AERIAL LOCOMOTION 415 



danger, until man, by practical experience of the conditions to 

 be met with in the air, and of the means of overcoming them, 

 shall have attained skill in the control of aerial apparatus. A 

 man cannot even ride a bicycle without practice ; and the birds 

 themselves have to learn to fly. Man, not having any inherited 

 instincts to help him in this matter, must first control his flight 

 consciously, guided by knowledge gained through experiment. 

 Skill can only be obtained by actual experience in the air ; and 

 this experience will involve accidents and disasters of various 

 sorts before skill can be obtained. If these disasters should, as 

 so often in the past, prove fatal to the experimenter, the knowl- 

 edge obtained by the would-be aviator will be lost to the world, 

 and others must begin all over again, instead of pursuing the 

 subject where he left off, with the benefit of his knowledge and 

 his experience. It is therefore of the utmost consequence to 

 progress in the art of aviation, that the first attempts to gain 

 experience in the air should be made under such conditions of 

 safety as to reduce to a minimum the liability to fatal results. 



The Wright brothers' successful flying machine travels at the 

 rate of about thirty-seven miles an hour; and, judging from its 

 great flying weight (nearly two pounds per square foot of sup- 

 porting surface), it is unlikely that it could be maintained in the 

 air if it had very much less velocity. But should an accident 

 happen to a body propelled through the air with the velocity of 

 a railroad train, how about the safety of the occupants? Acci- 

 dents will happen, sooner or later, and the chances are largely 

 in favor of the first accident being the last experiment. While 

 therefore we may look forward with confidence to the ultimate 

 possession of flying machines exceeding in speed the fastest 

 railroad trains, it might be the part of wisdom to begin our first 

 experiments at gaining experience in the air, with machines 

 travelling at such moderate velocities as to reduce the chances 

 of a fatal catastrophe to a minimum. This means that they 

 should be light-flying machines ; that is, the ratip of weight 

 to supporting surface should be small. 



While theory indicates that the greater the weight in propor- 

 tion to supporting surface consistent with flight, the more inde- 

 pendent of the wind will the machine be, yet it might be advis- 



