The passenger machine has a spread of 36 feet with a length of about 24 feet from front to rear. This machine is generally equipped with a 50 or 70 horsepower Gnome motor, although the plane with which Weyman won the Gordon Bennett contest was equipped with a 100-horsepower Gnome motor. The smaller machine has a spread of 27 feet, 6 inches and a length of 23 feet. An engine of the 3-cylinder Anzani type is usually mounted on this monoplane. The body of the flier gracefully tapers to a point at the rear where are placed the elevating and steering rudders. The chief characteristics of the Nieuport are strength, simplicity in design, and great efficiency of operation. The smaller machine, which is equipped with an engine of from 18 to 20 horsepower, has acquired a speed of 52-1/2 miles an hour. The Nieuport is constructed along original lines throughout. The wings are very thick at the front edge, while the rear edges are flexible so that in gusts of wind they give a little. The fuselage, or body of the machine, which is extraordinarily large, and shaped like the body of a bird, is entirely covered with canvas. The weakest part of the Nieuport monoplane is the alighting and running gear, which is so designed as to eliminate head resistance, but unfortunately this simplicity is carried to an extreme which makes the machine the most difficult one to run along the ground, and to this construction may be traced most of the accidents which have occurred to the Nieuport machines. The Nieuport control differs from that of the majority of other machines inasmuch as the wing warping is controlled by the feet, while hand levers operate the vertical and elevating rudders. MODEL AEROPLANES After having taken in such a lot of information about aeroplanes the scientist's young friend considered himself fairly well equipped to build a flier. "Why couldn't I build a little model aeroplane?" he said one day. "No reason why young couldn't," answered his friend in the laboratory. "You have a little workshop at home and your own simple tools will be plenty. You will have to buy some of your materials, but they are all cheap. "There is no sport like model aeroplane flying, but to the average American boy the flying is not half so much fun as meeting and overcoming the obstacles and problems entailed in making the little plane. These days nearly any boy would scorn to enter a model aeroplane tournament with any machine that he did not make himself, and a great many of the amateur aviators even prefer to make their own designs and plans.