Popular Science Monthly 



\'ol. 9^2 

 Xo. 4 



225 West Thirty-ninth Street, New York City 



April, 1918 



SI. 50 



Annually 



Fishing Airplanes from the Sky in Nets 



An ingenious plan for catching enemy 

 airplane pilots in nets of piano wire 



Bv Carl Dients])acli 



FOR many years the scientists of 

 European and American weather 

 bureaus have explored the atmos- 

 phere kites from which thermometers, 

 barometers, recorders and wind-measur- 

 ers are suspended. These instruments 

 are like pens in the hands of the air; 

 for the air writes down how hot and cold 

 it is, how much it weighs, how fast it is 

 moving, and how wet it is. The kites 

 are flown from thin but very strong 

 piano wire. Whole batteries of kites are 

 sent aloft and kept there for days at a 

 time. 



These piano wires were considered so 

 dangerous to aerial traflic before the war 

 that in the weather news published by the 

 Germ^an Government for the benefit of 

 aviators, the approximate location of the 

 kites, which naturally changes with the 

 wind, was never omitted. 



If a few piano wires can be so dangerous 

 in peace, what might not happen if a 

 more elaborate wire system were de- 

 liberately resorted to in time of war for 

 the purpose of netting high-powered fly- 

 ing machines? That is the idea of an 

 Englishman, Mr. F. J. Lane, who wishes 

 us to place it before the readers of the 

 Popular Scienxe Monthly. The pres- 

 ent writer proposed the same system 

 before the war. 



His aerial entanglement is to be sup- 

 ported in feeble winds preferably by cap- 

 tive balloons or by kites. It is obvious 

 that the system would hardly succeed in 

 broad daylight, but it would be un- 

 questionably eflficacious at night, pro- 

 vided the enemy could not see the upper- 



most of the kites or balloons which 

 support the netting. The wires would be 

 provided with barbs, and their effect 

 would be disastrous if they should ever be 

 caught in a revolving propeller. 



To cover great spaces the meshing of 

 the net would be very coarse, measuring 

 perhaps fifteen feet to the side. Indeed, 

 the coarser the mesh the more likely is the 

 plan to succeed, for tlie more difficult will 

 it be to detect the piano wire. 



The great vertical space to be enclosed 

 is undoubtedly the chief difficulty en- 

 countered, even though we may consider 

 the lower altitudes amply barred by anti- 

 aircraft guns. An airplane has an up 

 and down movement of miles; a sub- 

 marine of only two hundred or three hun- 

 dred feet. The success of the net depends 

 clearly on driving the enemy pilot by gun- 

 fire or fighting craft into seemingly open 

 lanes so ingeniously laid out that he never 

 suspects the fate which is likely. to befall 

 him and regards the avenue as a means of 

 escape. 



Those who are familiar with the history 

 of the airplane will remember the ex- 

 periments made by Sir Hiram Maxim 

 with his enormous, daringly conceived 

 flying machine. During the course of 

 these experiments a wire stay broke. In 

 doing so it sheared off the propeller 

 blades as if they were cardboard. Had 

 the machine been actually flying in the 

 air, it is easy to imagine what would have 

 happened. And so with the enemy air- 

 plane that plunges into the net that Mr. 

 Lane proposes. Any enemy pilot would 

 crash to a ghastly death. 



483 



