23 SEPTEMBER 1922, Page 16

A PIONEER IN GLIDING.

[To THE EDITOR OF me " SPECTATOR."] am glad to see that Mr. C. R. Haines has drawn atten- tion to the pioneer work of the late Mr. Jose Weiss, the artist who experimented with gliders on the Sussex Downs ten and more years ago. The time will come when Weiss will be recog- nized as an aeronautical authority who was born too early. In his designs lie incorporated many principles from data which he acquired while making a close study of bird flight. Aero- nautical engineers will, in the end, have to go back to Nature and follow Weiss if they hope to achieve true, as apart from mechanical, flight. It may interest you to know that I am working with one of Mr. Weiss's fellow-pioneers who has much of the data referred to above, and we are now experimenting with a glider which incorporates Weiss's principles. When we ate farther advanced with our experiments, which we are

conducting quietly and without a flourish of Frees trumpets, I will communicate results if they would be of any interest to