The Aeroplane Speaks. Fifth Edition

[Footnote 12: Getting out of my depth? Invading the realms of fancy? Well, perhaps so, but at any rate it is possible that extraordinary speed through space may be secured if means are found to maintain the impulse of the engine and the thrust-drift efficiency of the propeller at great altitude.] [Footnote 13: Box-kite. The first crude form of biplane.] PART IV 'CROSS COUNTRY The Aeroplane had been designed and built, and tested in the air, and now it stood on the Aerodrome ready for its first 'cross-country flight. It had run the gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors, press "experts," and politicians; of manufacturers keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had gone bankrupt over it, and others it had provided with safe fat jobs. Somehow, and despite every conceivable obstacle, it had managed to muddle through, and now it was ready for its work. It was not perfect, for there were fifty different ways in which it might be improved, some of them shamefully obvious. But it was fairly sound mechanically, had a little inherent stability, was easily controlled, could climb a thousand feet a minute, and its speed was a hundred miles an hour. In short, quite a creditable machine, though of course the right man had not got the credit. It is rough, unsettled weather with a thirty mile an hour wind on the ground, and that means fifty more or less aloft. Lots of clouds at different altitudes to bother the Pilot, and the air none too clear for the observation of landmarks.