Artificial and Natural FlightMaxim, Hiram S. (Hiram Stevens)
Science
Artificial and Natural Flight
Maxim, Hiram S. (Hiram Stevens)
Aeronautics; Airplanes; Flight
A flying machine has, of course, to be steered in two directions at the
same time--the vertical and the horizontal. In the Farman and De la
Grange machines, the horizontal steering is effected by a small windlass
provided with a hand wheel, the same as on a steam launch, and the
vertical steering is effected by a longitudinal motion of the shaft of
the same windlass. As the length of the machine is not very great, it
requires very close attention on the part of the man at the helm to keep
it on an even keel; if one is not able to think and act quickly,
disaster is certain. On one occasion, the man at the wheel pushed the
shaft of the windlass forward when he should have pulled it back, and
the result was a plunge and serious damage to the machine; happily no
one was injured, though some of the bystanders were said to have had
very narrow escapes. The remedy for this is to make all hand-steered
machines of great length, which gives more time to think and act; or,
still better, to make them automatic by the use of a gyroscope.
[Illustration: Fig. 71.--Bleriot’s machine. This machine raised itself
from the ground, but as the centre of gravity was very little, if any,
above the centre of lifting effect, it turned completely over in the
air.]
[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Santos Dumont’s flying machine.]
VELOCITY AND PRESSURE OF THE WIND.
The pressure varies as the square of the velocity or P ∝ V². The old
formula for wind blowing against a normal plane was P = 0·005 × V².
The latest or Eiffel Tower formula gives a much smaller value, being P
= 0·003 × V², where V represents the velocity in miles per hour, and P
the pressure in pounds per square foot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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