Viewing page 48 of 404

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

A fifty-horsepower motor at the centre will operate a propeller the aluminium blades of which are two metres in diameter. The propeller has been placed in front in the belief that it will have a better grip on the air. Behind and below the motor is the seat for the operator. It is a little more than a tricar saddle, but from it Santos Dumont can direct and manoeuvre the apparatus. The helm and steering gear are in the rear, with side rudders on the wings for controlling the equilibrium of the machine. The whole aeroplane weighs twenty kilos less than the "Bird of Prey." It is mounted on a single cycle wheel equipped with an automobile tire. for th epreliminary run before the aeroplane mounts. Santos Dumont discarded the two wheels which he used in operating the "Bird of Prey," Upon the theory that the less contact with the earth the faster and the straighter the rise into the air. The trials will begin as soon as the ground at St. Cyr is sufficiently hard to give a good running surface. 
Sw. Maie New York. 11 Mar 1907.
DUMONT'S LATEST AIRSHIP DEVICES
Novel Features of New Aeroplane Built to Compete for $10,000 Prize.
Paris, March 11.-Santos Dumont's new aeroplane, constructed to compete for the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize of $10,000 for the first "heavier than air" machine to cover a distance exceeding one kilometer and return to the point of departure, is much smaller, more rigid and more powerful than the "Bird of Prey," with which he won the Archdeacon prize with a flight of 220 meters last fall. In the new machine the canvas of the wings has been replaced by very thin polished wood, and the framework is of light mahogany. 
The two wings, constructed like Har-grave box kites, meet at an angle of eight degrees and have a spread from tip to tip of thirteen meters, Their width is only sixty centimeters.
A fifty horse power motor at the center will operate a propeller the alumininm blades of which are two meters in diameter. The propeller has been placed in front in the belief that it will have a better grip on the air.
Behind and below the motor is the seat of the operator. It is a little more than a tricar saddle, but from it Santos Dumont can direct and maneuver the apparatus.
The whole aeroplane weighs twenty kilos less than the "Bird of Prey." It is mounted on a single cycle wheel equipped with an automobile tire, for the preliminary run before the aeroplane mounts.
Santos Dumont discarded the two wheels which he used in operating the "Birds of Prey," upon the theory that the less contact with the earth the faster and the straighter the rise into the air. The trials will begin as soon as the ground at St. Cyr is sufficiently hard to give a good running surface.

THE
(from a sketchbook)
No one knew better than Mr Gillespie however, that they were but part way solutions, not at all successes as yet. Over months previous he had been working on other phrases of the problem. Possible triumph after more months of work is within his grasp. A third Gillespie Aeroplane is projected, which, because of a new development, in the field of motors and the establishment of certain other very interesting principles, may, per-haps, start a new chapter in this most unsolvable science up to date.
Mr. Gillespie's new idea and special applications of them to air navigation are just now ready to be talked about. They have been held in secret thus far. Gillespie himself is the most entertaining of men. He resides in Prospect Park West, at the corner of North street, and spends his summers aboard his yacht. pension this is 4.71 pounds per horse power. 
"The machine entire will weigh (frame-work and motive power) 402 pounds. Add 120 pounds for the operator, 522 in all. The actual life of 35-horsepower is, however, 700 pounds, which leaves a surplus of 178 pounds, or opportunity to carry something like 22 more gallons of gasoline, which means that with 26 gallons of gasoline altogether the machine can travel for six and a half hours.
"The calculated speed is sixty miles an hour. An aeroplane must move like an arrow to keep in the air. This can stand suspended. To test this I shall assemble the machine in a great room. In the test it must support itself, suspended, and all the gasoline it can carry. 
"Furthermore, I will say that the structure will comprise of two forward propellers and six horizontal propellers. It will be 38 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet wide, and, taken apart, can be stored away in two small packing cases. The cost of each of these machines I estimate...
G. Curtis Gillespie
Who Has Some Remarkable Plans for Construction of a New Form of Air ship.
 

Transcription Notes:
Many of the passages are partially blocked by folds of paper, leaving someone unable to fully transcribe those passages