All About Flying | by Gertrude Bacon
Why did not man learn to fly before ? Certainly not through lack of aspiration, for who in this world of ours has not envied the birds their wings, and longed like them to soar their way through the free pure vault of heaven !
| Title | All About Flying |
| Author | Gertrude Bacon |
| Publisher | Methuen & Co. Ltd. |
| Year | 1915 |
| Copyright | 1915, Methuen & Co. Ltd. |
| Amazon | All About Flying |
By Gertrude Bacon, Author Of 'The Record Of An Aeronaut,' 'How Men Fly,' Etc. Etc.
Chapter I. How The Pioneers Set To Work- ONE spring day of the year 1903 there came to my old home in Berkshire an elderly American gentleman, courteous, white-haired and keen-eyed. His name was Octave Chanute, and being very greatly interes...
- How The Pioneers Set To Work. Part 2
- Perhaps he got further than we now know. There is more than one old church tower in England about which lingers the tradition of some daring soul, hundreds of years ago, who launched himself with wing...
- How The Pioneers Set To Work. Part 3
- So the years sped by, the nineteenth century had nearly passed away, and to the man in the street flight appeared as hopelessly remote as ever. But to a small, yet ever-increasing, band of enthusiasts...
- Chapter II. Why An Aeroplane Flies
- THERE are certain desolate and terrible tracts of the earth's surface where there are no birds and no flying insects; no bees or butterflies hover over the flowerless ground, and no feathers beat the ...
- Why An Aeroplane Flies. Part 2
- Twilight falls, and we turn our steps towards home, but even as we do so comes upon the wind a faint but ever-increasing murmur, a deep and steady hum growing to a roar, that resembles the noise of a ...
- Why An Aeroplane Flies. Part 3
- Investigation reveals a curious state of affairs. Formerly it was considered that the reason why a cambered plane lifted better than a flat one was because the concave under side could grasp and force...
- Why An Aeroplane Flies. Part 4
- In any case, automatically or otherwise, the planes lie flatter in the air as the speed increases until, at the greatest speeds, the leading edge may be actually lower than the trailing edge. When thi...
- Why An Aeroplane Flies. Part 5
- To steer to right or left in the air an aeroplane has a rudder of one or more small vertical planes, also placed in the tail, which acts in the same fashion as the rudder of a boat. To prevent an aero...
- Chapter III. Flying Machines Of To-Day
- AND now as to the machines themselves. It is obviously impossible, in a work of this size and modest pretension, to do more than glance at a few of them, and try to point out, in non-technical languag...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 2
- Until recently, when the swift tractor biplanes became a power in the land, the monoplane had it all its own way in the matter of speed, and the great racing machines have all been of monoplane type. ...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 3
- The simple chassis contains two pairs of little rubber-tyred wheels, and between each pair, strapped to their axles by broad elastic bands, is a long curving sledge-runner or skid, suggestive of an al...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 4
- One of the very earliest of this type was the French Breguet—a famous steel-built military machine that in its youthful days (and Breguet its inventor was quite one of the pioneers of flight) was know...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 5
- Late in the day to enter the field, but soon forging rapidly to the very forefront by force of brains and enterprise, Germany prepared for the Great War the mightiest fleet of flying machines ever see...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 6
- Glenn Curtiss, the American aviator whose fame is only second to that of the Wrights, was the first to experiment with water-planes; and he did so in all sorts of ways, both with machines to lift dire...
- Flying Machines Of To-Day. Part 7
- In all the half-hour that we were up, circling, turning and banking, my pilot—Gordon England— did not once have occasion to touch the ailerons. Ailerons indeed seem growing obsolete, if only because a...
- Chapter IV. The Power Unit
- IT is inevitable that a book which professes to be 'All about Flying' should make some attempt, however brief and sketchy, to trace the outlines of what is sometimes known as the 'Power Unit' of the a...
- The Power Unit. Part 2
- The engine which we have been describing works upon what is known as the 'four-cycle' system— that is, the piston makes four complete strokes for every working or 'power' stroke. In the ordinary form ...
- The Power Unit. Part 3
- Among famous aeroplane engines of the present day the Clerget and Le Rhone are other examples of the rotary type, where the cylinders are arranged ' radially ' (star fashion) and all revolve. In other...
- Chapter V. Heroes Of Flight
- SO far, in our opening chapter, we have traced the history of aviation down to the first long flight of the Wright Brothers in 1905. Only a decade ago, and yet these were the prehistoric days of the g...
- Heroes Of Flight. Continued
- But even before this momentous year of 1909 there had been flying in these islands, though few knew and fewer still regarded it. In the autumn of 1908, when the Wright Brothers first began to show the...
- Chapter VI. Flying In Peace And War
- HOW does a would-be pilot learn to fly ? First he selects his school and the particular kind of machine he wishes to be taught on, and the chances are that he will start with the 'school 'bus box-k...
- Flying In Peace And War. Continued
- A descent from the skies with engine shut off and the machine at its own gliding angle is the familiar ' vol plane.' To assume the angle is not difficult, for the well-designed aeroplane, if its nose ...
