THE ART OF FLYING.
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lives and in treasure," one of our own novelists has said, the cost of the conquest of the empire of the air may even exceed all that has been spent in man's great conquest of the sea." The unfortunate accident which out short Mr. Percy S. Pilcher's flight near Rugby last Saturday, and has since led to his death, comes as a painful illustration of this remark. It is not very long since Mr. Pilcher's pre- decessor and master, the German Dr. Lilienthal, was killed by a somewhat similar fall to that which has closed the plucky Englishman's career. But although the art of flying on the lines of Dr. Lilienthal and Mr. Pilcher is dangerous and difficult, they have shown that human success in it is a possibility of no very distant achievement. Their system is by far the eldest of the three now in vogue. Long before balloons or flying machines were imagined, mankind dreamt of emulating the flight of birds, and longed with the Psalmist to acquire the wings of a dove. The fable of Dredabas, whether or not we agree to rationalise him into the mere inventor of sails, bears witness to the antiquity of such a dream. Dmdalus has had many would-be successors, whose fate was usually similar to that of the Italian charlatan who undertook to oblige James IV. by flying from Scotland to France without the supernatural assistance invoked for the same purpose by Michael Scott. "To that effect," says Bishop Lesley, "he caused make a pair of wings of feathers, which being fastened upon him, he flew off the Castle wall of Stirling : but shortly he fell to the ground and broke his thigh-bone. But the blame thereof he ascribed to this, that there were some hen feathers in the wings, which yearned for and coveted the midden and not the skies." It is unnecessary to remind the reader of numerous similar attempts at flight, which Johnson happily parodied in one of the wittiest chapters of " Rasselas." But it is worth while to call attention to the single precursor of Dr. Lilienthal and Mr. Pitcher of whom any account has been preserved, though his name has unfortunately perished. Bishop Wilkins, two hundred and fifty years ago, described a method of learning to fly in language that would be nearly applicable to the Lilienthal experiments. "Those things that seem very difficult and fea.rfull at the first," said the Bishop, "may grow very facile after frequent triall and exercise. And therefore he that would effect anything in this kind must be brought up to the constant practice of it from his youth ; trying first only to use his wings in running on the ground, as an Estrich or tame geese will do, touching the ground with his toes ; and so by degrees learn to rise higher, till he shall attain unto skill and confidence. I have heard it from credible testimony that one of our nation hath proceeded so far in this experiment that he was able by the use of wings to skip constantly ten yards at a time." Mr. Pitcher's early experiments were described in language which has a curious similarity to that employed by Bishop Wilkins. A strong wind, he found, would lift him as much as 12 ft. from the ground, and drop him on the spot from which be started. "At other times," he said, "when there has not been so much wind, I ran to meet the wind with the front of the wings depressed somewhat, so that my weight is only partially taken by the wings, and in this way I am, strange as it may appear, able to run very much faster than without the wings ; then raising the front edge a little, I am able to take a long soar down a slight incline." The anonymous friend of Bishop Wilkins was able to do much the same; but in his unmechanical century there was no encouragement to go further. Mr. Pilcher and Dr. Lilienthal had the hope before their eyes of being able to introduce motor-power when they had mastered the balance. Mr. Pilcher's original motor was simply a boy who hauled him along by a string, like a kite ; Dr. Lilienthal was devising means to apply a small gas- engine to his wings when gravitation reasserted its claims and ended his experiments.
People in general are much less familiar with the work of Dr. Lilienthal and Mr. Pitcher than with the flying machine of Mr. Maxim and the "aerodrome" of Professor Langley. Yet the courage with which the two former under- took to attack the problem of flying in the most direct way surely deserves recognition. There is at present a great and hitherto insuperable difficulty in the way of the maker of flying machines, as distinct from navigable balloons, which is that of the balance. Minute observation has shown that every region of the atmosphere is constantly subject to infinitely varying currents and counter.currents of air. No matter how steadily the wind may seem to be blowing in a certain direction, or even bow still the air may seem, there is always a complex series of minor aerial disturbances to be con- sidered. To steer a flying machine amongst them on an even keel is much like attempting to ride a bicycle over a surface moving like the Channel in a gale. A bird, indeed, soars with perfect ease and equilibrium, and is only overturned or driven out of its course at a very gusty corner, even then recovering itself with certainty. But the bird possesses an extremely sensitive nervous system, which has been attuned through countless generations of habit to the task of preserving its balance through the most rapidly varying conditions of the air. It meets every minute variation in the strength or direction of the aerial current on which it is soaring by an instinctive and involuntary adjustment of the wings, exactly as the practised bicyclist conquers a swerve of his machine, or as each of us balances in walking along a road. To devise a machine that shall do this seems as yet far beyond the powers of our inventors. The "balance chamber" of the White- head torpedo, which keeps that projectile at a constant depth below the surface of the water, is properly considered as one of the most ingenious contrivances known to our mechanical science. But the "balance chamber" has only to control movement in two dimensions, whereas the flying machine is subject to constant aberrations in three. The problem thus set is incredibly more difficult than that solved by Mr. White- head. And it is complicated by the consideration, so pic- turesquely presented in a recent story of Mr. Wells, that a momentary failure in adjustment means practically certain death to the aeronauts. The step from the model to the real thing will involve more than those bands of triple brass which are allotted to the heart of the first sailor. It was this consideration which set Dr. Lilienthal and, following him, Mr. Pitcher and a few others to study the condi- tions of balancing in the air by experiments in which personal agility and courage were substitutes for com- plicated apparatus. No small measure of success bee attended them, in spite of their premature fate. Dr. Lilienthal was able to fly hundreds of yards at a time, and was about to tackle the second problem of turning into the wind when a sudden squall hurled him dead to the earth. Mr. Pitcher tells us that after only three months' practice be was pretty sure of his balance in the air, and "was able to land without damage and without falling, even when soaring over the ground very fast." It is noteworthy that his re- grettable accident was apparently due to a defect in the material rather than in the principle of his apparatus. One may hope that others of the athletic and ingenious young men who are always ready for a form of sport which presents a spice of danger among its charms will not be deterred by this accident from taking up what Dr. Lilienthal christened " Fliegesport." The real danger in it is, perhaps, not greater than that attendant on polo or mountaineering or tiger-shoot- ing, and the prospect of fame which it offers to the ambitious is incalculably greater. Mr. Pitcher's accident should serve as a warning to all concerned to use the utmost care and good sense in the conduct of the experiments, not as an absolute deterrent. The attempt should not be abandoned, but only prosecuted by competent persons with still greater prudence and perseverance.
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