IMS 



CURTISS AND HIS DIFFICULTIES 

 The failure of Glenn H. Curtlse, who may 

 lay claim to the title of one of the best o£ 

 American flyers, to make a better showing 

 deserves an explanation. When Mr. Cur- 

 tiss entered for the meet he supposed that 

 the Englishman would bring with him the 

 Farman biplane only, and laid his plans 

 with this in mind. The new machine which 

 Curtiss brought with him was designed 

 with the idea o£ competing with the Par- 

 man, which It can beat easily. But the pres- 

 ence of the racing Bleriot put another face 

 on the matter, and having been caught un- 

 prepared Mr. Curtiss was, of course, out- 

 classed. His praiseworthy efforts to uphold 

 the prestige of this country by installing a 

 more powerful motor as a last resort unfor- 

 tunately proved unavailing, owing to the 

 fact that the new engine was not suffi- 

 ciently worked out and failed to respond 

 satisfactorily. But It should not be de- 

 cided offhand that because Mr. Curtiss was 

 caught napping at the Squantum meet that 

 the same will to true during the interna- 

 tional meet next month. There he wll! 

 again encounter the Blftrlot in more skiltul 

 hands than those of Grahame-White, but 

 he knows what he has to contend with and 

 will act accordingly. The new French mon- 

 oplanes will be hard to beat, but at any 

 rate they will not carry away the Gordon 

 Bennett Cup without realizing that the! 

 have had to fight for It. 



Mr. Curtiss's experiments in attempting 

 to speedup his craft not only kept him out 

 as a factor in the speed contests, Including 

 the Boston Light flight, but handicapped 

 him in other events In which he might 

 have made a better showing, such as dura- 

 tion, distance jind bomb throwing. As far 

 as accuracy and slow flying go the Curtiss 

 cannot, of course, compete with the Wright 

 craft. The high power of the former In 

 relation to Its much smaller supporting sur- 

 face make a much higher speed necessary 

 to keep it in the air," and the same factor, 

 the high rate at which it travels, makes 11 

 impossible to stop in as short a distance 

 without danger of injuring the machine. 



A DISCUSSION OF THE EVENTS 

 The system of scoring which was adopted 

 was in many respects superior to that ot 

 any previous meet, either in America or 

 abroad. The awarding of polntB lor tne 

 best performances dally insured flights 

 whenever possible, at least until the com- 

 petitions were decided. One criticism which 

 might be made, however, la that there 

 was no premium put on efforts of especial 

 merit, with the exception of the $1000 ad- 

 dition to the speed, distance, endurance anu 

 altitude prizes for a new world's record in 

 each. The sum so offered was too small 

 to call forth the extraordinary effort neces- 

 sary for the creation of a new world's 

 mark, but had a like sum been put up for 

 the best performance in each event at the 

 meet, it would have been well worth seek- 

 ing. 



Another improvement which will doubt- 

 less have to be made in the near future is 

 the method of arranging speed contests. 

 Both the speed contest and the Globe prize 

 of $10,000 were so easy for the Bleriot of 

 Grahame-Whlte that there was no compe- 

 tition; in fact, the English aviator was 

 the only one who even attempted the Bos- 

 ton Light flight. It would have been much 

 more interesting could handicaps have been 

 arranged which would have given each 

 craft a chance. Of 'course aeroplaning is 

 in its infancy, but It would seem per- 



fectly feasible to fix upon some system 

 similar to that in yacht racing, basing the 

 handicap on the spread of supporting sur- 

 face in relation to the power of the motor. 

 In the case of the Light flight this would 

 have put the contestants on fairly equal 

 terms, with the Bleriot at scratch, a small 

 handicap to the Curtiss, a larger one to 

 Willard, and the greatest of all to the 

 Wright aeroplane. The proportions of the 

 craft mentioned are: Bleriot, ISO square 

 feet, supporting surface to 50 horse-power 

 motor; Curtiss. 250 square feet, to 50 horse- 

 power; Willard, 400 square feet to 50 horse- 

 power; Wright, 525,square feet, to 30 horse- 

 power. 



If speed competitions are to continue to 

 hold popular Interest, there must tie some- 

 thing of this nature devised In order to 

 equalize the contestants. The details, how- 

 ever, will require considerable attention. 



The bom* dropping contest during '.e 

 meet proper, so far as any importance it 

 might have had is concerns, was a fiasco, 

 an^ a part of the prize of $5000, which was 

 very large, might well have been devoted to 

 some other purpose. In the first piace the 

 flying men were so close to the ground as to 

 render valueless any results accomplished. 

 And the trials on Thursday from an eleva- 

 tion of 1800 feet were unsatisfactory be- 

 cause of the difficulty in locating the specs 

 where the missiles struck. The best shot 

 made, so far as was ascertained, was by 

 Johnstone and struck 180 feet from he 

 dummy battleship which served as a tar- 

 get. But six trials, however, were made by 

 each aviator, the other being Grahame- 

 White, so that the tests can by no mears 

 be regarded as conclusive. 



In comparison with the great meets 

 abroad, that at Squantum cannot be sail 

 to hold a high placf, wild statements to the 

 contrary notwithstanding. But five profes- 

 sional aviators and one amateur, Cliff > M 

 B. Harmon, made any sort of showing, 

 whereas many foreign contests, such as 

 those at Lanark, Nice, Bournemouth, and 

 particularly the great event at Rhelms, had 

 more. The magnitude of the latter may be 

 gauged from the fact that on the opening 

 day seventeen machines were in the air at 

 the same time, to say nothing of the setting 

 of world's record after world's record In 

 speed, distance and endurance. Olieslagers 

 alone, winner of the last two named cor. 

 tests covered a total distance of 1049 miljs 

 during the ten days of the meet, more than 

 was made by all the flyers at Atlantic com- 

 bined. In the light of these well known 

 facts It is unfortunate that certain officials 

 connected with the meet should put for- 

 ward such extraordinary claims for it as 

 being "the greatest meeting of this kind 

 ever held in this country or Europe." 



The unfortunate part of the matter I'es 

 in the fact that people who really know, 

 reading such talk will not give the Squa - 

 turn affair the weight it deserves. Con- 

 sidering the comparatively small headway 

 which aviation has attained in this coun- 

 try, and the consequently small number of 

 aviators who took part, th e perf ormance 

 here~were^very creditable indeed, while the 

 financial results were so gratifying as to 

 Insure further meetings in the future. As 

 an Indication of what is to come therefore, 

 as an education to the people of New Eng- 

 land, and as an awakening of all who saw 

 the flights to a realization of t,.e actuality 

 of flight, the Squantum tournament canngt 

 fail of obtaining an abiding place in thn 

 annals of American aviation. 



MOISSAWT ASTD XXRBXBL COMING 



The appearance of J. Armstrong Drexel 

 and John B. Molssant at the lnternat.onal 

 aviation tournament at Belmont Park, Oct. 

 •>9 t,i 10 was made certain this week when 

 7 C McCoy, chairman of the aviation 

 committee, cabled to Cort^rxdt Field 

 Bishop in Paris that their ^P'f"' 0 "* *f 

 entrants were satisfactory, and to close 

 contacts with them at once. Mr. Drexel 

 and Mr. Molssant are two of America s 

 foremost aviators, and have made interna- 

 S reputations by their flights In Eu- 

 rope in the last few months. They ^ will 

 enter the elimination trials for tlie selec- 

 uon of the American trophy defending 

 team and also Will take part in the gen- 

 eral 'events of the tournament. Both fly 

 Blfiriot monoplanes. 



Each day as preparations go forward for 

 the tournament it becomes more apparent 

 that one of the interesting features will be 

 the fight for supremacy between the big 

 monoplane concerns of France Th . Euro- 

 pean manufacturers appreciate that, de- 

 spite the patent infringement controversy 

 America is soon to be a profitable market 

 for flying machines, and each of the lead- 

 ing builders of Europe is eager to mase 

 use of the international meeting as an op- 

 portunity for exploiting his type 

 chine, Louis Bleriot probably will come to 

 the tournament, not to compete for prizes, 

 out to look after the business interests of 

 his concern, and the Antoinette monoplane 

 concern will be represented by H u °ert 

 Latham, a member of the French lnterna- 

 Uona* team. Several of the newer types 

 of monoplanes, such as the ni«f. *•»« 

 vendome, and the Etrich. also will be here 

 to bid tor the favor of American pur- 

 chasers. . , . . 



Concerning the chances of American 

 c viators for holding the International Tro- 

 ohy this year and winning their share of 

 the $50,000 against the big machines from 

 the other side, G. J. C. Wood, a membet 

 of the Aero Club of America, recently back 

 from abroad, said he was far more opti- 

 mistic than many persons whom he naa 

 heard talking about the Boston meeting. 

 "We have the aviators," he eaid, but 

 have we the machines? That Is the only 

 question Curtiss, the Wrights, and some 

 of their men, and Hamilton are equal tc 

 any' of the aviators of Europe. Give them 

 high-power machines and they will equal 

 anything • done over there. Grahame- 

 White is a good aviator, but his success at 

 Boston has not been due to exceptional 

 ability, but to his monoplane and his mo- 

 tor. It would not surprise me at all to 

 see an American biplane win the Interna- 

 tional Trophy. I mean, of course, a bi- 

 plane built for speed, and having a power- 

 ful motor. An American machine sur- 

 prised the world at 'Rhelms last year, and 

 an American machine Is likely to surprise 

 the world at Belmont Park this year." 



SUIT OVER AN AEROPLANE COLLISION 

 For the first time in the history of avia- 

 tion a lawsuit has been brought because of 

 a collision between two aeroplanes, The 

 accident occurred at Weiner Neustadt, 

 Austria, while the Archduke Leopold Sal- 

 vator, who is himself quite an airman, was 

 a passenger in a machine that was being 

 piloted by the aviator, August Warcha- 

 lousky. During the flight another aero- 

 plane that was being piloted by Carl War- 

 chalousky, a brother of August, collided 

 with the one in which the archduke was a J 

 passenger and Carl Warchalousky had a j 

 leg broken. Neither of the brothers would 

 accept the responsibility for the collision 

 and the lawsuit followed. 



