Whitehead was building
a powered aeroplane in 1897

 

The inventor has had made for him a

three horse power motor, weighing fifty

pounds and run by gasoline. With this

motor attached to the air sailer, and the

addition of two propellers, each with a diam-

eter of six feet, Whitehead expects to speed

through the air at the rate of fifty miles an

hour.

   "In its present form it's a sailing ma-

chine" explained the inventor. "With the

additiopn of the motor it'll be a regular flying

machine."



Whitehead has had made for him a

three-horse power motor weighing fifty

pounds and run by gasoline. With this

motor attached to the air sailer, and the

addition of two propellers, he expects to

speed through the air at the rate of fifty

miles an hour."

Whitehead is going to test the soaring

abilities of his craft without the motor,

which runs by gasoline. He wants some

capitalist to go halves in the profits of his In-

vention by assisting him in paying for the

motor, which is still in the hands of the

maker.

"This is the forty-second air navigator I

have made." he said. yesterday. "I have

improved on each design until I think I have

devised the lightest framework and motive

power obtainable."

Whitehead, who is a mechanic, has made

the design of a more ambitious airship, which

he says can be run by the same three horse

power motor he has had constructed. He

showed me the framework, which he has al-

most completed.

"With the gliding machine out in the yard,"

he said "I'll have to start from an elevation

before sailing. With this more elabortae

machine I'll be able to rise from the level

ground by the motive power alone in a calm

or in a high wind...

"Before landing, the operator will slacken the

speed and lift the tail. The weight of

the motor is fifty pounds and that of the

air ship will be about the same.



              The new machine will be a

huge condor, about 20 feet long and

nearly as wide, having wings on the

sides which are worked by a gasoline

motor.



                  It can be fitted with a motor of

three horse power, operating two propellers,

one at each end of the framework, or it

can be used simply as a soaring machine,

without motive power. Another of White-

head's inventions is a condor-shaped ma-

chine fitted with four wings and carrying a

fifty-pound motor.