cap thousands of feet high and is sub- | ject to severe storms. Consequently, an air route would probably follow the | coast line. Much more satisfactory flying condi- tions are found in Iceland, which has a larger population and a terrain bet- ter adaptable to flying than that of | Greenland. The latter has a narrow strip of shore line between its ice bar- rier and the sea, with few places avail- able for landing fields, whereas Iceland contains more open territory which could be made suitable for landing by the expenditure of a reasonable amount of labor. The next stop would be at | the Farce Islands, then cown through | Scotland to England and Europe. This route would probably require the | use of land planes and amphibians, |owing to the ice conditions prevailing during a major part of the year, which would make the operation of flying boats extremely hazdrdous and often impossibie. The sub-zero temperature, storms and heavy fogs all would add to the difficulties encountered and com- bine to make the use of the far north- | ern route seem impractical as far as | transportation between the United | States and Europe is concerned. 1 Great Circle Route. The Great Circle has the basic ad- vantage of being the shortest distance. The water gap between Newfoundland and Ireland, however, is nearly 1,900 miles, and our most frequent fogs are found in the vicinity of Newfoundland | and the Grand Banks. Also it would be difficult to maintain service stations so far north of the regular ship lanes, and at present flying non-stop across the Atlantic as a commercial proposi- tion is out of the question for the air- pay load in addition to the quired for so long a flight. With planes capable of carrying a great fuel reserve and able to operats at high altitudes above ordinary storm areas, the Great Circle route would be feasible, but with equipment now in view it cannot be considered for any regular operation. ‘The ship lanes offer many advan- tages. They are south of the iceberg filds and the area of prevalent fogs. fuel re- cle route could be covered in an hour or two by plane. would be in constant radio communica- tion with ships. And the maintenance of service stations would be far more practical than on a northern route. The greatest disadvantage is that a flight of more than 3,000 miles out of sight of land would be necessary. ‘The question of service stations in midocean has often been discussed. It is difficult to conceive flying over greal bodies of water in land machines as a regular practice, yet some engineers HERE 1S WHAT 25 YEARS HAVE DONE FOR THE AIRPLANE the first This was the first | expericnce, however, we can lay down | plane, even were it possible to carry a | The added distance over the Great Cir- | The air transport | at the contemplation of an air route | over the ship lanes must, for the time | being at least, embrace the use of some such service stations along the way. i A route through Bermuda and the! Azores holds forth the most favorable | | meteorological conditions, although sev- | eral hundred miles would be added to| the Great Circle distance. The weather | is more stable and the wind velocities more constant, in addition to the fact| that the temperature extremes of a northern course would not be en- countered. Element of Risk. 1t is possible to fly over any of these | routes today, but not without great risk of failure. With the improvement of aircraft this risk is becoming smaller, but for some time to come we can ex- pect to lose a Ja~7e percentage of trans- oceanic attempts. The flights of the past two years can teach us much in avoiding disaster in the future. Many of the losses were avoidable; the cause of others will never be known. As a result of this a few basic rules. The pilots for an ocean flight should have a background of hundreds of hours of flying under every possible condition. Above all, they must be capable of flying for hours by their in- struments in fog and night. All possible means of navigation | should be incorporated, including celes- tial observation and radio communica- tion. The plane should be inherently stable and capable of maintaining level flight without the aid of the pilot. In many instances multi-motors are de-| sirable, and there should be a means | of valving part or all of the fuel load in _case of motor failure. To attempt a flight acress the ocean with ordinary equipment is like start- ing to Europe in an open boat. There are no laws against it and should be | very little is accomplished, and if it fails there will be one more disaster added to the already large list of those who have been lost at sea. The real contribution to progress is tion just a little better and a bit more | advanced than any which have pre- | ceded. 5 | It would not be possible or desirable | to stop attempts at hazardous flights | in the future. but certainly no expedi- | tien should be organized for such a | flight without the utmost preparation f{and a very definite object in view to be | accomplished. (Copyrizht. 1928.) An article by Col. Lindbergh on the | present and future of aviation will ap- | pear each week exclusively in Wash- ington in The Sunday Star. 'HONOR FOR FIRST PLANE | FLIGHT STILL DISPUTED Langley Machine Failed to Carry Man on Sustained Aerial Journey. Prof. Samuel P. Langley and driven {by a steam engine using naptha as a fuel made its first successful flight on May 6, 1896. It was the first time in history that a motor-driven airplane of any size had accomplished a sustained flight. As a result of this success the War | Department allotted Prof. Langley $50,000 to build a full-sized man-carry- ing “aerodrome.” Two attempts to fly this machine, made in 1903, were both unsuccessiul. and the machine was wrecked in the second attempt. The Government refused further aid, and there has been a _controversy which never has been settled regarding the '’ practicability of the Langley machine. In 1914. the same machine, recondi- | tioned for the attempt and with a| new motor, was flown by Glenn H. Curtiss. Because of the renovating work the controversy over the worth of the criginal Langley plane still remains ~pen. | USES “TAG” ALTIMETER. ' Byrd Expedition Adopts Device to Insure Accuracy. Anew type of airplane altimeter, which may be adjusted to conform to the fchlnglnx barometric pressures and so insure greater accuracy under all service ! ] conditions has been installed in one of i the airplanes of the Comdr. Richard E. |Byrd expedition, now on its way into | | i i the Antarctic. The instrument, known as a “Tag" lnltlmeler. was designed in accordance with suggestions made in reports to the | Bureau of Standards and the national | advisory committee for aeronautics. I ) has a barometer-setting s~ale, and where | barometric pressures are known at vari- !ous points along a line of flight, it is | possible to correct altimeter readings at these points for the varying barometric pressures. Plane Designed in 15th Century. Leonardi da Vinci, the Itallan painter and one of the earliest serious experi- menters in the flying fleld, worked out | & plan for an airplane in the fifteenth | century. - He made a model, which, { however, was not suecessful. His en- gineering papers were preserved, and from them a modrl has been built which shows a sitartMugz similarity to the earliest practical airplanes, . none, but if the venture is auccessllpli made by those who organize an expedi- | A model flying machine built by | I master. Agree on Exact Srot. “Bill' recently rounded u> the three surviving members of that little group of natives who watched the first flight of man, and they agreed upon the exact spot from which they saw Orville take off on that chilly December day 25 _years ago. W. L. Dough, A. D. Ethridge and John Moore are the three surviving natives who were spectators, and they have driven a stake into the ground at the scene of the first flight so that workmen, who are preparing the erec- tion of a tablet to mark the spot, might be guided accurately. Tate was not prescnt on that me- morial December day, and that has been one of his life-long regrets. He had watched the Wrights and their queer antics on dozens of other occasions, but was busy in the village when the word first came that the Wrights had flown. That message was to electrify the world and set in motion a new urge for men everywhere to try the seem- ingly impossible—to fly in a machine of their own design. -Only 25 years have passed, and man has already succeeded in girdling the globe, spanning oceans and crossing continents by airplane. RSO SO {FLIGHTS ATTEMPTED FIRST BY ANCIENTS “Wooden Dove” and “Chariots of Fire” Were Used in Aerial Trials. The desire to fly was one of the carliest implanted in the human heart and although man is only today cele- brating the silver anniversary of the first successful flight, histories of myth- ology and religion record that as early as 360 B.C,, one Aulus Gellius set about conquering the air in his own peculiar fashion. | Gellius, according to the records of {the ancicnts, “constructed a flying model in imitation of a dove made of {wood . .. made to fly by regulated | mechanics.” » | During the reign of Nero a cerfain on was reputed to have ascended in a “chariot of fire” from the Forum at | Rome, the descriptions indicating the | pussibility that he made his attempt to fly in a hot-air balloon. Roger Bacon in 1256 made a famous Istudy of bird flight and predicted a | power-driven airplane as one of the future achievements of mankind. Early {in the fifteenth century a luckless | Venetian professor of mathematics at- tempted to glide from a housctop in a non-gliding epparatus and was exily, for his pains. The modern use of the military air- plane was foreseen in 1670 by Franeisco | Lana, an Italian Jesuit. who, in_ an- nouncing plans for a flying machiny, | sajd pessimistically: “God shall never allow such 2 machine to be successfnl [For who does not see that no city {would be secure from surprises. Even { without descending it could set ships afire, also houses, castles and citis. The ecighteenth century witnessed { many attempted flights and scientific rescarches into the fascinating problem. The first men known definitely to have left the earth in a successful flight of any description were the Montgolier brothers, who flew in a hot-air balloon | in 1783. They filled a large cloth baz ! with hot air and then attached a firc pot to keep a continuous supply of air available. MAIL PLANE RECORDS SHOW AERIAL PROGRESS | Opening of New Lines Adds to Rapidly Changing Airways Map of U. 8. ‘The rapidly changing airways map of the United States shows substantial changes in this, the twenty-fifth anni- versary month of the first airplane flight, as a resuit of the carrying out of Post Office Department contracts for the flying of air mail planes over 3,678 miles of new routes daily. As a result, during this month air mail planes have reached the highest mileage figure in their history, fiying miles a day and more than miles a month, or approximately equivalent to thirty-three times around the earth at the Equator each month. The new lines opened this month are Chicago to Atlanta, 623 miles; Atlanta to Miami, 622 miles; Evansville, Ind, to St. Louis, 145 miles; St. Louls to Kansas City and Omaha, 449 miles. As a result of the enormous increases in air mail route mileage during recent months the total distance traveled by air mail planes this year will total ap- proximately 7,200,000 miles, according to the figures of the American Air ‘Transport Association. Air mail carried will “total approximately 3,400,000 rounds, in addition to 30,000 express shipments and hundreds of passengers, Next year, it is estimated, the will fiy more bhn_ 10,000,000 miles,