THE MASTERY OF THE AIR BY WILLIAM J. CLAXTON

Published by Seltzer Books

established in 1974, now offering over 14,000 books

feedback welcome: seltzer@seltzerbooks.com  

Vintage books about early aircraft and aviation available from Seltzer Books:

Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne

The Master of the World by Jules Verne

Learning to Fly by Grahame-White and Harper

Aeroplanes and Dirigibles in War by Talbot

A History of Aeronautics by Vivian

The Mastery of the Air by Claxton

Aeroplanes by Zerbe

Over the Front in an Aeroplane by Pulitzer

Flying Machines by Jackman and Russell

Early History of the Airplane by Wilbur and Orville Wright

The Aeroplane Speaks by Barber

The Aeroplane by Grahame-White and Harper

The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane by Zahm

The Story of the Aeroplane by Galbreath

Aviation in Peace and War by Sykes

Opportunities in Aviation by Sweetser and Lamont

PREFACE

PART I-BALLOONS AND AIR-SHIPS

CHAPTER I Man's Duel with Nature

CHAPTER II The French Paper-maker who Invented the Balloon

CHAPTER III The First Man to Ascend in a Balloon

CHAPTER IV The First Balloon Ascent in England

CHAPTER V The Father of British Aeronauts

CHAPTER VI The Parachute

CHAPTER VII Some British Inventors of Air-ships

CHAPTER VIII The First Attempts to Steer a Balloon

CHAPTER IX The Strange Career of Count Zeppelin

CHAPTER X A Zeppelin Air-ship and its Construction

CHAPTER XI The Semi-rigid Air-ship

CHAPTER XII A Non-rigid Balloon

CHAPTER XIII The Zeppelin and Gotha Raids

PART II AEROPLANES AND AIRMEN

CHAPTER XIV Early Attempts in Aviation

CHAPTER XV A Pioneer in Aviation

CHAPTER XVI The Human Birds

CHAPTER XVII The Aeroplane and the Bird

CHAPTER XVIII A Great British Inventor of Aeroplanes

CHAPTER XIX The Wright Brothers and their Secret Experiments

CHAPTER XX The Internal-combustion Engine

CHAPTER XXI The Internal-combustion Engine(Cont.)

CHAPTER XXII The Aeroplane Engine

CHAPTER XXIII A Famous British Inventor of Aviation Engines

CHAPTER XXIV The Wright Biplane (Camber of Planes)

CHAPTER XXV The Wright Biplane (Cont.)

CHAPTER XXVI How the Wrights launched their Biplane

CHAPTER XXVII The First Man to Fly in Europe

CHAPTER XXVIII M. Bleriot and the Monoplane

CHAPTER XXIX Henri Farman and the Voisin Biplane

CHAPTER XXX A Famous British Inventor

CHAPTER XXXI The Romance of a Cowboy Aeronaut

CHAPTER XXXII Three Historic Flights

CHAPTER XXXIII Three Historic Flights (Cont.)

CHAPTER XXXIV The Hydroplane and Air-boat

CHAPTER XXXV A Famous British Inventor of the Water-plane

CHAPTER XXXVI Sea-planes for Warfare

CHAPTER XXXVII The First Man to Fly in Britain

CHAPTER XXXVIII The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service

CHAPTER XXXIX Aeroplanes in the Great War

CHAPTER XL The Atmosphere and the Barometer

CHAPTER XLI How an Airman Knows what Height he Reaches

CHAPTER XLII How an Airman finds his Way

CHAPTER XLIII The First Airman to Fly Upside Down

CHAPTER XLIV The First Englishman to Fly Upside Down

CHAPTER XLV Accidents and their Cause

CHAPTER XLVI Accidents and their Cause (Cont.)

CHAPTER XLVII Accidents and their Cause (Cont.)

CHAPTER XLVIII Some Technical Terms used by Aviators

CHAPTER XLIX The Future in the Air

PREFACE

This book makes no pretence of going minutely into the technical and scientific sides of human flight:  rather does it deal mainly with the real achievements of pioneers who have helped to make aviation what it is to-day.

My chief object has been to arouse among my readers an intelligent interest in the art of flight, and, profiting by friendly criticism of several of my former works, I imagine that this is best obtained by setting forth the romance of triumph in the realms of an element which has defied man for untold centuries, rather than to give a mass of scientific principles which appeal to no one but the expert.

So rapid is the present development of aviation that it is difficult to keep abreast with the times.  What is new to-day becomes old to-morrow.  The Great War has given a tremendous impetus to the strife between the warring nations for the mastery of the air, and one can but give a rough and general impression of the achievements of naval and military airmen on the various fronts.

Finally, I have tried to bring home the fact that the fascinating progress of aviation should not be confined entirely to the airman and constructor of air-craft; in short, this progress is not a retord of events in which the mass of the nation have little personal concern, but of a movement in which each one of us may take an active and intelligent part.

I have to thank various aviation firms, airmen, and others who have kindly come to my assistance, either with the help of valuable information or by the loan of photographs.  In particular, my thanks are due to the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service for permission to reproduce illustrations from their two publications on the work and training of their respective corps; to the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain; to Messrs.  C. G. Spencer & Sons, Highbury; The Sopwith Aviation Company, Ltd.; Messrs. A. V. Roe & Co., Ltd.; The Gnome Engine Company; The Green Engine Company; Mr. A. G. Gross (Geographia, Ltd.); and M. Bleriot; for an exposition of the internal-combustion engine I have drawn on Mr. Horne's The Age of Machinery.

PART I-BALLOONS AND AIR-SHIPS

CHAPTER I Man's Duel with Nature

Of all man's great achievements none is, perhaps, more full of human interest than are those concerned with flight.  We regard ourselves as remarkable beings, and our wonderful discoveries in science and invention induce us to believe we are far and away the cleverest of all the living creatures in the great scheme of Creation.  And yet in the matter of flight the birds beat us; what has taken us years of education, and vast efforts of intelligence, foresight, and daring to accomplish, is known by the tiny fledglings almost as soon as they come into the world.

It is easy to see why the story of aviation is of such romantic interest.  Man has been exercising his ingenuity, and deliberately pursuing a certain train of thought, in an attempt to harness the forces of Nature and compel them to act in what seems to be the exact converse of Nature's own arrangements.

One of the mysteries of Nature is known as the FORCE OF GRAVITY.  It is not our purpose in this book to go deeply into a study of gravitation; we may content ourselves with the statement, first proved by Sir Isaac Newton, that there is an invisible force which the Earth exerts on all bodies, by which it attracts or draws them towards itself.  This property does not belong to the Earth alone, but to all matter--all matter attracts all other matter.  In discussing the problems of aviation we are concerned mainly with the mutual attraction of The Earth and the bodies on or near its surface; this is usually called TERRESTRIAL gravity.

It has been found that every body attracts very other body with a force directly proportionate to its mass.  Thus we see that, if every particle in a mass exerts its attractive influence, the more particles a body contains the greater will be the attraction.  If a mass of iron be dropped to the ground from the roof of a building at the same time as a cork of similar size, the iron and the cork would, but for the retarding effect of the air, fall to the ground together, but the iron would strike the ground with much greater force than the cork.  Briefly stated, a body which contains twice as much matter as another is attracted or drawn towards the centre of the Earth with twice the force of that other; if the mass be five times as great, then it will be attracted with five times the force, and so on.

It is thus evident that the Earth must exert an overwhelming attractive force on all bodies on or near its surface.  Now, when man rises from the ground in an aeroplane he is counter-acting this force by other forces.

A short time ago the writer saw a picture which illustrated in a very striking manner man's struggle with Nature.  Nature was represented as a giant of immense stature and strength, standing on a globe with outstretched arms, and in his hands were shackles of great size.  Rising gracefully from the earth, immediately in front of the giant, was an airman seated in a modern flying-machine, and on his face was a happy-go-lucky look as though he were delighting in the duel between him and the giant.  The artist had drawn the picture so skilfully that one could imagine the huge, knotted fingers grasping the shackles were itching to bring the airman within their clutch.  The picture was entitled MAN TRIUMPHANT

No doubt many of those who saw that picture were reminded of the great sacrifices made by man in the past.  In the wake of the aviator there are many memorial stones of mournful significance.

It says much for the pluck and perseverance of aviators that they have been willing to run the great risks which ever accompany their efforts.  Four years of the Great War have shown how splendidly airmen have risen to the great demands made upon them.  In dispatch after dispatch from the front, tribute has been paid to the gallant and devoted work of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.  In a long and bitter struggle British airmen have gradually asserted their supremacy in the air.  In all parts of the globe, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, in Africa, the airman has been an indispensable adjunct of the fighting forces.  Truly it may be said that mastery of the air is the indispensable factor of final victory.

CHAPTER II The French Paper-maker who Invented the Balloon

In the year 1782 two young Frenchmen might have been seen one winter night sitting over their cottage fire, performing the curious experiment of filling paper bags with smoke, and letting them rise up towards the ceiling.  These young men were brothers, named Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, and their experiments resulted in the invention of the balloon.

The brothers, like all inventors, seem to have had enquiring minds.  They were for ever asking the why and the wherefore of things.  Why does smoke rise? they asked.  Is there not some strange power in the atmosphere which makes the smoke from chimneys and elsewhere rise in opposition to the force of gravity?  If so, cannot we discover this power, and apply it to the service of mankind?

We may imagine that such questions were in the minds of those two French paper-makers, just as similar questions were in the mind of James Watt when he was discovering the power of steam.  But one of the most important attributes of an inventor is an infinite capacity for taking pains, together with great patience.

And so we find the two brothers employing their leisure in what to us would, be a childish pastime, the making of paper balloons.  The story tells us that their room was filled with smoke, which issued from the windows as though the house were on fire.  A neighbour, thinking such was the case, rushed in, but, on being assured that nothing serious was wrong, stayed to watch the tiny balloons rise a little way from the thin tray which contained the fire that made the smoke with which the bags were filled.  The experiments were not altogether successful, however, for the bags rarely rose more than a foot or so from the tray.  The neighbour suggested that they should fasten the thin tray on to the bottom of the bag, for it was thought that the bags would not ascend higher because the smoke became cool; and if the smoke were imprisoned within the bag much better results would be obtained.  This was done, and, to the great joy of the brothers and their visitor, the bag at once rose quickly to the ceiling.

But though they could make the bags rise their great trouble was that they did not know the cause of this ascent.  They thought, however, that they were on the eve of some great discovery, and, as events proved, they were not far wrong.   For a time they imagined that the fire they had used generated some special gas, and if they could find out the nature of this gas, and the means of making it in large quantities, they would be able to add to their success.

Of course, in the light of modern knowledge, it seems strange that the brothers did not know that the reason the bags rose, was not because of any special gas being used, but owing to the expansion of air under the influence of heat, whereby hot air tends to rise.  Every schoolboy above the age of twelve knows that hot air rises upwards in the atmosphere, and that it continues to rise until its temperature has become the same as that of the surrounding air.

The next experiment was to try their bags in the open air.  Choosing a calm, fine day, they made a fire similar to that used in their first experiments, and succeeded in making the bag rise nearly 100 feet. Later on, a much larger craft was built, which was equally successful.

And now we must leave the experiments of the Montgolfiers for a moment, and turn to the discovery of hydrogen gas by Henry Cavendish, a well-known London chemist.  In 1766 Cavendish proved conclusively that hydrogen gas was not more than one-seventh the weight of ordinary air.  It at once occurred to Dr. Black, of Glasgow, that if a thin bag could be filled with this light gas it would rise in the air; but for various reasons his experiments did not yield results of a practical nature for several years.

Some time afterwards, about a year before the Montgolfiers commenced their experiments which we have already described, Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian chemist, succeeded in making, with hydrogen gas, soap-bubbles which rose in the air.  Previous to this he had experimented with bladders