But, as I was reading my news-last night, I came across the London at the present time there seems to be a good deal of official interest in an idea almost identical to that which appeared in the imagination of that B. & 8. skipper back when the war was at its height. Experiments are being energetically pursued, I read, by the research departments of the British Air Ministry into the perfecting of small motor-driven pilotless aeroplanes for warfare uses, Research shop experiments, so I understand, show that it is possible for one of these small machines to be controlled in fights extending for 100 miles by wireless signals from land signals, in precisely the same manner as was explained to me on that afternoon during the typhoon.
T see that this pilotless aeroplane can be made to take off automatically and climb into the air with as much certainty as if a pilot were aboard, by the air pressure of its motion' setting a small two-bladed screw revolving. As soon as the forward motion' causes the screw to revolve at a certain number of revolutions a minute, it operates gear which inclines the rear elevators at an angle which causes the machine to rise gradually.' When it has attained some predetermined height, another autoatic device checks its ascent and sends it forward on a horizontal path. So far as T remember thi was the clever scheme explained +9 me, and for the sake of that sceptic-jai skipper of the China Coast I hope that his is the idea that has deen the basis of all this official investigation and experiment, and that he will get full credit therefor other words, I hope that the idea has not been stolen from him in the way that he feared I might stolen it from him while enjoying the hospitality of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.