September, I911 
by its rapid fall, could easily take wing. The length of drop 
would depend upon the design of the machine. A fall 
equivalent to five stories would probably be all that would 
be required. 
The feat of alighting upon a roof would not be inordi- 
nately difficult. If aviators can land upon platforms built 
over the forward decks of warships, it is assuredly not 
asking too much of them to land upon the roof of a building 
of equal area. 
If hotels are to have their aerial taxicabs, if bankers and 
brokers are to fly from their country residences to their 
offices, surely some different type of house-top must be de- 
signed for many structures whose roofs must serve as start- 
ing and alighting areas. The cornice, the parapet, the deli- 
cate spire, must give way to a roof as flat as that of 
an Egyptian temple. Here there is not much chance for the 
exercise of architectural imagination. A flat roof is a flat 
roof, and very little can be done to relieve its flatness. 
Whatever charm the tall buildings in New York may have 
as they are viewed from the decks of a steamship in the 
harbor of New York is due in large part to the piling of 
tower on tower, to the imaginative use of turrets and 
spires, to imitations on a gigantic scale of Italian Cam- 
paniles. Is all this to disappear? Will the architect be 
compelled to curb his fancy and to provide a succession of 
huge cubes, as flat upon their tops as they are upon their 
sides, in order that the man of the air may have a place 
from which to start and a place on which to alight? 
Unless methods of launching and alighting are adopted 
radically different from those of the present day, it seems 
as if architects would be compelled to modify their present 
roof designs. Levavasseur, the builder of the Antoinette 
monoplane, is said to be experimenting with apparatus 
which will overcome some of the inconveniences mentioned. 
He is said to have experimented with forms of catapults 
which literally shoot a flying machine directly from the 
ground into the air. Any one who has read Langley’s 
account of his tedious experiments in launching flying ma- 
chines, experiments which included just such schemes, must 
realize how hopeless is the task of this projecting into the 
air a fabric so delicate as a flying machine. 
Remote as the possibility is, it is more likely that the 
helicopter principle may be combined with the aeroplane 
principle; in other words, some form of lifting screw em- 
ployed to push the aeroplane straight up from the ground. 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
317 
Levavasseur is also said to be experimenting with a form of 
alighting device which consists of a wire on which a carrier 
travels. The aeroplane is supposed to fly up to the carrier, 
to catch it, and to slide down the wire to its hangar, very 
much like the cash carriers of department stores. Here 
again there would be considerable difficulty in seizing the 
carrier, particularly in a high wind. We can imagine a ma- 
chine flying backwards and forwards in the desperate effort 
to seize the carrier. 
Let us assume that the machine of the future, in which 
the gilded youth of the future will buzz over our heads, will 
of necessity land upon a flat roof in the city. If the number 
of flat roofs is large, how will the airman identify his own 
landing place? From a height of one thousand feet a town 
presents the aspect of a huge checker-board. How can 
the airman pick out the particular square which belongs 
to him? 
The most obvious method of identification is that of 
numbering the roofs, a method which is in vogue to a certain 
extent in France and Germany, in order to direct cross- 
country aviators on their way. At nighttime distinguish- 
ing lights of some kind would be required, with the result 
that an air-port of the future may have roofs as brilliantly 
illuminated as its avenues. Even now we hear in Germany 
plans for erecting beacon lights to guide the airman on his 
journey, searchlights which will project a beam upwards 
into the gloom. In one of his most imaginative stories, 
“The Night Mail,” a story in which he has given us a 
vivid account of some future aerial leviathans journeying 
through the atmosphere, Kipling speaks of this possibility, 
and also points out the dangers to the flying-man of a 
planet that is overlighted. Who knows but laws may be 
passed which will forbid a man from placing an advertising 
electric sign on his roof, lest he lead some airman astray? 
Who knows but the lighthouse board at Washington may 
have to establish a special branch for the erection and 
inspection of aerial lighthouses? 
Who knows but the architect of the future may be obliged 
to lavish the same care upon the roof that he now bestows 
upon the facade of a public building, in order that the eye 
of the more esthetic aviator may not be offended by chim- 
ney pots and tin cornices that are now invisible from the 
street, but painfully apparent from above? Who knows but 
hotels may some day be constructed which will have en- 
trances on their roofs for the benefit of the tourist aviator. 
A voyage over the Alps through the air. View in the neighborhood of Innsbruck 
