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1907. February 2. Saturday at Baddeck
[[strikethrough]] 68 [[/strikethrough]] 54

Advertiser Boston 
23 Nov. 1906

Prof. Alexander Graham Bell read a long paper on the aerodrome. He believes that Langley has actually solved the problem of flight.

Standard Troy N.Y.
23 Nov 1906

Balloons in Time of War. 

In the past military balloons have been employed only for purpose of observation, as they were at Santiago, for instance. The possibility of their performing aggressive functions is now likely to receive a good deal of attention. Until within about two years the use of aerial torpedoes was prohibited by international agreement. That restriction has now expired, and the recent progress made in aerial navigation certainly encourages the belief that airships might possibly make a good deal of mischief under proper guidance. The dropping of dynamite from a balloon on a warship would send it to the bottom of the ocean in a short time.

Several things will be found essential to success in such fighting. In the first place, the airship must be faster than the vessel which is proposed to attack. Otherwise escape will be possible. Just at present there may be no dirigible balloon which will quite meet this requirement, but the necessary speed will undoubtedly come in time. The airship must possess buoyancy enough to carry a crew of several men, but that result has already been attained. It should be capable, too, of remaining aloft several hours, and, if such as thing not now possible, it will be soon. Finally, it is fairly safe to assume that little practice would be needed to enable the pilot of an airship to bring his craft into a position directly directly over so large an object as a warship and that only a limited amount of experience would suffice to insure the proper aim in releasing a torpedo.

Thus far the business seems comparatively easy, but there must be a great deal of doubt about its safety. Military men say that no gun on a ship could be brought to bear on a flying machine. Possibly this is correct, but by a change in the method of mounting, it should be feasible to train machine guns at a large angle from a horizontal. This, indeed, seems to be the only precaution demanding any thought by designers of naval ordnance. A few shots from the rifles of marines might not do much good, but it ought to be feasible with a tornado of missiles from a Maxim gun to disable the machinery of an airship, if not to kill every one on board of it.

[[? Forum ?? ]] Fargo N. Dakota
21 Nov 1906

HOFFMAN'S FLYING MACHINE.
Built on Principle of a Stork, With Legs and Wings.
(Special Cable Service)
Berlin, November 22.—Josef Hoffman, the inventor of a flying machine, built on the principle of a stork, with legs and wings, will compete for the prize of $50,000 offered by the London Daily Mail for a flight from London to Manchester. He hopes that the German Government will grant him a subsidy. The Kaiser has inspected Hoffman's machine, in which he displayed much interest.

The World New York 
22 Nov 1906
FLYING MACHINES.

A desire for mastery over the air is almost as early as the navigation of the water. Long before balloons were invented in France flying machines were attempted. Mythology tells of them. Thousands of years ago Daedalus invented the first human wings and his son Icarus was drowned while flying with them.

The flying of kites is one of the earliest known sports, and it was natural that many efforts should be made to apply this principle to the propulsion of men through the air.

A kite stays in the air, although it is heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, because the wind keeps it from falling. The resistance made by the force of the breeze striking at an angle keeps the kite aloft. The tail prevents it from flopping over and the string holds it at an angle to the wind. Should the tail be omitted the kite would not balance, and should the string break it would topple and fall to the ground through its own weight. 

 [[image: a person wearing a hat and a pinstripe suit  smokes and sits atop a flying seat with wings]]]

The balloon bears no point of resemblance to the kite, except its power of suspension in the air. Should the wind cease a kit would at once fall to the ground, while the balloon's buoyancy would keep it in the air.

A balloon owes its qualities to its inflation with some gas lighter than air, and which makes the balloon float in the air as a boat floats in water. Since the density of air diminishes with the distance from the surface of the earth, and the density of the gas in the balloon does not correspondingly diminish, the height to which any balloon may rise is limited. 

Birds fly on the principle of a kite, not on the principle of a balloon. Their wings are like the planes of a kite, and their muscular control over their wings produces results like the wind blowing on a well-balanced kite secured by a string to the ground. Instead of the wind furnishing the power to move a bird the bird furnishes its own power like a steamer propeller. 

The earliest attempts of men to fly were on the bird principle. Artificial wings were made patterned after those of birds. These all failed because no man has ever been able to develop muscular power in proportion to his weight at all comparable with a bird's.

The early ancients had no motors which could make up this deficiency in power, and after many failures the idea of wing propulsion was given up. Centuries later inventive genius turned its attention to developing and utilizing the balloon. 

No balloon has ever been invented which is dirigible; that is, which can be steered against the prevailing wind at the will of the operator. By attaching light motors and propellers to small balloons they have been steered in a light wind, and can be guided at an angle differing from the wind, but on account of the large balloon surface none of these devices has been successfully employed against a strong breeze.

According to the reports from Paris of Santos Dumont's latest aeroplane experiments and the performances of the flying machine invented by the Wrights, of Ohio, the improvement of gasoline motors has made the flying machine a fact.

The principle of both the Santos Dumont and the Wright flying machine is an arrangement of kites combined with a gasoline motor and large propeller. After a machine has been got in motion in the same as a kite is started—by running with it—the propeller make it soar in the air, and by the addition of a rudder of a shifting propeller in the direction on a level plane is controlled. The ascent or descent is regulated in part by changing the angle of the kites and in part by the propeller and the balancing of the operator.

[[image person sitting in plane facing forward with mountains and a bird]]

In practice these flying machines are most dangerous because their balance is so uncertain. A gust of wind may upset them. A little too much shifting of the kites will tumble them to the ground.

This danger is one of the qualities which may hasten their development. Ballooning carefully conducted is less risky than ordinary automobiling. Flying machines are more dangerous than the automobile races.

In the absence of wars, with the Indians tamed, the Jerusalem crusades gone out of fashion, piracy transferred from the seas to Wall street and few opportunities open which combine danger and fame, the proven possibilities of flying machines open a field to ambitious idle millionaires.

They should, however, beware the fate of Darius Green. 

Transcription Notes:
unsure whether clipping of Hoffman's Flying Machine from Fargo is from the Forum. It has been in operation in Fargo since 1878, per Wikipedia, so seems likely [[image: a person wearing a hat sits on a different flying seat, this one held by a variety of mechanisms and items]]