--_Engineering._
* * * * *
[For THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.]
THE PROBLEM OF FLIGHT, AND THE FLYING MACHINE.
As a result of reading the various communications to the SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN and SUPPLEMENT, and _Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine_,
including descriptions of proposed and tested machines, and the
reports of the British Aeronautical Society, the writer of the
following concludes:
That, as precedents for the construction of a successful flying
machine, the investigation of some species of birds as a base of the
principles of all is correct only in connection with the species and
habits of the bird; that the _general mechanical principles_ of flight
applicable to the _operation_ of the _same unit_ of wing in _all_
species are alone applicable to the flying machine.
That these principles of _operation_ do not demand the principles of
_construction_ of the bird.
That as the wing is in its stroke an arc of a screw propeller's
operation, and in its angle a screw propeller blade, its animal
operation compels its reciprocation instead of rotation.
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