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Title: Aeolus; or, the future of the flying machine
Author: Oliver Stewart
Release date: October 5, 2025 [eBook #76988]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1927
Credits: Tim Lindell, Quentin Campbell, Thiers Halliwell (cover image restoration) and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
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Transcriber’s Note
In this transcription, italic text is denoted by _underscores_ while
bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. Small capitals in the original
text have been transcribed as ALL CAPITALS.
————
See the end of this document for details of corrections and other
changes.
—————————————————————
AEOLUS
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
_For the Contents of this Series see the end of
the Book_
AEOLUS
OR
THE FUTURE OF THE
FLYING MACHINE
BY
OLIVER STEWART
_Author of ‘The Strategy and Tactics of
Air Fighting,’ etc._
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Made and Printed in Great Britain by
M. F. Robinson & Co., Ltd., at The Library Press, Lowestoft.
AEOLUS
THE FUTURE OF THE
FLYING-MACHINE
INTRODUCTION
The aeroplane is an aerial sailing-ship, its wings are the sails, its
source of power the wind. It can claim to be a direct descendant of the
family of sailing ships whose father was AEOLUS, god of the winds and
the inventor of sails.
Aeroplane, helicopter, ornithopter, rotorplane, and autogiro are
sailing-ships because they all derive lift from sails or aerofoils.
An aerofoil is a structure so shaped as to obtain a reaction from the
wind—a sail is nothing more and nothing less. Whether the wind is
natural or is artificially raised by an engine does not affect the
function of aerofoil or sail.
The heavier-than-air flying-machine, either engineless glider or
power-driven craft, is the true aerial sailing-ship. The prolate
gasbag which is called an airship resembles only one kind of ship,
a sinking ship, because it is totally immersed in the fluid which
supports it. If a sea parallel to the airship is required, that
parallel may justly be said to be the submarine, which is suspended in
the water as the airship is suspended in the air.
Before I deal with the future of the aerial sailing-ship I must define
three aeronautical terms. No excuse is needed for introducing these
apparently elementary definitions since aeronautical terms are almost
as well misunderstood by aviators as by laymen. The three terms are:
Wing
Airscrew
Propeller
The definitions I advance are supported by the Royal Aeronautical
Society’s _Glossary of Aeronautical Terms_ and by the British
Engineering Standards Association’s _Glossary of Aeronautical Terms_
although they are often departed from in official forms and in speech.
_Wing._ A few days ago I read in a newspaper of a “single-winged
airplane”. Accustomed as I am to the aircraft which appear between the
drapers’ advertisements in the daily newspapers, I was startled at the
notion of a “single-winged airplane”. A bird has wings. A single-winged
bird would be a queer creature and would be incapable of flying. A
“single-winged airplane” would be equally queer and equally earth-bound.
The reporter, in trying to hack out an explanatory synonym for
monoplane, docked the aeroplane of one of its wings.
_Airscrew and Propeller._ An aeroplane can have an airscrew yet no
propeller. Most aeroplanes, in fact, are without propellers. In the
interests of differentiation it is worth endeavouring to confine the
word propeller to the thing that propels or pushes the machine, to
use airscrew as a general term, and tractor airscrew when a precise
definition is required for the thing that pulls the machine. The
colloquialism “prop’” may perhaps be allowed to stand for both tractor
airscrew and propeller.
In the following pages I make no attempt to hit upon any sudden
invention which may revolutionize flight. I confine myself to
developing lines of progress which have already given some proof of
practicability. For determining the general trend of progress I rely
upon a utilitarian review of the aeronautical situation. I have avoided
leaping into the distant future. Readers will be disappointed to learn
that things like inter-planetary voyaging are not dealt with in this
booklet.
I am aware that scientists have demonstrated that some of the things
I do mention are impossible. But scientists have demonstrated that
the world is flat, that it is round, and that it is oblong. In the
future they will demonstrate that it is rectangular. It was Mr W. N.
Sullivan, I think, who said that “To judge from the history of science,
the scientific method is excellent as a means of obtaining plausible
conclusions which are always wrong, but hardly as a means of reaching
the truth.” While a few generations can still witness wide variations
of opinion among those who know, I incline to the Pyrrhonic doctrine.
It is impossible to know with certainty what is impossible, and in
attempting a forecast the best that can be done is to take the trend
of contemporary thought and, with that, to build a future upon the
principles of the present.
I deal with the future of three kinds of flying-machine, the civil,
the service, and the lighter-than-air or airship. The type of machine
I say will become popular for short distance air-transport may seem at
first to be too unconventional. But I think the whole trend of advanced
thought (slotted wings, wingflaps, anti-stall gears and differential
ailerons are manifestations of it) is towards the result I suggest.
I
The future of the aerial sailing-ship or heavier-than-air
flying-machine will be affected more by the attitude which the
world adopts towards it than by technical achievement. In England
the national attitude towards machinery is moulded by statesmen and
financiers. Under the guise of preserving the liberty of the individual
that attitude strangles the life out of the machine; it may be
described in the words of the schoolboy who said that _Habeas Corpus_
was a phrase used during the great plague of London meaning ‘Bring out
your dead’.
The statesman has helped to mould the national attitude towards
the motor-car through the medium of laws and the manner of their
enforcement by his servants the police, and the Courts. The history of
the cause and effect of the national attitude towards the motor-car is
being repeated with the flying-machine, and the parallel is close.
Having the safety of the public for its ostensible object, the
Motor-Car Act limits the speed of motor-vehicles to twenty miles per
hour, proclaims it an offence to drive to the common danger and to be
drunk while in charge of a motor-car.
Of the last-mentioned provision I will say nothing beyond mentioning
that there are motorists who are incapable of driving safely except
when they are drunk. Of the other two, the 20 m.p.h. speed-limit for
many years has been generally recognized as having no bearing on safety
or danger, whereas for many years motorists have been condemning
certain manoeuvres on the road as constituting, legally as well as in
truth, driving to the common danger.
The English police, with the connivance of magistrates and Home
Secretaries, have concentrated on enforcing the speed-limit and have
ignored the dangerous manoeuvres.
This pass has been brought about by the statesman, who has no direct
interest in motor-cars or other new-fangled machines (except when
there is a general strike). As a consequence, the car built as a car
for speed and control is becoming an object of general dislike. The
continued insistence that speed of itself is dangerous and the pompous
tyranny of the police (who find motorists tamer and more plastic than
thieves) are gradually engendering in the public fear of and dislike
for the machine-entity. Instead the wheeled furniture-shop is gaining
in popularity. The doctrine of Safety First is threatening initiative
and killing the spirit of adventure, while there is ignorance of how
to attain safety. Road-racing, the only sure means of increasing
car-safety, is prohibited because it is not safe. The result is the
dismal, abysmal mess described as the modern British motor-car, which
is chiefly remarkable for not containing a single original idea.
Now the result of statesmen moulding a similar attitude towards the
flying-machine will be equally dismal. Yet they are already exerting
their influence in that direction.
Instead of employing policemen and Courts to harry and hunt the herd of
aeronauts, designers, and constructors, however, the statesman employs
an army of air-officials. In the world of aeronautics these officials
are all-mighty. The private person has no control over them and no
reply to them. If he goes to Court against them he will lose. If he
appeals against the decision of the Court he will lose again. If he
appeals to public opinion he will lose for the third time. The official
tells the airman what he may not do, warns the designer of the manner
in which he may not design, and informs the constructor how he is
forbidden to construct.
The result of this official attitude towards the flying-machine is
already faintly visible.
At the time I write Britain holds no world’s air-records. For seven
years she has made no great flight. She has three or four commercial
air-lines against Germany’s forty-three. Her fastest aircraft is about
50 m.p.h., slower than the fastest foreign aircraft. Her highest
climbing aircraft cannot attain within thousands of feet of the
altitude attained by foreign aircraft. Her longest range aircraft
can accomplish little more than half the distance covered by foreign
aircraft. Her Air Force can put fewer effective war-machines in the air
than any one of three other countries.
One of our pilots has succeeded in proving that, in an English
aeroplane, you can go from London to anywhere else more slowly, and in
more acute discomfort, than by boat and train.
In one thing only does England excel. She spends more on aviation than
any other country in the world.
I am familiar with the excuses for England’s aeronautical failings. I
know that the House of Commons has been told that there is no object
in England attempting to obtain world’s air-records. I have heard the
claim that the Royal Air Force flies more than any other air force, and
I have heard the Air Ministry refuse to supply any figures in support
of the claim. I know that the French are said to obtain their high
speeds and great distances by cutting down the load-factor of their
machines. I have been told about the theory that we _could_ gain
world’s records, run air-lines, win air-races, and have an effective
Air Force but that we do not want to do so. I am familiar with these
excuses, and, having mentioned some of them, I think I can proceed to
indicate a cure for the failings in British aviation. For some cure
is the essential preliminary to any future for the flying-machine in
England.
The cause of England’s aerial impotence is chiefly official
interference leading to a wrong national attitude towards the aeroplane.
The cure is to give English aviation the freedom of the air.
If the official is given powers to make vehicular transport safe, he
will, as we have seen in the motor-car analogy, infallibly not make
vehicular transport safe and he will stop any mechanical development
in the vehicle itself. Freedom, then, is the essential condition of
aeronautical development.
I said at the beginning of this essay that the financier, as well
as the statesman, helped to mould the public’s attitude towards
the machine. I speak only of the pure financier or business-man who
uses aeroplanes, motor-cars or tin cans with equal indifference
as money-making tools; who has no direct interest in any material
creation; who repeats that honesty is the best policy and hopes the
other man will believe it.
All such business-men in England are humble imitators of American
business men. In their advertisements, offices, talk, and indigestion
they endeavour as closely as possible to copy the Americans. They
therefore believe that, if English people are to produce cars or
aeroplanes, they must produce them in the American way—that is cheaply
and in mass. Standardization has, in their view, taken the place of
craftsmanship and mass-production of hard work.
Already events have shown that the English are incapable of imitating
the Americans well. The reason is that the American mechanic regards
his work as an unpleasant necessity, to be got through as quickly as
possible and to be paid for at as high a rate as possible in order that
he may have time and money for the real purpose of life—doing nothing.
The English mechanic, although the statesman is trying to knock such
foolishness out of him, still expects to find something satisfying in
his work. He still seeks a measure of contentment in the exercise of
skill.
Mass-production fits in well with the American workman’s ideas: it does
not fit in with the English workman’s ideas. The English do not and
will not produce cheap motor-cars or cheap aeroplanes as quickly and as
well as the Americans.
If English flying-machines are to be made capable of competing with
American and others, the English, after being freed from official
interference, must leave standardization and mass-production to
people who are temperamentally suited to them, and instil into
these flying-machines some of the idiosyncrasy of their race. Their
flying-machines must be creations expressive of the characters of those
who design and construct them.
The only English cars having any success in America (and elsewhere) are
those few in which perfection of craftsmanship and idealism in design
are notable. They are the kind of cars English designers and mechanics
are temperamentally able to produce. The mass-produced cheap English
car or flying-machine will remain a feeble imitation of the American.
But the idealistic creation, the machine-entity of the English
artist-scientist in car or flying-machine has a place to itself in the
scheme of things. In its best form it is unique.
The financier’s influence in aviation is not yet so noticeable as
in motoring, but it is becoming stronger. Should the aeroplane pass
entirely into his hands, it will cease to progress as a flying-machine
and will start progressing as a bank-note churn. With the future of
such an instrument I am unable to deal, since I have no personal
experience of either churns or bank-notes.
If it is to make headway as an individual creation the flying-machine
must receive the freedom of the air. It must develop its own
individuality as a machine-entity. Freedom of the air and the
complementary institution of mechanical craftsmanship are the essential
conditions for development of the flying-machine. Without those
conditions I have nothing to write of its future. With those conditions
the flying-machine presents possibilities of development in high-speed
transport that will warrant future generations describing the present
age as the static age.
But I must insist that, for the forecast I am now to make, I postulate
the gagging and binding or otherwise bottling-up of the statesman and
financier.
Only then will this machine-entity, the creation of the
artist-scientist, grow. And that the machine-entity, the car or
aeroplane as a real and living thing exists will be accepted by all who
have spent much time in controlling and looking after high-performance
aeroplanes or racing-cars. These machines, built with a single purpose,
are sensitive to the treatment they receive as the stone is sensitive
to the sculptor’s chisel or the violin-strings to the musician’s bow.
Turn for one moment from the standard cars, the wheeled furniture-shops
“replete with every comfort including cigarette lighter and flower
vase” which make hideous our streets to the other extreme and regard
the finely-wrought, aesthetically satisfying racing-car which is to
be seen in the American and Continental road-races and occasionally
at Brooklands. I do not suggest that racing-cars should be used for
transport even in these “most brisk and giddy paced times”; I merely
refer to the racing-car as indicative of a certain attitude towards
the machine. The makers of flying-machines should be free, if such is
their desire, to aim at the fineness, craftsmanship, and originality in
design exemplified in the racing-car.
II
The civil flying-machine, when it is examined in the light of
contemporary aeronautical research-work, seems rich in possibilities.
Apart from electrical repulsion, there are five different ways
of flying, of which only two are at present in general use,
lighter-than-air flight and fixed-wing heavier-than-air flight. I
think that a third method is about to be widely adopted, and that this
third method will, in time, profoundly influence the whole future of
aeronautics.
A comparison between the present system of artificial flight and
natural flight will suggest what that third method is.
Let us go to Croydon, the airport of London, and examine a typical
three-engined passenger-carrying aeroplane.
The three engines are running, for the machine is about to take off.
The coffin-shaped thing whose sides flap in the wind from the airscrews
is the fuselage. The machine shows signs of malnutrition, for its bones
are prominent in the form of wires and struts. As the engines are run
up, the tail shakes and sneezes and coughs until it seems that the
fuselage will be ruptured. Now the machine taxis over the aerodrome,
its engines open up with a roar, it labours over the ground, and then,
looking a little fatigued, it rises into the air.
It passes overhead making a noise like a thunderstorm, shivering and
quaking, barging its way along with a clumsy ineffectualness which
gives it the appearance of flying through treacle.
When it is out of sight, go to Waterloo Bridge and watch the gulls.
A gull is a hopelessly uncommercial flying machine. It does not pay,
it has no ground organization, it is not fitted with wireless, no
control-tower informs it when it may land, no books are kept of its
mileage or hours flown, no managers, assistant-managers, clerks,
secretaries, typists, accountants, ministers, directors, officials,
or meteorologists concern themselves in its safety. No offices,
search-lights, flood-lights, neon-lights, leader-cables, or directional
wireless stations are set aside for its control and supervision. No
treatises are written about its future. A gull is not “a commercial
proposition”. It is, however, a good machine for flying.
Neither the superficial nor the fundamental defects of the
passenger-carrying aeroplane are present in the gull. The gull is a
coherent, unified structure without exposed bracing-wires, struts,
or engines. It gets off quickly, flies at a great pace (for its
power-loading), is fairly silent and very manoeuvrable, can defeat fog,
rain, hail, snow, and gale, and can alight anywhere.
As a flying-machine it owes its basic superiority over the aeroplane
to a single, ingenious trick: a trick which looks easy, but which, for
many years, the scientist found it impossible to reproduce in practical
mechanics.
When flying was first thought about this trick engaged much attention.
The mechanical difficulties in reproducing it, however, refused to be
conquered, and about 1680, Borelli, having this trick in mind, wrote:
“The Icarian invention is entirely mythical because impossible”, a view
which, according to Mr J. E. Hodgson’s _History of Aeronautics_, was
supported by Leibnitz. Afterwards and until just recently the trick has
been almost entirely neglected. I think it probable that it will regain
its old importance, and that it will become the pivot upon which the
whole future of the heavier-than-air land-going flying-machine will
turn.
What is this trick which for centuries baffled the mechanician, yet
which the gull finds so simple? What is the one fundamental difference
between the means employed by the gull for flying and the means
employed by the aeroplane?—It is the difference between the fixed wing
and the moving wing.
The gull has the trick of being able to move its wings relative to
its body. The gull is a moving-wing flying-machine. The conventional
aeroplane is a fixed-wing-flying-machine.
Almost every important advantage which the gull (and any other bird)
has over the type of aeroplane which has so far been most popular may
be traced to the gull’s ability to move its wings. For that reason
alone it can get off without a long run, defeat fog and gale, and
alight anywhere.
Since the time of the artificial “flying pigeon” of Archytas in the
5th. cent. B.C. the manner of whose flight seems obscure, attempts have
been made to build machines which imitate the gull by flapping their
wings. Several people, including Bladud, the legendary flying King of
Britain, found out in an unpleasant manner that the muscles were not
strong enough to actuate man-lifting wings. And in the construction
of engine-driven ornithopters the mechanical difficulties invariably
proved insuperable. The natural flapping wing has never been exactly
imitated by mechanical means in a flying-machine, nor have the leg and
foot been exactly imitated by mechanical means in a motor-car.
The motor-mechanician, in using the wheel in place of the leg and foot,
imitated the principle employed by nature for land-locomotion but
not the means. Will the aeroplane-mechanician imitate the principle
employed by nature for flight but not the means?
The aeroplane-mechanician has already accomplished this feat in a
rudimentary form in the Cierva Autogiro, which is commonly (and
accurately) called the windmill aircraft.
The helicopter has never achieved much success and, for the present
purpose, it may be classed with the ornithopter as obsolete. The
autogiro, therefore, is the first practical moving-wing aircraft. It
accomplishes that which generation after generation of mechanicians
found it impossible to accomplish. It has seized on the bird-principle
of flight and translated it into practical mechanics.
III
The existing autogiro, although it may not resemble the more developed
types which will eventually appear, is the most successful moving-wing
flying-machine yet produced. Señor de la Cierva’s work was described
by an aeronautical engineer as being of secondary importance only
to that of the Wright brothers. That first flush of enthusiasm may
be over, but there seems little doubt that future generations will
regard Señor de la Cierva as the inventor of moving-wing flight. And
I believe that there will be a fierce battle, more prolonged and more
vigorous than has ever been fought between two machines, the battle
between moving-wing flight and fixed-wing flight. The struggle between
reciprocating engine and turbine, broad gauge and narrow gauge,
lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air, water-cooling and air-cooling
will be as nothing compared with the imminent struggle between
fixed-wing and moving-wing.
The autogiro obtains lift from a _free_, four-bladed windmill. Each
blade of the windmill is a wing and is articulated at the root so
that its tip can rise and fall. The autogiro is drawn forward by an
ordinary aero-engine and airscrew which are entirely separated from the
windmill. As the machine is drawn through the air the relative wind,
blowing on the blades or wings, rotates the windmill and it lifts the
machine. The wings rise and fall, and this beating motion gives the
machine a measure of stability.
To exert lift a wing must move through the air.
The moving-wing aircraft derives lift from wings which can move through
the air even though the body of the machine be stationary or nearly
stationary. In the fixed-wing aeroplane both body and wings must move
if the wings are to exert lift.
[Illustration:
Fig. 1.—Diagrammatic representation of moving-wing and fixed-wing
flight. The wings of both machines have travelled equal distances
AA and BB but the body of the moving wing machine has remained
stationary relative to the ground.
]
The difference between moving-wing and fixed-wing aircraft is so
important to this discussion that I shall venture to describe it again
in different words. A fixed-wing aircraft is like a bird with its wings
paralysed or in splints. A moving-wing aircraft is like a bird having
the full use of all its faculties. (Fig. 1).
Perhaps the most important advantage which the moving-wing aircraft has
over the fixed-wing aircraft is that it can virtually land on one spot.
The conventional aeroplane must move forward in still air if it is to
keep up; it must still move forward while landing, and afterwards allow
its impetus to be dissipated during a run along the ground.
In addition to this ability to land on a spot, the moving wing aircraft
is less likely to become uncontrollable while it is in the air. The
fixed-wing aircraft must become uncontrollable in the air if its speed
drops below a certain point. This point was called by airmen “the
stalling speed”. It has needed the mathematician to produce the phrase:
“control of stalled aeroplanes”. In current English a stalled aeroplane
is an aeroplane which is uncontrollable, even if the speed must drop to
zero before this condition arises. If any fixed stalling-_angle_ can be
said to exist outside technical reports, it is the angle at which the
lift of the wings is so reduced that the machine must fall to a nearly
vertical position before recovering.
The moving-wing aircraft in the rudimentary form we know it to-day
could stall, but it would need a major structural failure or violent
and prolonged misuse of the controls to make it do so.
And now one of the weapons which will be used in the battle which I
predict between the two main types of heavier-than-air flying machines
will be recognized. The weapon of the spot-landing.
Taking advantage of its special characteristics, the moving-wing
flying-machine within fifteen years will open hostilities by carrying
passengers into and from the hearts of cities and by running safely
through fog thick enough to stop other transport services. Up till
then the fixed-wing machine with its aerodromes on the outskirts of
cities will have held the field almost unchallenged. But whereas the
fixed-wing aircraft has now had twenty-two years development, the
moving-wing aircraft has had only about three years.
At first, even when it has matured, people will be shy of the
moving-wing machine, and only gradually will it begin to attract
passengers used to the other type.
Travellers will begin to realize that, when they go by fixed-wing
machines, they waste so much time and suffer so much discomfort in the
terminal communications that the advantages of the air-passage are
largely neutralized.
At present the air-traveller going from Paris to London spends one
and a half hours covering the few miles to and from the aerodromes to
the centres of the two cities and only two to two and a half hours
covering the 225 miles of the air-journey. Moreover, he changes
vehicles twice, at Croydon and at Le Bourget, as he does by boat and
train at Dover and at Calais. The aircraft’s ability to fly over land
and sea alike, therefore, has not given the traveller the advantage of
a through-journey. He must taxi from his hôtel in Paris to the place
where the air-company’s car starts, change from car to aeroplane at Le
Bourget, change from aeroplane to car at Croydon, and taxi from the
car’s stopping place to his home. (Fig. 2).
[Illustration:
Fig. 2.—Diagrammatic representation of the advantage in flexibility
of an aircraft capable of making spot landings and so of using small
aerodromes. Alone among vehicles it could provide a through journey
to the centres of cities.
]
The aeroplane dare not risk attempting the journey in thick fog or
heavy snow or hail because, in order to support itself, it must move
forward through the air at a minimum of say 60 miles per hour. At
this speed the pilot, even if aided by a leader-cable, has difficulty
in finding the aerodrome in thick weather; as much difficulty as a
motor-car-driver unable to go slower than 20 miles per hour would have
in crossing London in a dense fog.
If he thinks he catches a glimpse of a landmark, the pilot cannot stop
or slow down and look again to confirm his impression; he must continue
to travel at 60 m.p.h. And if he fail to find the aerodrome he must
endeavour to put down his machine—still travelling at 60 m.p.h.—on
an area of ground which he cannot see clearly and which he does not
know. If a house, ditch, hedge, tree, chimney, shed, road, telegraph
wire, pole, or other obstruction is in the way the result is a serious
accident.
The disadvantages under which the fixed-wing aircraft suffers when
landing and when flying during bad visibility are inherent in the
principle of flight it employs. The moving-wing machine will therefore
concentrate its attack at these very points. Since it is able to fly
slowly, and virtually to hover, it can feel its way through fairly
thick fog. Even if the pilot cannot find the aerodrome, comparatively
little danger attaches to a forced landing on unknown ground, because
the descent can be made vertically or almost vertically and there is
almost no run after touching the ground.
Aerodromes on the roofs of buildings have been foretold with tiresome
persistence. A Frenchman succeeded in landing a fixed-wing aeroplane
on a roof in Paris. Even so I cannot foresee roof-aerodromes for
fixed-wing aircraft, which is the purpose for which former prophets
have foreseen them; but I emphatically can foresee roof-aerodromes for
slow-landing, moving-wing aircraft.
Travellers going by future air-lines will take a taxi from their homes
to Charing Cross, step into a moving-wing machine on a roof-aerodrome,
fly to Paris, land on another roof-aerodrome near the Place de l’Opéra,
and take a taxi to their hotel.
I think it likely that, by the time it reaches maturity, the full
speed of the moving-wing aircraft will be below that of the fixed-wing
aircraft. But it will make up for this disadvantage by offering
travellers the advantages of eliminating terminal communications and
changes of vehicle. Part of the time it loses between Croydon and Le
Bourget it will regain between Croydon and Charing Cross and between Le
Bourget and the Place de l’Opéra. Moreover, on days when, through fog,
the fixed-wing aircraft-service is suspended, the moving-wing aircraft
will still operate.
By these means the moving-wing aircraft will become a formidable
competitor of the fixed-wing aircraft. How will the fixed-wing aircraft
reply to the attack?
It will make a supreme effort to increase its speed to such an extent
that it will offer to travellers a journey taking from door to door
only about two-thirds of the time occupied by the other type. To do
this the time lost in terminal communications by motor-car will, at
first, be partly recovered by extremely high flying speeds. The 250
miles per hour air-express will make its appearance. The wing-loading
of these machines will be high. Dr Rohrbach the German designer,
believes that great advantages accrue through high wing-loadings, and
in lectures and papers he has described at length the reasons for his
belief. In order to get these highly loaded machines off quickly and to
land them within an aerodrome of reasonable size, a form of catapult
launching apparatus and an arrester will be employed.
Catapult-launching has been proved, in England, America, Italy, and
France, to be practicable with fairly large aircraft. There is no
reason to suppose that its development will not continue.
An aircraft-arrester was described by Mr G. H. Dowty in a paper read
before the Institution of Aeronautical Engineers in October 1926.
It consisted in a drum having wound round it a length of cable. The
aeroplane, by some hook and line device similar to that used by Army
co-operation machines in picking up messages, will connect itself to
the end of the cable. The cable will rotate the drum against a brake,
and the aeroplane will be arrested. Mr Dowty calculates that a machine
travelling at 90 m.p.h. could by this means, be brought to a standstill
in 100 yards without an excessive strain being put on the machine’s
structure.
The chances of forced landings in these highly loaded fixed-wing
machines will be reduced to a negligible quantity by big reserves of
power and by providing that power through many engines.
In spite of the acceleration of the fixed-wing services made possible
by the use of these express-aeroplanes, the popularity of the
moving-wing services will continue to grow. The public will count time
well lost against the discomfort of changing twice and motoring long
distances through roads as inadequate for the traffic of that day as
the existing ones are for the traffic of this. They will continue to
take taxis to the Charing Cross roof-aerodrome when they want to travel
by air to Paris, York, Manchester, Glasgow, or Dublin.
The drifting of passengers to the moving-wing services will spur
the supporters of the fixed-wing services to devise another reply.
They will build motor speedways from Croydon reaching into the heart
of London and from all the other big aerodromes into the hearts of
the cities they serve. These speedways will have no side-turnings
or cross-roads. They will be forbidden to pedestrians, bicyclists,
lorries, ’buses, and similar vehicles. They will be hedged in on either
side like railway lines. The flat-footed influence of policeman and
politician will be excluded and along these tracks cars will carry
passengers to and from the aerodromes at 100 miles per hour. Assisted
by these tracks, the great speed of the fixed-wing services will
temporarily prevail, and a fair supply of passengers will be assured
although the moving-wing services will still flourish.
The position at this stage of the battle might be described as a
deadlock. The next stage will perhaps be the most remarkable of all.
It may have been noticed that, unlike most prophets, I have been
exceedingly modest in naming the distances over which these
future services will operate. While discussing the battle between
fixed-wing and moving-wing, instead of speaking of Empire services,
Globe-circling airlines, or non-stop hemispherical flying expresses,
I have spoken of trivial routes like London-Paris and London-Glasgow.
I have not even mentioned London-Karachi, London-Melbourne, or
London-Montreal.
My modesty was only temporarily assumed. I am now about to throw it
off in order to describe what I believe will be the most important
development of the flying machine. This development will begin during
the latter part of the fixed-wing, _v._ moving-wing battle.
IV
I have spoken, in describing the fixed-wing versus moving-wing battle,
only of short air-lines, because I think the establishment of the
successful short line will precede the establishment of the long.
It is argued that the saving in time effected by the flying-machine
becomes valuable only in long journeys, so that no one would bother
to go to an aerodrome and take an aeroplane in order to save half an
hour or so, and that the train-service in England is so good that the
aeroplane-service would be incapable of competing with it successfully.
And, while the disadvantages of short air-services are magnified, the
disadvantages of long air-services are forgotten or not appreciated.
At present a short journey of three or four hours by aeroplane is all
that the average passenger can stand in comfort. There is no room for
him to move about much in the present cabins, and the noise of the
engines, wires, and airscrews is fatiguing to anyone not used to it.
Moreover, the time-basis is not the only basis on which the traveller
compares the merits of the means of travel at his disposal. The ship
provides its passengers with social intercourse and a high degree of
comfort. A long journey by sea is usually a pleasant, invigorating
experience. On a journey by air, on the other hand, the passengers
get no fresh air, they have no opportunity for making friends,
for conversation, dancing, games, or any other of the fascinating
trivialities which flavour life on board a passenger-steamer. The
traveller offered the use of a long distance air-line, therefore, is
invited to choose between, perhaps, three days discomfort and isolation
in the cramped cabin of an aeroplane and three weeks social pleasure
and invigorating laziness on board ship.
Now the disadvantages which attend long-distance air-travel in modern
type machines are due almost entirely to the small size of passenger
aircraft when compared with ships. The aeroplane will not be successful
as a long-distance vehicle until it can give its passengers most of the
pleasures they would get on board ship. It will not be able to give
its passengers even a small fraction of those pleasures until it is as
large as or nearly as large as the ship.
The pleasures of long-distance travel vary almost directly as the
size of the vehicle. Can the aeroplane ever be made so large that it
can offer its passengers the space and freedom of even a small-sized
passenger-boat?
I do not think the aeroplane can ever become sufficiently big, but I do
think the seaplane or the flying-boat can and will become sufficiently
big to offer that degree of space and freedom.
I believe that aircraft will begin to compete successfully with boat
and train in carrying the merchandize and passengers of the world only
after the coming of the era of the hydro-aeroplane (I use this word to
include both seaplane and flying-boat).
The longest flight ever made in one machine was made in a
hydro-aeroplane. The largest machines ever built are hydro-aeroplanes.
The heavier-than-air machines carrying the greatest weight are
hydro-aeroplanes. I am confident that the era of the hydro-aeroplane
will come, and that, until it comes, aircraft will not compete
successfully with boat and train.
I have based my first conclusion, that the moving-wing aeroplane
will become a powerful competitor of the fixed-wing aeroplane for
short-distance air-transport, on flexibility. The moving-wing machine
can go from door to door, no matter if the journey is partly over the
sea and partly over the land. I base my second conclusion, that the
hydro-aeroplane will become the pre-eminent vehicle for long-distance
air-transport, on size. The hydro-aeroplane can be built as large as
may be required.
If people are to journey even for one day in the same vehicle, they
need space and freedom of movement. They need wide promenade decks,
lounges, restaurants, cabins, smoking-rooms. They cannot be confined to
a single basket chair.
For long-distance air-transport the sardine-theory so popular with our
London transport controllers must be abandoned. The sardine-theory must
be recognized for what it is, a system of getting more money out of
the passenger by increasing his discomfort. The more you squeeze the
passenger, the more the money oozes out of him.
The aeroplane cannot, I think, become very much larger than the largest
machines of to-day because the support of much greater weights on the
landing-wheels becomes difficult. At present there are machines in
which each landing-wheel must carry 6 tons. If the weight were much
increased, the three-point suspension on wheels and tail-skid would
become impracticable. The provision of a caterpillar landing-gear and
of aerodromes with prepared surfaces might be possible and might assist
matters if machines, say eight or nine times the size of the present,
were contemplated. But, to obtain the comfort required (and given by
the ship) on a long voyage, the machines would need to be some fifty
or a hundred times the size of the largest existing types. When those
sizes were reached, the problems of supporting the weight on the ground
and of manoeuvring on the ground, taking off, and landing would become
exceedingly difficult to solve.
Yet these problems are comparatively easy to solve in the large
hydro-aeroplane. A large hydro-aeroplane with a high wing-loading
could, if necessary, use the open sea as its aerodrome. Since the
problem of the forced landing would definitely have been overcome by
the power-unit arrangement, the large hydro-aeroplane would fly over
land or sea. Its stations would be sea ports, lakes, or wide rivers.
The aeroplane both with moving and fixed wing will certainly grow
in size; but nothing seems to me to indicate that it will be able
to keep pace with the growth of the hydro-aeroplane. The growth
of the hydro-aeroplane is foreshadowed in a French machine and a
German machine which have appeared recently. The hundred-passenger
hydro-aeroplane is a proven possibility. I can see no insuperable
obstacle to the eventual arrival of the 1,000-passenger or the
2,000-passenger hydro-aeroplane. Moreover, the fog-landing problem
is easier to solve in the sea-going than in the land-going fixed-wing
aircraft. Good automatic landing devices are more easily designed for
hydro-aeroplanes than for aeroplanes.
Mr O. E. Simmonds, of the design staff of a firm of British flying-boat
constructors, said: “The largest successful flying-boats yet built have
weighed about 30,000 lbs. I shall certainly feel that progress has been
inordinately slow if we have not constructed a boat of 100,000 lbs.
gross weight _by the end of the next decade_.”
The first real air-liner, carrying some five or six hundred passengers,
will probably appear after or towards the end of the battle between
fixed and moving-wing machines. And it will be a flying-boat. The
unsolved problems attending high-altitude air-transport seem to be so
difficult that I am inclined to believe that high altitude transport
will not become a regular method in this generation.
The possibilities of machines capable of travelling at immense speeds
in the rarefied air at a height of 15 miles or so from the ground are
attractive. But, if a forecast is to be based on research-work actually
accomplished at the time, it is made, then high-altitude flying must be
excluded.
Among the problems which high-altitude flying involves and which seem
to postpone its arrival to the distant future are: the infinitely
variable pitch airscrew, the light, positive, infinitely variable gear
(without ratchet final drive), the sealed cabin with self-contained
ventilating system, the engine altitude supercharger, and the variable
camber-wing. Among these the Leitner automatic infinitely variable
pitch airscrew is one of the most interesting inventions ever made
in airscrew design, but it is at present in its earliest stages. The
Constantinesco torque-converter, which is an automatic infinitely
variable gear, might be adaptable to aircraft. The sealed cabin
presents great practical difficulties, as does the variable camber-wing.
From this brief parenthesis the difficulties of high-altitude
transport will be apparent. It is almost certain to come, but its day
is likely to be distant, and for that reason I have concentrated on
possibilities less remote.
Now that the long and short distance air-liners have been dealt with, I
will give a brief sketch of how the traveller will use these vehicles.
If Mr X, who lives at Hampstead, desires to go to Melbourne, Australia,
he will first pile his luggage onto a taxi and drive to the terminus
of some moving-wing aircraft line. This terminus will be close to the
centre of London: A highly developed moving-wing aircraft will take him
to the coast. The machine will land on the quay beside which will float
a flying-boat express. This machine will be a fixed-wing flying-boat of
about 1,000 tons. It will be a monoplane, the wings growing from the
hull at a sharp dihedral angle and then curving down until they are
horizontal.
The engines will be particularly interesting. Most designers, even now,
are endeavouring to eliminate reciprocating motion in petrol-engines.
The trend of thought is towards substituting the sleeve-valve for the
poppet-valve and towards increasing the number of cylinders. More and
more inventors “invent” gas-turbines. Their engines have had varying
degrees of failure, although a few, the Jean Mély turbine among
them, are reported to have gained a measure of success. One of these
inventors will soon be completely successful. The movement towards the
rotary gas-engine is too vigorous and too general to remain for ever
unfruitful. The gas-turbine will be the aero-engine of the future. It
will be cooled by an evaporative system.
One pound of water carries only 20 B.T.U., whereas 1 lb. of steam
carries 966 B.T.U. Wing Commander Cave-Browne-Cave, in a paper read
before the Royal Aeronautical Society, drew attention to the advantages
for aircraft of evaporative engine cooling. He said: “By far the
lightest way of conveying heat is as the latent heat of steam.” On test
a standard aero-engine gave the same power and fuel-consumption with
evaporative as with water-cooling. The greatest advantage will accrue
in reduction of resistance. Panels in the aircraft surface will receive
heat in the steam and thus the drag caused by water-radiators even of
the wing or strut type, or air-cooled cylinders will be eliminated.
The evaporative cooling system will not freeze up at the highest
altitudes: it will probably maintain the engine at a more even working
temperature than an air-cooling system, and the steam will provide a
suitable means of heating the passenger cabins and pilot’s cockpit and
of cooking.
The flying-boat to which Mr X is now having his luggage transferred
then, has twelve evaporative-cooled gas-turbines housed in the
wings, six on the starboard and six on the port side. Eight of them
will drive tractor airscrews and four will drive propellers through
torque-converters. There may be a system of concentrating the whole
engine-power at three or four airscrews.
The entire machine, including the wing-coverings, will be built of
metal. “I cannot conceive”, said M. Dewoitine, the French designer,
“that the ultimate aeroplane can be in anything else but metal, in the
same way that metal ships to-day completely replace the wooden ships
of days gone by.” The living quarters in the hull would be arranged
on labour-saving lines. The passengers would have drawing-room,
dining-saloon, lounge, and promenade deck. The promenade deck on a
long-distance air-express will be different from the promenade deck
on a liner. It will be enclosed in the hull and will be lighted by a
transparent roof and sides.
Mr X finds his cabin arranged in much the same way as in a ship, and,
having settled his things, he goes up to the lounge, where the other
passengers are congregating. A few minutes later, with a faint hum, two
of the tractor-airscrews begin to revolve, and the flying-boat moves
slowly away from the quay. Two more airscrews start revolving, and the
machine, having taxied out, turns into wind. It pauses a moment as
if it were taking breath, then the twelve air-screws spin faster and
faster until they appear as discs of light. The machine moves forward
heavily, a solid mass of metal, with the passengers watching from the
windows of the promenade deck. It lumbers through the water, but throws
up but little spray. Then it seems to stretch itself, throw back its
head, and to rise bodily out of the water until it runs on the surface
of—instead of in—the water. Already it appears lighter and less clumsy.
Finally, after giving the water two or three parting pats, it takes to
the air and, in spite of its great mass, instantly becomes an agile,
graceful flying-machine.
The usual amusements, the usual eating, drinking, reading, and talking
will employ the passengers’ time in the air. For the daily round goes
on in much the same way ashore, afloat or aflight. The night flying is
exhilarating, although there is, of course, almost no sense of speed.
Though the sea is rough, the machine, at 4,000 ft. is as steady as a
rock. As the first stopping place rushes towards the machine, the hum
of the engines alters note and the machine dips in a gentle glide.
The mouth of a river, with shipping on it and two more flying-boat
expresses lying at a quay a short way up the river, comes into view.
The machine wheels round and glides closer and closer to the water.
Four of the airscrews give a short burst of speed, and then the hull
rips the surface of the water with a hiss.
Soon afterwards Mr X has said good-bye to his voyage acquaintances who
are disembarking, and the machine is off on the next stage.
The success of the large, long-distance flying-boat will mark the
beginning of the concentration of fixed-wing machines on long-distance
routes and the concentration of moving-wing machines on short, distance
routes. The fixed-wing machine, finding it has no rival in the large
flying-boat type and finding that it has a strong rival in the
comparatively small land-going type (that rival being the moving-wing
machine) will gradually remove itself from the short air-lines. The
position will then be that all short air-lines are run by moving-wing
land-going aircraft while all long air-lines are run by fixed-wing
sea-going aircraft.
The real air-liner, as distinct from the commercial flying soap-box
of to-day, will be an immense sea-going air-vessel. It will be a
self-contained town offering greater attractions to the pleasure-seeker
than any other kind of small town. When that machine makes its
appearance the Air Age will have begun.
V
Before I described the passenger-carrying flying-machine towards which
contemporary research-work seems directed, I postulated the freedom
of the air for that machine. I stipulated that the statesman and the
financier should be gagged and bound. Now that I come to private-flying
and air-racing, however, the imagination jibs at the notion of a
similar freedom of the air. If the statesman were prevented from
meddling with the technical development of the passenger-carrying
flying-machine, he would most likely turn with redoubled vigour to
the task of controlling, organizing, watching over, regulating, and
generally bleeding the private, the record-breaking, and the racing
aircraft.
I can, therefore, sketch the future of those machines only as the
statesman will direct it.
The small fixed-wing private flying-machine, especially in the
amphibian form, will gradually become more and more popular and, as it
grows more popular, so the statesman will take more notice of it. His
first opportunity for direct action will come when a few people get
killed in an accident involving a private aircraft.
Taking advantage of the Press outcry, of the screams of the Safety
First societies and of the opportunity for personal aggrandizement,
Members of Parliament will pass a Flying-Machine Act.
Among the provisions of this Act will be a 40-miles per hour minimum
speed-limit. No heavier-than-air craft will be permitted to fly at a
speed of less than 40 miles per hour. It is easy to follow the workings
of the official mind in setting this speed-limit. A fixed-wing aircraft
crashes not because it goes too fast but because it goes too slowly.
Therefore, the statesman will reason, if it is illegal to go too
slowly, there will be no more accidents.
Another provision will make it illegal for anyone suffering from
nicotine-poisoning to be in charge of a flying-machine. (Prohibition
will be established in England by this time, so that no clause about
“drunk in charge of a flying-machine” will be necessary.)
Further regulations will make it necessary for every private pilot to
pass a medical examination once a month as a condition of his having a
pilot’s licence. Having passed this examination, he will be required
to wear, while in charge of an aeroplane, two 8-inch metal discs, with
a number stamped upon them. One disc will be worn on the left shoulder
and the other on the top of the flying-helmet.
The aeroplane, in addition to its letter markings on wings and
fuselage, will be required to exhibit three plaques bearing
identification-numbers. One will be on the centre section, one on the
undercarriage, and one on the port side of the fuselage. The aeroplane
will also carry metropolitan or county police markings on four tablets
of given size, besides markings of the appropriate local council on
plates of certain specified dimensions, and small circular pieces of
paper contained in approved holders on the rear port interplane-strut
(or wing-tip in the case of a monoplane), the rear starboard
interplane-strut (or wing-tip) the undercarriage port forward-strut,
the tail-fin, the fuselage, and the top plane gravity-tank (if any).
In addition to the pilot’s logbook, machine logbook, engine logbook,
pilot’s licence, and airworthiness certificate, there will be a
registration-book, travel-triptych, flight-permit, landing-permit, and
housing-pass.
These items are, of course, extra to the navigation-lights, wing-tip
flares, cockpit-illuminants, parachute-flares, fire-extinguishers,
silencers, life-saving parachutes, and other obligatory equipment, such
as lifebelts, fire-proof bulkheads, stall-indicators, warning-signals,
and Very lights.
These regulations will provide the police with the opportunity of
displaying their keen sense of duty. They will ignore the old-fashioned
and mundane murders, and will say with Horace Walpole: “Do not wonder
that we do not entirely attend to the things of earth; fashion has
ascended to a higher element.”
Conceive the vigour and elegance with which they will uphold the 40
m.p.h. minimum speed-limit. What their stopwatches (for they will still
use them) and observation lacks in accuracy, they will make up for by
the free imagery and sweeping poetic fancy of their evidence in Court.
The pilot who flies while suffering from nicotine-poisoning will be
the object of universal opprobrium. His social doom will be sealed
when the witness says that his breath _smelt of tobacco_ and that he
must have been smoking the same morning. The pilot’s statement that he
only had two cigarettes during the previous month will be completely
discountenanced.
But the best chance for the police will come when the private
moving-wing machine begins to make an appearance. Then will dawn the
true constabulary millennium.
The moving-wing machine, as it has been shown, can almost hover and can
fly comfortably at five or ten miles per hour. One day a moving-wing
machine will pass through a police-trap while its pilot is admiring the
countryside or inquiring from his companion where they will stop for
lunch.
The pilot will appear in Court charged with flying at less than 40
miles per hour, and there will be a sensation when the detectives
disclose that defendant’s speed, which he did not deny, was 8 miles per
hour over a measured furlong.
The magistrate will say that, although he had been on that bench for
thirty-five years, never in his whole experience, never from the
moment that he had accepted those duties, never since the time when he
devoted himself to the administration of justice, _never_ had he heard
of such a flagrant disregard for the safety of the public. Here was a
flying-machine, over a populous area, travelling at 8 miles per hour
when everyone knew that a flying-machine gained its lift by virtue of
its speed through the air, and that if it travelled at less than forty
miles per hour it was liable at any moment to fall upon the heads of
the people below.
The pilot might endeavour to explain the technical points in the case.
If he did so, his fine would be greater than if he merely pleaded
guilty and said no more.
That case will be the signal for a wholesale persecution of moving-wing
aircraft-owners. The Home Secretary will issue warnings, magistrates
will wish that they could send pilots to prison—in fact there will be
the usual process of departmental browbeating which we know so well.
The theory that the private flyer will not be summoned for slow flying
because there will be moving-wing passenger aircraft also capable
of slow flying, does not bear investigation. There are now lorries,
motor-buses, charabancs, steam-wagons, and trams which persistently
exceed the 20-miles per hour speed limit. They are not prosecuted, nor
will the passenger aircraft of the future be prosecuted.
Having given some idea of the delightful future which lies before the
private flyer, I will add a few remarks upon air-racing.
After motor-road racing, air-racing is the finest sport yet invented. I
give it ten more years life in England.
Before the War air-racing at Hendon was highly successful in that it
attracted many entries and large crowds of spectators. Since the War
air-racing has been unsuccessful. There are signs, however, that there
will soon be a revival of it. Larger and larger crowds will collect to
watch it. Special machines will be constructed, the number of entries
will increase, continental firms will take part.
Then the statesman will step in and play his part, as he always must
when anything becomes popular.
Air-racing is and will remain dangerous. Statesmen and newspapers
will discover this and talk about it. Now I am informed upon the best
authority that in England no one is allowed to face danger of any
kind, whether he wants to or not. The State arranges that all dangers,
physical and moral, are kept away from the individual. He may not do,
see, hear smell, or taste anything calculated to arouse him from
the suety state of mind so highly esteemed by the politician. The
Englishman is nursed from birth to death by an army of officials. He is
permitted to risk his life only in war.
Air-racing, since it is dangerous, will gradually be stamped out of
existence. Air-racing improves the aircraft as a machine-entity; it
would have a good effect upon the private flyer’s machine and upon the
war-machine. When air-racing has been stopped, therefore, a decline in
the quality of the private flying-machine and the service-machine will
result.
Air-racing (with which I include record-breaking) is as important to
pure aeronautical development as anything else. The history of the
Schneider Cup seaplane-race is some indication of the technical advance
racing achieves. In 1913 at Monaco the Schnieder Cup, was won by France
at 45.4 m.p.h. In 1914 (England) at 86.4 m.p.h., in 1919 (Italy) at
124.9 m.p.h. (This race was declared void). In 1920 (Italy) at 107.2
m.p.h. In 1921 (Italy) at 111.4 m.p.h., in 1922 (England) at 146.1
m.p.h., in 1923 (America) 177.4 m.p.h., in 1925 (America) 234.4 m.p.h.
and in 1926 (Italy) at 246.5 m.p.h. (Fig. 3).
[Illustration: _Fig. 3 Schneider Cup_]
The Schneider Cup figures show that the much boasted rapidity of
progress in the performance of high-speed aircraft during the War
is a myth. During the War, progress was almost completely stopped.
Even if the Italian win of 1919 at 124.9 m.p.h. be accepted (and the
race was declared void because Janello was not observed at one of the
turning-points) the rate of progress compares unfavourably with the
rates before and after the War. If, on the other hand, the rate be
judged by the accepted wins of 1914 and 1920 then the top speed of
seaplanes rose only 20.8 m.p.h. in 6 years against 139.3 m.p.h. in 6
years after the War.
Up to 1926 there has been little sign of a falling off in the rate of
progress in high-speed seaplane-design, and a rough estimate, puts the
probable speed of the winner in 1928 at 290 m.p.h. and in 1930 at 320
m.p.h.
Record-breaking has a similar effect to racing upon technical
development. In 1919 Sir John Alcock and Sir A. Whitten Brown flew the
Atlantic non-stop for the first time in a heavier-than-air machine.
They covered 1,890 miles in about 16 hours. In 1926 M. Dieudonné Coste
and Capitaine Rignot covered 3,400 miles non-stop in 32 hours.
Whatever country takes up and encourages private flying, air-racing
and record-breaking will play a big part in the future of the
flying-machine.
VI
I see no reason to depart from the forecast of the future military
flying-machine which I make in my _Strategy and Tactics of Air
Fighting_.
Since the fixed-wing machine will probably retain a slightly superior
performance over the moving-wing machine (although it is fair to
Señor de la Cierva to add that some of the best mathematicians find
on theoretical calculation that the moving-wing aircraft should be
equal in all-round performance to the fixed-wing type), it is likely
that, excepting a proportion of army co-operation machines and a small
proportion of night-bombers the moving-wing machine will not in the
future be used in large numbers for war purposes.
Before constructing the machine of the future, let us go to the
R.A.F. annual Display, and refusing to be fascinated by the intricate
shape of the breeches worn by officers and men, let us examine an
experimental single-seater fighter of the present. When in the air the
machine is remarkable only for the undercarriage-struts and wheels
which hang below the fuselage. They look like a labourer’s hands in the
drawing-room, they are sturdy but, in the air, they do not seem to know
what to do with themselves, they are in unaccustomed surroundings.
Let this machine be compared with the gull. I use the gull for these
comparisons because it is common and easily observed and so provides
an accessible model. Indeed, it was the gull which instructed Mr A.
V. Roe and helped him to become, on June 8th, 1908, the first man to
fly over British soil. The experimental single-seater fighter at the
R.A.F. Display has very few characteristics of which any bird need be
ashamed. One of these characteristics, however, is undoubtedly its
undercarriage. The gull folds up its undercarriage when it is in the
air; it lets it down only when it is about to land.
But now compare the experimental machine with one of the standard
machines in an R.A.F. squadron. The standard service-machine looks as
if it has got into the hands of an accessory fiend, one of those who
believe that the part is greater than the whole. It is so cluttered
up with odds and ends, so cut about, modified, added to, and altered
that it resembles no other flying-machine, animal or artificial. It
is a sort of winged Air Ministry, a receptacle full of interesting
information about everything but the air.
Since this mania for encumbering service-machines is only a superficial
failing, it is possible, after remarking it, to go direct to the
service-machine of the future.
There is first a new type to be noted, the aerial artillery-machine.
This will be a large multi-engined monoplane carrying a single
medium-sized gun and a few rounds of ammunition. It will be able to
direct close range gunfire from the air at important ground-objectives.
The advantage of the aerial big gun over the bomb will be in accuracy,
the advantage of the bomb over the aerial big gun will be in the
great weight of projectile made possible by the absence of any heavy
launching-apparatus like a gun. The height of the aeroplane acts on
the bomb as the explosive charge on the projectile. But at long ranges
the bomb, with the newest sights and under the best conditions, is
inaccurate, and at short ranges its velocity is low. The aerial big gun
permits ground-objectives and ships to be attacked at short range with
projectiles travelling at a high velocity.
The success of low-flying attacks by machine-guns in the late War was
a sufficient demonstration of the potentialities of the low-altitude
gun-attack from the air. Experiments were made long ago in mounting
small guns in aeroplanes and in arranging for the absorption of the
recoil. Against other aircraft the aerial big gun would not be used. In
aerial fighting weight of projectile is of less importance than rate of
fire.
The night-bombing machine of the future will be an immense flying-boat.
It is likely that this type will also be used for day bombing. If so,
it will be heavily armed with machine-guns and will not go out without
a strong screen and escort of fighting machines.
The fighting aeroplane will be particularly interesting. It will be
a small monoplane without external bracing-wires or struts and the
undercarriage will be retractable. It will carry one man, and will be
an all-metal machine mounting a gas-turbine of some 1,000 h.p.
Performance-figures must be the wildest guess work, because the closest
examination of the trend of research gives but small information on
the probable rates of progress in speed and climb. Mr A. V. Roe has
frequently stated his belief that the future flying-machine will attain
1,000 miles per hour. I will, therefore, give my fighter of this
generation 400 miles per hour, 800 miles per hour in the dive, a climb
to 20,000 feet in 4 minutes, and a service-ceiling (the height at which
the rate of climb falls below 100 feet per minute) of 60,000 feet.
In order that the fighter may operate at high altitudes, and in order
that it may be able to change height suddenly by diving or climbing
steeply, the pilot will be housed in a pressure-cockpit, from which he
will look through a streamline conning-tower made in some transparent
material. Unless he were enclosed in some such pressure-chamber or
pressure-suit, the pilot would be unable to withstand the cold and
the reduced pressure of extreme altitudes, and the sudden changes in
temperature and pressure, when the machine was climbing or diving.
Pressure-suits are now being experimented with in France and probably
elsewhere.
Oxygen would be supplied to the pressure-chamber and an emergency
oxygen-apparatus would provide against the chamber being pierced by
a bullet. Some form of dessicating apparatus would be essential to
prevent the transparent conning-tower from fogging up. The fewest
accessories would be carried by these fighters of the future.
In general military aircraft will be more specialized than they are
to-day, there will be no many-purpose machines. Instead, the number of
specialist machines will steadily increase. In addition to the aerial
big guns, there will be flying-tanks or lightly armoured low-flying
machines for attacks on ground-targets. These will be developed from
the “Salamander”, “Vampire”, and other armoured aircraft introduced
during the late War.
Armour for fighting and bombing-aircraft will not be employed for many
years. The gunners on the large flying-boat bombers, however, will be
provided with small shields.
Perhaps a general idea of the future of the flying-machine in war may
best be given by quoting a newspaper report of a day air-attack on
London in the next war.
I cut the headlines and start with Our Special Correspondent, who, with
the printer’s assistance, has, if I may be permitted to say so, trodden
on it through all four gears:
“The greatest air-raid in history was launched on London yesterday
evening by a formation estimated at between six and seven hundred
aeroplanes.
“For nearly two hours the earth shook to the thunder of the guns,
while far up in the blue vault of Heaven there was the flash of
wheeling wings, as the heroic pilots of the Royal Air Force plunged
again and again to the attack.
“Never before has the heart of the Empire been the objective of
so powerful and so determined an offensive, never before have the
British air-forces so covered themselves with glory.
“Owing to the vigorous defence which met the raiders as they neared
London, casualties are low. Official figures have not yet been
issued, but it is thought that fewer than 1,000 people were killed
while only some 7,000 were wounded.
“FIRST WARNING.
“The raiders were first reported by the ‘concrete ears’ or wireless
disc and super-sensitive microphone sentries which encircle
the coast. A large formation (there was much doubt as to the
number of machines) was said to be approaching Southampton, and
with the exception of three emergency squadrons, every R.A.F.
fighting-aeroplane rushed to the attack.
“As our machines, sweeping through the freezing blue of the great
altitudes, approached the raiders, the raiders turned and made off
at full speed. Our machines bent on reaching the enemy, tore after
them.
“It was at this moment that ominous news came through. A second
hostile formation, far larger than the first, had been detected
approaching the East coast south of Harwich.
“Nearly the whole of the defending airforce was far away: London’s
bosom was bared to the attack.
“The new formation—first given as 400 machines but later corrected to
600—was in four great layers and flying at 170 miles per hour.
“The three emergency R.A.F. squadrons, numbering 54 machines of an
old type with five or six experimental machines from Martlesham Heath
and Farnborough, went up at once and hurled themselves at the vast
enemy formation.
“THREE TO ONE ODDS.
“The second layer of the hostile formation, which consisted of
about 150 long-distance fighters, engaged them. A furious battle
ensued, while the remainder of the hostile fleet, aerial big guns,
flying-boat bombers, and, at an extreme altitude, a further batch of
long-distance fighters, continued on their way towards London.
“The old R.A.F. machines were literally butchered by the whip-lashes
of lead which cracked and curled from the small-calibre stream-fire
enemy guns. One of our machines had both its wings cut off and fell
to the ground with such force that the airscrew-boss was buried 18
feet in the earth.
“Meanwhile wireless messages had reached the R.A.F. formation, which
had been drawn off by the feint attack on Southampton. _They had
turned and were tearing to the rescue at 350 miles per hour._
“The two big formations were in sight of each other when the enemy
was about 20 miles south west of Chelmsford. At this time there
was no active opposition to the invaders in the air. Anti-aircraft
batteries, however, were blackening the sky with shells, and had
succeeded in bringing down two enemy machines.
“There seemed now no hope that London would escape the full force
of the attack. Already two ten-ton wireless-controlled flying-bombs
had struck the city. Even so there was little panic. The gas-mask
distribution had worked well, and no one was unprovided. The usual
shelters were made full use of, but many people, against the orders
of the police, remained in the streets anxiously looking skywards and
listening to the almost continuous tear and roar of the guns.
“ANXIOUS MOMENTS.
“For some reason the news that the first hostile formation had
retired had not come through on the wireless. And, since no one knew
that far the greater part of the R.A.F. defending forces had gone in
pursuit of that formation or that the emergency squadrons had been
cut to pieces, a good deal of uneasiness prevailed among the watchers.
“Where are the R.A.F. fighters? was the question uppermost in
everyone’s mind.
“As the noise of the guns grew louder and seemed to vibrate and echo
among the houses, considerable alarm was displayed. There were one or
two ugly scenes, and some women and children were trampled to death
in raid shelters at Hoxton and Liverpool Street.
“A quarter of an hour before dusk the two lower layers of the hostile
formation were sighted by some people who had been foolish enough to
take up positions on the roof of the _Daily Post_ offices in Fleet
Street. Only the trained eyes of the anti-aircraft spotters aided
by the new visual detection instruments could distinguish the upper
layers.
“Still there was no sign of our aeroplanes. The stories of those
irresponsible alarmists who, in books and articles, have prophesied
as far back as 1927 that London would be wiped out by aerial attack,
seemed likely to prove too true. Excitement among the watchers gave
way to a certain grimness. Then came a change in the situation.
“‘What’s that?’
“THE BATTLE JOINED.
“Someone was pointing immediately overhead. Nothing could at first be
distinguished in the blue sky; then someone else waved excitedly.
“‘Yes, I caught a glimpse.’
“Just then the light of the setting sun glinted momentarily on some
infinitesimal speck like a minute silver fish, rushing through the
air at a great height. No one dared to express the hopes which they
felt.
“A moment later what looked at first like a small red rose sprang
into being high up over the enemy, high over the smoke-blackened sky
where the anti-aircraft shells were bursting. Then it fell, like a
flaming bomb. There was fighting going on up there, out of sight, in
the upper air.
“Still the lower hostile layers came on through the roar and shock
of the anti-aircraft fire. They were already over the outskirts of
London. Something else fell from above twisting horribly. The white
of parachutes drifting fantastically could be observed through
high-powered glasses.
“Quite suddenly the continuous thunder of the anti-aircraft
fire ceased. It was succeeded by an uncanny calm, and then by a
high-pitched metallic scream which grew in an ear-piercing crescendo.
_The R.A.F. aerial destroyers were engaging the lower enemy layers._
“The R.A.F. arrows of the upper air plunged into the very heart of
the raiders, streaming fire and lead. They wheeled and turned among
them with a swift, purposeful agility.
“RAIN OF BOMBS.
“The hostile formation began to split up, and simultaneously the
enemy commander gave by wireless the order to bomb. On the outskirts
of London huge factories and houses were suddenly transformed into
pillars of white dust. The shriek and thump of the falling bombs was
heard clearly in Central London.
“‘It was as if the ground were being torn up under your feet’, said a
postman eyewitness. ‘The people in the shelters came out and began
to run. They didn’t stop to think; they just ran like wild beasts,
trampling on each other, and hitting out at anyone who got in the
way, whether man, woman or child.
“‘The rain of bombs was so continuous that for as far as you could
see earth and buildings were spouting up in the air with human limbs
mixed up in them. The sound of the bombs falling was what knocked
people’s nerves up as much as anything.
“‘The gas-bombs didn’t seem so bad, but the incendiary bombs were a
nasty sight, at one time it looked as if the whole air had caught
fire.’
“According to official information, damage was small. Only the aerial
artillery-machines attained an objective of military importance. They
completely destroyed the F.E. aircraft factory at Finsbury Park.
“The raiders had timed their attack so as to escape in the dark, and,
although the new night detection flood-lights worked well, there is
no doubt that the hostile casualties were so few because our fighters
were hampered by the darkness.
“According to figures supplied by the Air Department of the War
Ministry, 37 hostile machines were brought down while only eighteen
of our own aerial destroyers were lost. The three emergency R.A.F.
squadrons which first attacked lost 39 machines and had several more
severely damaged.
“The raid is regarded by experts as a decisive victory for the
British Air-arm and a complete and convincing justification of the
policy of the Air-staff. It is pointed out that the raiders were
prevented from reaching their objective, and that, apart from the
old-type R.A.F. machines, our casualties are smaller than those of
the enemy.”
In another part of the same paper was this insignificant paragraph.
“A late Central News message, delayed owing to the disorganization
caused by yesterday’s air-raid, states that the hostile formation
which made a feint attack on Southampton and was driven off by our
machines, later returned to the same place and bombed it continuously
for half an hour, causing many casualties and much material damage.”
In the stop-press news was this:
“One a.m. Large hostile formation of aircraft reported approaching
mouth of Thames.”
In the above skit I have not dwelt on the terrible side of air-warfare
in the future. Yet I feel that that is the side upon which all who are
competent to do so, and who wish to prevent future wars should dwell.
Several novels have given pictures of future aerial warfare, but I have
not seen its inevitable horrors realistically portrayed. Unless those
horrors are portrayed frequently and in their true and shocking form,
people will soon forget the unpleasant side of air-war and think only
of its romantic and glorious side.
In the interests of humanity it would be a good thing if some able
novelist or film-producer would give us a statement of the crude
horrors of air-war. If such a one arises, he will have the satisfaction
of having helped the cause of peace and of having his work banned by
the Censor.
VII
So far I have spoken only of heavier-than-air flying-machines. There
is also the airship to which many people pin their faith for future
long-distance air-transport.
The airship was neglected in England after the War because experience
seemed to show that it was incapable of playing a useful part in
warfare. Its revival was chiefly due to Commander Burney, who
continually drew attention to his conviction that the airship could be
made a safe and successful long-distance air-transport vehicle.
Most airship advocates believe in the bigger the better theory. If
the gas-capacity of an airship is doubled, the disposable lift may
be quadrupled, and the size will be only about 1.3 times that of the
smaller vessel. For this reason the two English airships now being
built are each of 5,000,000 cu. ft. gas-capacity. One is being built
by the Government, the other for the Government to Commander Burney’s
general design.
These airships have provided matter for many speeches on Empire
air-ship-routes of the future. At the recent Imperial Conference
airships were spoken of as the right vessels for long-distance
air-lines. These forecasts are based on slender foundations.
Since 1914 only one successful commercial airship-service has been
run. The ‘Bodensee’ in 1919 made 103 trips between Berlin and
Friedrichshafen and carried 2450 passengers. Those 103 trips seem to
be an insecure basis upon which to build calculations about voyages
halfway round the world. The new airships may go from England to Egypt
in 2½ days, and from England to Melbourne in 12½ days, but nothing
has occurred in airship-development to strengthen the probability of
such events. The two new airships are nothing more than a gigantic
experiment.
I must make some unpleasant remarks about airships, but, before
doing so, it is necessary to record admiration of the English
airship policy. I do not agree with the man with a genius for mixed
metaphor who described the airship scheme as the “thin edge of the
white elephant”. On the contrary, in initiating this experiment the
Government has shown imagination and daring. Airship enthusiasts are
to have an opportunity of testing their theories. If the experiment
is a hopeless failure no money and no time will have been wasted, for
the knowledge gained will be of value in directing future aeronautical
development.
But to the question: Will the airship become the long-distance air
vehicle of the future? I answer No.
I base my view on an examination of airship history and on the opinions
of airship pilots. Upon that basis the probable future of the 5,000,000
cu. ft. vessels will be this:
The first one to be completed will make a first flight, and come to its
200 ft. mooring mast successfully. For several months it will cruise
periodically, and minor structural modifications will be made. It will
fly to India and back. Paying passengers will be accepted, and after
considerable delay the first long-distance passenger-flight will be
flown. Some two or three years after the airship comes from its shed,
it will meet with disaster.
More airships will be designed and built, larger still than those now
building. There will be another disaster.
By then the heavier-than-air machine in the moving-wing and fixed-wing
forms, will have proved itself capable of doing all that airships can
do and doing it more safely, more quickly, more regularly, and more
cheaply. The airship will gradually disappear, and its place will
be taken by the heavier-than-air craft, as the balloon is gradually
disappearing and its place being taken by the airship.
There is only one major difference between balloon and airship, a
difference in the amount of control exercised by the airman. The same
difference exists between airship and aeroplane. The aeroplane is
the more controllable. It can rise and descend with less preliminary
juggling; it can turn more quickly; and it can land more quickly.
In support of my pessimistic forecast I append a brief outline of
air-ship-history.
Lighter-than-air man-carrying flight started in 1783 when Pilâtre de
Rozier, the world’s first aeronaut, went up in a Montgolfier balloon.
In the same year a hydrogen filled balloon flew from Paris to Nesle. In
the following year an oblong balloon propelled by parasols as oars was
made by the Duc de Chartres.
In 1852 a small airship propelled by a steam engine was made. In 1882
Tissandier’s airship worked by an electric motor was flown, and in
1884 the airship ‘La France’ was flown. Count Zeppelin built his first
airship in 1900. Santos Dumont constructed an airship, and, in 1902,
flew it round the Eiffel Tower.
It will be seen that the airship has passed through a longer period of
development than the heavier-than-air flying-machine, even if the claim
that Clement Ader flew in 1897 be accepted. Lighter-than-air flight,
indeed, dates back to 1783.
The result of that longer development period is not such as to warrant
too sanguine a belief in the airship’s future. The accidents to
non-rigids and rigids have been many in proportion to the number of
vessels actually flown.
The last type of non-rigid built in England was the North Sea type,
one of which was destroyed by lightning soon after the War. Nine
people were killed. Among the rigids, R.34, which made the double
Atlantic crossing, was damaged beyond repair in 1921. R.33 has had many
adventures, among them being her break-away from the mooring-mast in
1925. This was hailed as a proof of the safety of airships. R.33 is
still alive, though she is treated with the respect due to her age.
R.36, the first British airship to be adapted for commercial purposes,
is still in existence though not in service. R.38 broke up over the
Humber in 1921 and forty-four people were killed.
The U.S.A. have the ‘Los Angeles’, which is the name now given to the
German designed and built ZR.3. The ‘Shenandoah’ broke away from
her mast in 1924, and was destroyed in 1926. According to survivors’
stories, the ‘Shenandoah’ was wrecked by the same kind of vertical
air-currents that wrecked an early Zeppelin in 1913. In all, nine
American airships have perished violently since the War.
The French ‘Dixmude’ was the ex-Zeppelin L.72. She created a world’s
record in 1923, and then disappeared off Sicily with all hands (54
people).
Considering how few large airships have been built, and how short a
time they are, on the average, kept in service, the proportion of
serious accidents is high. In war that proportion is prohibitively high.
The Zeppelin works have turned out more rigid airships than any factory
in the world. The fate of every Zeppelin airship completed since 1915
was recently given in a French technical paper. I do not vouch for
the figures, but they come from a fairly reliable source. Out of 76
airships no fewer than 37 (or nearly 50%) were put out of service
before they had completed one year’s work. Only four airships were
kept in service for more than three years. This is the record of the
firm which knows more about airships than any other firm in the world.
Yet airships have had longer to develop than aeroplanes.
How can an airship be said to be superior to a fixed-wing aeroplane?
It can hover, it has a longer range, it provides a higher degree
of comfort for its passengers. How is it inferior to a fixed-wing
aeroplane? It is slower, it requires more elaborate ground
organization, it is less controllable. Since the moving-wing aircraft
is, as yet, far from fully developed, I leave it out of discussion.
The argument that an aeroplane is always using a part of its power for
lifting is counterbalanced by the argument that an airship is always
using a part of its power for driving its bulk against the wind. An
airship cannot stand still and use no power. There is always some wind
at a height, and the airship must either use power or drift. An airship
with all its engines stopped is as helpless as an aeroplane with all
its engines stopped. The aeroplane, while gliding, still retains a
large measure of controllability, and the pilot can select its landing
ground within 50 yards. The airship has less controllability when its
engines are stopped. Its commander would be lucky if he could select
its landing ground within 50 miles.
It is right that the airship should have every chance to develop. If
it prove successful, so much the better. I do not think it will prove
successful. If it is made to work, it will be at more than ten times
the cost in money and lives, at which heavier-than-air machines have
been made to work.
Sometimes it seems regrettable that even a small part of the sums
spent on developing airships cannot be spent on developing the
passenger-carrying aeroplane.
I will give airships the last word by recalling that Sir George Cayley
in 1816 expressed his belief that airships would eventually prove
the most efficient and safest means of air travel, and by quoting Dr
Eckener:
“A modern airship”, said Dr Eckener, “is at least as capable in heavy
weather as a modern aeroplane. A storm will never have more effect than
delaying or speeding a trip, and it can become directly dangerous only
inasmuch as it may delay the voyage beyond the reach of fuel supply.”
VIII
“_Sans nul doute, l’avenir est a la bête de métal._” People regret the
age of the machine: I cannot do so. A well-made machine, in which are
struck into life the dreams of its designer, is a vital, individual
creation.
A flying machine designed by a man with a sense of flight is more
faithful and far more intelligent than a horse or a dog. Thoughts are
reflected in it, the careful skill of the executant is expressed in
its every component. It is sensitive and quick to feel roughness or
gentleness in the hand of him who controls it. Its moods are without
number, and it can surprise, please, and irritate. It is susceptible to
being coaxed, and it enjoys obeying one whose orders are firmly given.
But it can be treacherous to the weak or to one who does not try to
understand it or who is persistently cruel to it.
At present there is a tendency to knock the life out of the machine,
to subdue it to the level of tooth paste and tin cans. If that
tendency makes headway, the flying-machine of the future must lose its
individuality, and the age of the machine may eventually prove to be a
dark age.
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An answer to _Lysistrata_. “A passionate vindication of the
rights of woman.”—_Manchester Guardian._ “Says a number of
things that sensible women have been wanting publicly said for
a long time.”—_Daily Herald._
=Hephaestus=, the Soul of the Machine. By E. E. FOURNIER D’ALBE,
D.SC.
“A worthy contribution to this interesting series. A delightful
and thought-provoking essay.”—_Birmingham Post._ “There is a
special pleasure in meeting with a book like _Hephaestus_.
The author has the merit of really understanding what he is
talking about.”—_Engineering._ “An exceedingly clever defence
of machinery.”—_Architects’ Journal._
=The Passing of the Phantoms=: a Study of Evolutionary Psychology
and Morals. By C. J. PATTEN, Professor of Anatomy, Sheffield
University. With 4 Plates.
“Readers of _Daedalus_, _Icarus_ and _Tantalus_, will be
grateful for an excellent presentation of yet another point
of view.”—_Yorkshire Post._ “This bright and bracing little
book.”—_Literary Guide._ “Interesting and original.”—_Medical
Times._
=The Mongol in our Midst=: a Study of Man and his Three Faces.
By F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D., F.R.C.P. With 28 Plates. _Second
Edition, revised._
“A brilliant piece of speculative induction.”—_Saturday
Review._ “An extremely interesting and suggestive book, which
will reward careful reading.”—_Sunday Times._ “The pictures
carry fearful conviction.”—_Daily Herald._
=The Conquest of Cancer.= By H. W. S. WRIGHT, M.S., F.R.C.S.
Introduction by F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D.
“Eminently suitable for general reading. The problem is fairly
and lucidly presented. One merit of Mr Wright’s plan is that he
tells people what, in his judgment, they can best do, _here and
now_.”—From the _Introduction_.
=Pygmalion=, or the Doctor of the Future. By R. MCNAIR WILSON, M.B.
“Dr Wilson has added a brilliant essay to this series.”—_Times
Literary Supplement._ “This is a very little book, but there is
much wisdom in it.”—_Evening Standard._ “No doctor worth his
salt would venture to say that Dr Wilson was wrong.”—_Daily
Herald._
=Prometheus=, or Biology and the Advancement of Man. By H. S.
JENNINGS, Professor of Zoology, Johns Hopkins University.
_Second Impression._
“This volume is one of the most remarkable that has yet
appeared in this series. Certainly the information it contains
will be new to most educated laymen. It is essentially a
discussion of ... heredity and environment, and it clearly
establishes the fact that the current use of these terms has
no scientific justification.”—_Times Literary Supplement._ “An
exceedingly brilliant book.”—_New Leader._
=Narcissus=: an Anatomy of Clothes. By GERALD HEARD. With 19
illustrations.
“A most suggestive book.”—_Nation._ “Irresistible. Reading
it is like a switchback journey. Starting from prehistoric
times we rocket down the ages.”—_Daily News._ “Interesting,
provocative, and entertaining.”—_Queen._
=Thamyris=, or Is There a Future for Poetry? By R. C. TREVELYAN.
“Learned, sensible, and very well-written.”—_Affable Hawk_,
in _New Statesman_. “Very suggestive.”—_J. C. Squire_, in
_Observer_. “A very charming piece of work, I agree with
all, or at any rate, almost all its conclusions.”—_J. St Loe
Strachey_, in _Spectator_.
=Proteus=, or the Future of Intelligence. By VERNON LEE, author of
“Satan the Waster,” etc.
“We should like to follow the author’s suggestions as to the
effect of intelligence on the future of Ethics, Aesthetics,
and Manners. Her book is profoundly stimulating and should be
read by everyone.”—_Outlook._ “A concise, suggestive piece of
work.”—_Saturday Review._
=Timotheus=, the Future of the Theatre. By BONAMY DOBRÉE, author of
“Restoration Drama,” etc.
“A witty, mischievous little book, to be read with
delight.”—_Times Literary Supplement._ “This is a delightfully
witty book.”—_Scotsman._ “In a subtly satirical vein he
visualizes various kinds of theatres in 200 years’ time. His
gay little book makes delightful reading.”—_Nation._
=Paris=, or the Future of War. By Captain B. H. LIDDELL HART.
“A companion volume to _Callinicus_. A gem of close thinking
and deduction.”—_Observer._ “A noteworthy contribution to a
problem of concern to every citizen in this country.”—_Daily
Chronicle._ “There is some lively thinking about the future of
war in Paris, just added to this set of live-wire pamphlets on
big subjects.”—_Manchester Guardian._
=Wireless Possibilities.= By Professor A. M. LOW. With 4 diagrams.
“As might be expected from an inventor who is always so fresh,
he has many interesting things to say.”—_Evening Standard._
“The mantle of Blake has fallen upon the physicists. To them
we look for visions, and we find them in this book.”—_New
Statesman._
=Perseus=: of Dragons. By H. F. SCOTT STOKES. With 2 illustrations.
“A diverting little book, chock-full of ideas, Mr Stokes’
dragon-lore is both quaint and various.”—_Morning Post._ “Very
amusingly written, and a mine of curious knowledge for which
the discerning reader will find many uses.”—_Glasgow Herald._
=Lycurgus=, or the Future of Law. By E. S. P. HAYNES, author of
“Concerning Solicitors,” etc.
“An interesting and concisely written book.”—_Yorkshire Post._
“He roundly declares that English criminal law is a blend of
barbaric violence, medieval prejudices and modern fallacies....
A humane and conscientious investigation.”—_T.P.’s Weekly._ “A
thoughtful book—deserves careful reading.”—_Law Times._
=Euterpe=, or the Future of Art. By LIONEL R. MCCOLVIN, author of
“The Theory of Book-Selection.”
“Discusses briefly, but very suggestively, the problem of the
future of art in relation to the public.”—_Saturday Review._
“Another indictment of machinery as a soul-destroyer ... Mr
McColvin has the courage to suggest solutions.”—_Westminster
Gazette._ “This is altogether a much-needed book.”—_New Leader._
=Pegasus=, or Problems of Transport. By Colonel J. F. C. FULLER,
author of “The Reformation of War,” etc. With 8 Plates.
“The foremost military prophet of the day propounds a solution
for industrial and unemployment problems. It is a bold
essay ... and calls for the attention of all concerned with
imperial problems.”—_Daily Telegraph._ “Practical, timely,
very interesting and very important.”—_J. St Loe Strachey_, in
_Spectator_.
=Atlantis=, or America and the Future. By Colonel J. F. C. FULLER.
“Candid and caustic.”—_Observer._ “Many hard things have been
said about America, but few quite so bitter and caustic as
these.”—_Daily Sketch._ “He can conjure up possibilities of a
new Atlantis.”—_Clarion._
=Midas=, or the United States and the Future. By C. H. BRETHERTON,
author of “The Real Ireland,” etc.
A companion volume to _Atlantis_. “Full of astute observations
and acute reflections ... this wise and witty pamphlet, a
provocation to the thought that is creative.”—_Morning Post._
“A punch in every paragraph. One could hardly ask for more
‘meat.’”—_Spectator._
=Nuntius=, or Advertising and its Future. By GILBERT RUSSELL.
“Expresses the philosophy of advertising concisely and
well.”—_Observer._ “It is doubtful if a more straightforward
exposition of the part advertising plays in our public and
private life has been written.”—_Manchester Guardian._
=Birth Control and the State=: a Plea and a Forecast. By C. P.
BLACKER, M.C., M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
“A very careful summary.”—_Times Literary Supplement._ “A
temperate and scholarly survey of the arguments for and against
the encouragement of the practice of birth control.”—_Lancet._
“He writes lucidly, moderately, and from wide knowledge; his
book undoubtedly gives a better understanding of the subject
than any other brief account we know. It also suggests a
policy.”—_Saturday Review._
=Ouroboros=, or the Mechanical Extension of Mankind. By GARET
GARRETT.
“This brilliant and provoking little book.”—_Observer._ “A
significant and thoughtful essay, calculated in parts to make
our flesh creep.”—_Spectator._ “A brilliant writer, Mr Garrett
is a remarkable man. He explains something of the enormous
change the machine has made in life.”—_Daily Express._
=Artifex=, or the Future of Craftsmanship. By JOHN GLOAG, author of
“Time, Taste, and Furniture.”
“An able and interesting summary of the history of
craftsmanship in the past, a direct criticism of the present,
and at the end his hopes for the future. Mr Gloag’s real
contribution to the future of craftsmanship is his discussion
of the uses of machinery.”—_Times Literary Supplement._
=Plato’s American Republic.= By J. DOUGLAS WOODRUFF. _Fourth
impression._
“Uses the form of the Socratic dialogue with devastating
success. A gently malicious wit sparkles in every
page.”—_Sunday Times._ “Having deliberately set himself an
almost impossible task, has succeeded beyond belief.”—_Saturday
Review._ “Quite the liveliest even of this spirited
series.”—_Observer._
=Orpheus=, or the Music of the Future. By W. J. TURNER, author of
“Music and Life.” _Second impression._
“A book on music that we can read not merely once, but
twice or thrice. Mr Turner has given us some of the finest
thinking upon Beethoven that I have ever met with.”—_Ernest
Newman_ in _Sunday Times_. “A brilliant essay in contemporary
philosophy.”—_Outlook._ “The fruit of real knowledge and
understanding.”—_New Statesman._
=Terpander=, or Music and the Future. By E. J. DENT, author of
“Mozart’s Operas.”
“In _Orpheus_ Mr Turner made a brilliant voyage in search of
first principles. Mr Dent’s book is a skilful review of the
development of music. It is the most succinct and stimulating
essay on music I have found....”—_Musical News._ “Remarkably
able and stimulating.”—_Times Literary Supplement._ “There
is hardly another critic alive who could sum up contemporary
tendencies so neatly.”—_Spectator._
=Sibylla=, or the Revival of Prophecy. By C. A. MACE, University of
St. Andrew’s.
“An entertaining and instructive pamphlet.”—_Morning
Post._ “Places a nightmare before us very ably and
wittily.”—_Spectator._ “Passages in it are excellent
satire, but on the whole Mr Mace’s speculations may be
taken as a trustworthy guide ... to modern scientific
thought.”—_Birmingham Post._
=Lucullus=, or the Food of the Future. By OLGA HARTLEY and MRS C.
F. LEYEL, authors of “The Gentle Art of Cookery.”
“This is a clever and witty little volume in an entertaining
series, and it makes enchanting reading.”—_Times Literary
Supplement._ “Opens with a brilliant picture of modern man,
living in a vacuum-cleaned, steam-heated, credit-furnished
suburban mansion ‘with a wolf in the basement’—the wolf of
hunger. This banquet of epigrams.”—_Spectator._
=Procrustes=, or the Future of English Education. By M. ALDERTON
PINK.
“Undoubtedly he makes out a very good case.”—_Daily Herald._
“This interesting addition to the series.”—_Times Educational
Supplement._ “Intends to be challenging and succeeds in being
so. All fit readers will find it stimulating.”—_Northern Echo._
=The Future of Futurism.= By JOHN RODKER.
“Mr Rodker is up-to-the-minute, and he has accomplished a
considerable feat in writing on such a vague subject, 92
extremely interesting pages.”—_T. S. Eliot_, in _Nation_.
“There are a good many things in this book which are of
interest.”—_Times Literary Supplement._
=Pomona=, or the Future of English. By BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT, author
of “The English Secret”, etc.
“The future of English is discussed fully and with fascinating
interest.”—_Morning Post._ “Full of wise thoughts and happy
words.”—_Times Literary Supplement._ “His later pages must
stir the blood of any man who loves his country and her
poetry.”—_J. C. Squire_, in _Observer_. “His finely-conceived
essay.”—_Manchester Guardian._
=Balbus=, or the Future of Architecture. By CHRISTIAN BARMAN.
“A really brilliant addition to this already distinguished
series. The reading of _Balbus_ will give much data for
intelligent prophecy, and incidentally, an hour or so of
excellent entertainment.”—_Spectator._ “Most readable and
reasonable. We can recommend it warmly.”—_New Statesman._ “This
intriguing little book.”—_Connoisseur._
=Apella=, or the Future of the Jews. By A QUARTERLY REVIEWER.
“Cogent, because of brevity and a magnificent prose style,
this book wins our quiet praise. It is a fine pamphlet,
adding to the value of the series, and should not be
missed.”—_Spectator._ “A notable addition to this excellent
series. His arguments are a provocation to fruitful
thinking.”—_Morning Post._
=The Dance of Çiva=, or Life’s Unity and Rhythm. By COLLUM.
“It has substance and thought in it. The author is very much
alive and responsive to the movements of to-day.”—_Spectator._
“A very interesting account of the work of Sir Jagadis
Bose.”—_Oxford Magazine._ “Has caught the spirit of the Eastern
conception of world movements.”—_Calcutta Statesman._
=Lars Porsena=, or the Future of Swearing and Improper Language. By
ROBERT GRAVES. _Third impression._
“Goes uncommonly well, and deserves to.”—_Observer._ “Not for
squeamish readers.”—_Spectator._ “No more amusingly unexpected
contribution has been made to this series. A deliciously
ironical affair.”—_Bystander._ “His highly entertaining essay
is as full as the current standard of printers and police
will allow.”—_New Statesman._ “Humour and style are beyond
criticism.”—_Irish Statesman._
=Socrates=, or the Emancipation of Mankind. By H. F. CARLILL.
“Devotes a specially lively section to the herd
instinct.”—_Times._ “Clearly, and with a balance that is almost
Aristotelian, he reveals what modern psychology is going to
accomplish.”—_New Statesman._ “One of the most brilliant and
important of a remarkable series.”—_Westminster Gazette._
=Delphos=, or the Future of International Language. By E. SYLVIA
PANKHURST.
“Equal to anything yet produced in this brilliant series. Miss
Pankhurst states very clearly what all thinking people must
soon come to believe, that an international language would
be one of the greatest assets of civilization.”—_Spectator._
“A most readable book, full of enthusiasm, an important
contribution to this subject.”—_International Language._
=Gallio=, or the Tyranny of Science. By J. W. N. SULLIVAN, author
of “A History of Mathematics.”
“So packed with ideas that it is not possible to give
any adequate _résumé_ of its contents.”—_Times Literary
Supplement._ “His remarkable monograph, his devastating summary
of materialism, this pocket _Novum Organum_.”—_Spectator._
“Possesses a real distinction of thought and manner. It must be
read.”—_New Statesman._
=Apollonius=, or the Future of Psychical Research. By E. N.
BENNETT, author of “Problems of Village Life,” etc.
“A sane, temperate and suggestive survey of a field of inquiry
which is slowly but surely pushing to the front.”—_Times
Literary Supplement._ “His exposition of the case for
psychic research is lucid and interesting.”—_Scotsman._
“Displays the right temper, admirably conceived, skilfully
executed.”—_Liverpool Post._
=Aeolus=, or the Future of the Flying Machine. By OLIVER STEWART.
“Both his wit and his expertness save him from the
nonsensical-fantastic. There is nothing vague or sloppy in
these imaginative forecasts.”—_Daily News._ “He is to be
congratulated. His book is small, but it is so delightfully
funny that it is well worth the price, and there really are
sensible ideas behind the jesting.”—_Aeroplane._
=Stentor=, or the Press of To-Day and To-Morrow. By DAVID OCKHAM.
“A valuable and exceedingly interesting commentary on a vital
phase of modern development.”—_Daily Herald._ “Vigorous and
well-written, eminently readable.”—_Yorkshire Post._ “He has
said what one expects any sensible person to say about the
‘trustification’ of the Press.”—_Spectator._
=Rusticus=, or the Future of the Countryside. By MARTIN S. BRIGGS,
F.R.I.B.A.
“Few of the 50 volumes, provocative and brilliant as most
of them have been, capture our imagination as does this
one.”—_Daily Telegraph._ “The historical part is as brilliant a
piece of packed writing as could be desired.”—_Daily Herald._
“Serves a national end. The book is in essence a pamphlet,
though it has the form and charm of a book.”—_Spectator._
=Janus=, or the Conquest of War. By WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, M.B., F.R.S.
“Among all the booklets of this brilliant series, none, I
think is so weighty and impressive as this. It contains
thrice as much matter as the other volumes and is profoundly
serious.”—_Dean Inge_, in _Evening Standard_. “A deeply
interesting and fair-minded study of the causes of war
and the possibilities of their prevention. Every word is
sound.”—_Spectator._
=Vulcan=, or the Future of Labour. By CECIL CHISHOLM.
“Of absorbing interest.”—_Daily Herald._ “No one, perhaps,
has ever condensed so many hard facts into the appearance of
agreeable fiction, nor held the balance so nicely between
technicalities and flights of fancy, as the author of this
excellent book in a brilliant series. _Vulcan_ is a little
book, but between its covers knowledge and vision are pressed
down and brimming over.”—_Spectator._
=Hymen=, or the Future of Marriage. By NORMAN HAIRE.
This candid and unprejudiced survey inquires why the majority
of marriages to-day seem to be so unsatisfactory, and finds
the answer in the sexual ethic of our civilization which is
ill adapted to our social and economic needs. The problems
of sex-morality, sex-education, prostitution, in-breeding,
birth-control, trial-marriage, and polygamy are all touched
upon.
=The Next Chapter=: the War against the Moon. By ANDRÉ MAUROIS,
author of ‘Ariel’, etc.
This imaginary chapter of world-history (1951–64) from the pen
of one of the most brilliant living French authors mixes satire
and fancy in just proportions. It tells how the press of the
world is controlled by five men, how world interest is focussed
on an attack on the moon, how thus the threat of world-war is
averted. But when the moon retaliates....
=Galatea=, or the Future of Darwinism. By W. RUSSELL BRAIN.
This non-technical but closely-reasoned book is a challenge
to the orthodox teaching on evolution known as Neo-Darwinism.
The author claims that, although Neo-Darwinian theories can
possibly account for the evolution of forms, they are quite
inadequate to explain the evolution of functions.
=Scheherazade=, or the Future of the English Novel. By JOHN
CARRUTHERS.
A survey of contemporary fiction in England and America
lends to the conclusion that the literary and scientific
influences of the last fifty years have combined to make the
novel of to-day predominantly analytic. It has thus gained in
psychological subtlety, but lost its form. How this may be
regained is put forward in the conclusion.
=Caledonia=, or the Future of the Scots. By G. M. THOMSON.
Exit the Scot! Under this heading the Scottish people are
revealed as a leaderless mob in whom national pride has been
strangled. They regard, unmoved, the spectacle of their
monstrous slum-evil, the decay of their industries, the
devastation of their countryside. This is the most compact and
mordant indictment of Scottish policy that has yet been written.
=Albyn=, or Scotland and the Future. By C. M. GRIEVE, author of
‘Contemporary Scottish Studies’, etc.
A vigorous answer, explicit and implicit, to _Caledonia_,
tracing the movements of a real Scottish revival, in music,
art, literature, and politics, and coming to the conclusion
that there is a chance even now for the regeneration of the
Scottish people.
=Lares et Penates=, or the Future of the Home. By H. J. BIRNSTINGL.
All the many forces at work to-day are influencing the
planning, appearance, and equipment of the home. This is
the main thesis of this stimulating volume, which considers
also the labour-saving movement, the ‘ideal’ house, the
influence of women, the servant problem, and the relegation
of aesthetic considerations to the background. Disconcerting
prognostications follow.
_NEARLY READY_
=Archon=, or the Future of Government. By HAMILTON FYFE.
A survey of the methods of government in the past leads the
author to a consideration of conditions in the world of to-day.
He then indicates the lines along which progress may develop.
=Hermes=, or the Future of Chemistry. By T. W. JONES, B.SC., F.C.S.
Chemistry as the means of human emancipation is the subject
of this book. To-day chemistry is one of the master factors
of our existence; to-morrow it will dominate every phase of
life, winning for man the goal of all his endeavour, economic
freedom. It may also effect a startling change in man himself.
=The Future of Physics.= By L. L. WHYTE.
The last few years have been a critical period in the
development of physics. We stand on the eve of a new epoch.
Physics, biology, and psychology are converging towards
a scientific synthesis of unprecedented importance whose
influence on thought and social custom will be so profound as
to mark a stage in human evolution. This book interprets these
events and should be read in connexion with _Gallio_, by J. W.
N. Sullivan, in this series.
=Ikonoclastes=, or the Future of Shakespeare. By HUBERT GRIFFITHS.
Taking as text the recent productions of classical plays in
modern dress, the author, a distinguished dramatic critic,
suggests that this is the proper way of reviving Shakespeare
and other great dramatists of the past, and that their
successful revival in modern dress may perhaps be taken as an
indication of their value.
_IN PREPARATION_
=Bacchus=, or the Future of Wine. By P. MORTON SHAND.
=Mercurius=, or the World on Wings. By C. THOMPSON WALKER.
=The Future of Sport.= By G. S. SANDILANDS.
=The Future of India.= By T. EARLE WELBY.
=The Future of Films.= By ERNEST BETTS.
—————————————————————
Transcriber’s Note (continued)
Errors in punctuation and simple typos have been corrected without note.
Archaic or variant spelling, inconsistent hyphenation, etc., has been
left as it appears in the original publication unless as noted in the
following:
Page 12 – “insistance” changed to “insistence” (The continued insistence
that speed)
Page 35 – “persistance” changed to “persistence” (foretold with tiresome
persistence)
End matter page 17 – “montrous” changed to “monstrous” (their monstrous
slum-evil)
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