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OFFERS FRENCH AERO PLANES.
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Capt. Ferber Willing to Send Two Big Machines for Competition.

     An offer was received by the Aero Club of America last night from Capt. Ferber of the Aero Club of France promising to send two big aeroplanes to this country for exhibition at the Jamestown Exposition and for competition in some of the events to be held there, and later at St. Louis. Capt. Ferber is well known as one of the leaders in the science of aeroplane construction and flight in Europe. One of his machines, he states, is equipped with a twenty-four-horse power motor and the other with a hundred-horse power engine. He asks the club to insure the aeroplanes against possible damage for $5,000, and the matter will be considered at the next meeting of the Aero Club Directors.
     If the offer is accepted, and the members at the club last night expressed the hope that the French machines would come over, word will be sent to Cortlandt Field Bishop, President of the club, who is now in Paris, asking him to arrange for their shipment. The St. Louis Aero Club has offered two prizes aggregating $5,000 for dirigible balloons and aeroplanes, the contests to be held just before the international balloon race on Oct. 19.

Times New York
   30 Apr. 1907.

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.
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Getting Ready to Fly.

     It can safely be assumed that Dr. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL spoke from a knowledge of the facts, as well as with ability to judge them, when he told our London representative that "the actual problem of the navigation of the air has already been solved by the WRIGHT brothers." There have been reports to that effect in circulation for months past, but the WRIGHTS have guarded their great secret marvelously well, and though numberless articles in the papers and magazines have credited them with success in what may be called individual flight, no real information as to the construction and management of their machines has yet reached the public.
     On Sunday one of our special dispatches said that the brothers, having received what they considered an insulting reply to a proposition they made to our own War Department, had now entered into an arrangement with the German Government by which the latter, for the sum of $400,000, was to secure, if not a monopoly, at least the first use of the Wright inventions. One can only hope that is not so--no, one can also regret the probability that if the WRIGHTS talked flying machines to our older army officers they were treated with scorn by those highly conservative persons.
     But what a pity it would be if the conquest of the air, of which men have dreamed and for which they have struggled so many centuries, should be inaugurated by the dropping of explosives from the clouds! That, at a time when there is much talk and here and there just a little thought about the dawn of an era [of?] universal peace would indeed be a sorry spectacle. Y [?} t may be doubted if any nation would undertake the large expenditures which the testing of even the most promising of flying machines would involve for any other reason than

Inventor Then Will Go to Cape Breton to Finish His Flying Machine.
     London, April 29.--Alexander Graham Bell will receive the honorary degree of D. Sc. from Oxford University on May 2. Returning immediately from Oxford to London he will attend the banquet of the council of electrical engineers as their guest the same evening. After making a short tour of England he will sail on May 8, going direct to his summer home at Cape Breton, where he will begin his final experiments with his flying machine.
     By that time his 15 horsepower motor will be completed. Its feature is its extreme lightness, 120 pounds, which is just half the weight of the same horsepower motor used by the Wright brothers. Mr. Bell is absolutely confident of success.

Sun New York
  30 Apr. 1907

HONORS FOR DR. BELL.
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Will Make Final Tests on His Airship at Cape Breton This Summer.
Special Cable Despatch to THE SUN.

     LONDON, April 29.---Dr. Alexander Graham Bell will receive the honorary degree of D. Sc. from Oxford University on May 2. Returning  immediately from Oxford to London he will attend the banquet of the Council of Electrical Engineers as their guest the same evening.
     After making a short tour of England he will sail on May 8, going direct to his summer home at Cape Breton, where he will begin his final experiments with his flying machine. By that time his 15 horse-power motor will be completed.
     Its feature is its extreme lightness, 120 pounds, which is just half the weight of the same horse-power motor used by the Wright brothers. Mr. Bell is absolutely confident of success.

Jug Mier Philadelphia
  30 Apr. - 1907

JAMESTOWN WANTS A BALLOON RACE
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Local Aeronauts Will Look Over the Grounds to Decide Practicability
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     At the invitation of the management of the Jamestown Ter-Centennial, who desire a balloon race to be one of the features of the Exposition, several prominent aeronauts of this city will journey to the fair grounds next week to examine the surrounding country and see whether or not the conditions are favorable there for a balloon race.
     All the members of the Philadelphia Aero Club have been extended an invitation, including A. N. Chandler, owner of the balloon Initial; Arthur Atherholt, Dr. T. Chalmers Fulton, Dr. Ottinger and several other prominent men who have made ascensions in this city.
     Mr. Atherholt, who is one of the enthusiastic aeronauts of this city, said yesterday that one of the most extensive displays at the Exposition was at the balloon exhibit, and that the management were very anxious to have a race.
     He said they were particularly anxious to have the Initial, which has made a number of ascensions in this city, entered. According to members of the Aero Club of this city, the conditions about the Exposition grounds for a balloon ascension are not very favorable, as it is so close to the sea. If the wind conditions, however, are favorable, it is thought probable that an ascension will be made at Jamestown next Saturday. Several members of the Aero Club of America at New York will accompany the Philadelphians to the fair grounds. They include Le Roy Jones, A. J. McCoy and Mr. Walsh.