The Mastery of the Air.

by William J. Claxton.

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 ma.s.s 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 record of events in which the ma.s.s 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 a.s.sistance, 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 ill.u.s.trations 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.

THE MASTERY OF THE AIR

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 ma.s.s. Thus we see that, if every particle in a ma.s.s exerts its attractive influence, the more particles a body contains the greater will be the attraction. If a ma.s.s 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 r.e.t.a.r.ding 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 ma.s.s 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 ent.i.tled "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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sured 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 quant.i.ties, 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 and paper bags; but the bladders he found too heavy, and the paper too porous.

It must not be thought that the Montgolfiers experimented solely with hot air in the inflation of their balloons. At one time they used steam, and, later on, the newly-discovered hydrogen gas; but with both these agents they were unsuccessful. It can easily be seen why steam was of no use, when we consider that paper was employed; hydrogen, too, owed its lack of success to the same cause for the porosity of the paper allowed the gas to escape quickly.

It is said that the name "balloon" was given to these paper craft because they resembled in shape a large spherical vessel used in chemistry, which was known by that name. To the brothers Montgolfier belongs the honour of having given the name to this type of aircraft, which, in the two succeeding centuries, became so popular.

After numerous experiments the public were invited to witness the inflation of a particularly huge balloon, over 30 feet in diameter.

This was accomplished over a fire made of wool and straw. The ascent was successful, and the balloon, after rising to a height of some 7000 feet, fell to earth about two miles away.

It may be imagined that this experiment aroused enormous interest in Paris, whence the news rapidly spread over all France and to Britain.

A Parisian scientific society invited Stephen Montgolfier to Paris in order that the citizens of the metropolis should have their imaginations excited by seeing the hero of these remarkable experiments. Montgolfier was not a rich man, and to enable him to continue his experiments the society granted him a considerable sum of money. He was then enabled to construct a very fine balloon, elaborately decorated and painted, which ascended at Versailles in the presence of the Court.

To add to the value of this experiment three animals were sent up in a basket attached to the balloon. These were a sheep, a c.o.c.k, and a duck.

All sorts of guesses were made as to what would be the fate of the "poor creatures". Some people imagined that there was little or no air in those higher regions and that the animals would choke; others said they would be frozen to death. But when the balloon descended the c.o.c.k was seen to be strutting about in his usual dignified way, the sheep was chewing the cud, and the duck was quacking for water and worms.

At this point we will leave the work of the brothers Montgolfier. They had succeeded in firing the imagination of nearly every Frenchman, from King Louis down to his humblest subject. Strange, was it not, though scores of millions of people had seen smoke rise, and clouds float, for untold centuries, yet no one, until the close of the eighteenth century, thought of making a balloon?

The learned Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century, seems to have thought of the possibility of producing a contrivance that would float in air. His idea was that the earth"s atmosphere was a "true fluid", and that it had an upper surface as the ocean has. He quite believed that on this upper surface--subject, in his belief, to waves similar to those of the sea--an air-ship might float if it once succeeded in rising to the required height. But the difficulty was to reach the surface of this aerial sea. To do this he proposed to make a large hollow globe of metal, wrought as thin as the skill of man could make it, so that it might be as light as possible, and this vast globe was to be filled with "liquid fire". Just what "liquid fire" was, one cannot attempt to explain, and it is doubtful if Bacon himself had any clear idea. But he doubtless thought of some gaseous substance lighter than air, and so he would seem to have, at least, hit upon the principle underlying the construction of the modern balloon. Roger Bacon had ideas far in advance of his time, and his experiments made such an impression of wonder on the popular mind that they were believed to be wrought by black magic, and the worthy monk was cla.s.sed among those who were supposed to be in league with Satan.

CHAPTER III. The First Man to Ascend in a Balloon

The safe descent of the three animals, which has already been related, showed the way for man to venture up in a balloon. In our time we marvel at the daring of modern airmen, who ascend to giddy heights, and, as it were, engage in mortal combat with the demons of the air. But, courageous though these deeds are, they are not more so than those of the pioneers of ballooning.

In the eighteenth century nothing was known definitely of the conditions of the upper regions of the air, where, indeed, no human being had ever been; and though the frail Montgolfier balloons had ascended and descended with no outward happenings, yet none could tell what might be the risk to life in committing oneself to an ascent. There was, too, very special danger in making an ascent in a hot-air balloon. Underneath the huge envelope was suspended a brazier, so that the fabric of the balloon was in great danger of catching fire.

It was at first suggested that two French criminals under sentence of death should be sent up, and, if they made a safe descent, then the way would be open for other aeronauts to venture aloft. But everyone interested in aeronautics in those days saw that the man who first traversed the unexplored regions of the air would be held in high honour, and it seemed hardly right that this honour should fall to criminals. At any rate this was the view of M. Pilatre de Rozier, a French gentleman, and he determined himself to make the pioneer ascent.

De Rozier had no false notion of the risks he was prepared to run, and he superintended with the greatest care the construction of his balloon.

It was of enormous size, with a cage slung underneath the brazier for heating the air. Befors making his free ascent De Rozier made a trial ascent with the balloon held captive by a long rope.