BIPLANES, By Fred 7. Jane, Editor of " All the World's Airships."
We are only a little way as yot towards the conquest of the air. The machines that we have to-day are mere-passing phase, They are no more flying machine of ly motor cars re-templed the sll-propelled vebiclen that we have to-day.
The fatare, how 2 come way off, nnd no man would do any good by attempting to anticipate it in present day machiner, Mech the better work is done by efforts to increase the practicability of what we have at the moment, The work done thas, in little details, jast doring the last' twelvemonths, is tremendous. There is nothing sensational to show: often it takes an expert to see the progress—but it undoubtedly exists.
Of what we have to-day there are two familist types, the monoplane and the biplane, This last covers the triplane sleo—the triplane being merely inciple of the biplane carried little farther, To essence, of course, they are all the same thing. That ie to say all depends poo the principle that if a more or less flat surface meets th at a certain angle it will be self-supporting. Bat here the likeness ceases.
CHIEF FRATERES OF THR MONOPLANR, A very non-technical description of a monoplane is as follows, A pair of wings, each of which hes roughly the ratio of length to breadth that obtains with an ordinary log postcard, are joined together on light body. Usually bat of quite invariably, these wings are tapered towards the edges, Usually bat again not invariably, they are so set in the body that each ' wing tip prints upwards to s certain extent—that is to say the whole bears a rough relation to something that is 4 cross between " plain capital Y da capital T. In rear of these main wings there is some form of tail for steadying purposes. This tail carries small planes
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.