The Problem of Manflight

The Problem of Manflight

As the century draws to its close the interest in the subject of aeronautics steadily increases. There already exists a keen curiosity to know what the aerial machine of the future is likely to resemble, and also to know whether the nineteenth or the twentieth century will claim it for its own. In the present article the writer wishes to show what inferences may be drawn from the laws of nature as so far ascertained by observation and experiment, and he wishes also to point out a way which may lead to further progress. The investigators of this subject are now divided into two camps: on the one side there are men who, like Mr. Maxim, are endeavoring to construct machines which will carry motors and therefore be self-propelling; on the other side there are men like Mr. A. M. Wellington, who maintains that a motor is unnecessary and that wind-power is sufficient. In the New York Engineering News, of Oct. 12, 1893, Mr. Wellington, in a very interesting article entitled The Mechanics of Flight, makes the following statement: If the conclusions so far reached in this paper be accepted, it is obvious that they greatly simplify the problem of artificial flight by reducing to a minimum the demand for power, making it chiefly necessary for acquiring the first initial velocity. All attempts at aviation which include any motor for propulsion[4] are, in my judgment, on wrong lines, and predestined to certain failure, since they not only neglect, but destroy, the action of the forces by which true flight may be and is attained. I will not go so far as to say that some (soaring) birds, in the exuberance of power, may not use the wings to accelerate, as they do to retard motion. I think they do, but only in an abnormal way; it is wholly unnecessary, and even destructive of all normal flight. The fish needs a propeller, because it has no gravity in water; the bird does not need it, because it has gravity, and in that gravity has the best and smoothest of all conceivable means of propulsion, if he can make the wind lift him uphill whenever he has slid far enough downhill. If so, man commits an absurdity when he flies in the face of nature and assumes a propelling force where none is needed or exists. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 56249
Author: Means, James
Release Date: Dec 24, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English