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The Flying Machine and the Roof 
By Waldemar Kaempffert 
F the aeroplane is ever to play as important 
a part in our daily lives as the automobile 
or the horse, if every suburbanite, ten 
years, and possibly five years hence, is to 
fly his own biplane or monoplane, if flying 
is indeed to become the sport which pres- 
ent-day prophets assert, it is possible that 
country and certainly city architecture will be modified in 
style. This modification will occur not because an aero- 
plane is bigger than an automobile, measuring, as it does, 
from thirty to forty feet in span, but, curiously enough, 
because of the manner in which it must start and alight. 
Like every soaring bird, an aeroplane must be in motion 
before it can fly. It cannot start straight up from the 
ground. There must be a preliminary run that may vary 
in length from a hundred feet to a hundred yards, depend- 
ing upon the speed of 
the machine and the 
skill of the aviator. 
How necessary is this 
initial run, even in the 
case of a_ soaring 
bird, is set forth in 
the following graphic 
description of the 
commencement of an 
eagle’s flight (the 
writer was in Egypt, 
and the “‘sandy soil” 
was that of the banks 
of the Nile) : 
“An approach to 
within 80 yards 
aroused the king of 
birds from his apa- 
thy, Ele partly 
opens his enormous 
wings, but stirs not 
yet from his station. 
Parseval airship casting its shadow on Chemnitz, Germany 
On gaining a few feet more he begins to walk away with 
half-expanded, but motionless, wings. Now for the chance. 
Fire! A charge of No. 3 from eleven bore rattles audibly 
but ineffectively upon his densely feathered body; his walk 
increases to a run, he gathers speed with his slowly waving 
wings, and eventually leaves the ground. Rising at a 
gradual inclination, he mounts aloft and sails majestically 
away to his place of refuge in the Libyan range, distant at 
least five miles from where he rose. Some fragments of 
feathers denoted the spot where the shot had struck him. 
The marks of his claws were traceable in the sandy soil, as, 
at first with firm and decided digs, he forced his way; but 
as he lightened his body and increased his speed with the aid 
of his wings, the imprints of his talons gradually merged 
into long scratches. The measured distance from the point 
where these vanished to the place where he had stood 
proved that with all 
the stimulus that the 
shot must have given 
to his exertions he 
had been compelled 
to run full 20 yards 
before he could raise 
himself from the 
earth.” 
In some respects, 
the problem of alight- 
ing is more difficult 
than that of starting, 
because the machine 
must approach the 
ground at high speed 
in order to ride safely 
over the ground ed- 
dies, the swirls and 
waves that circulate 
near the ground. The 
aeroplane is accord- 
ingly mounted either 
