Abstract
THE “To-day and To-morrow” series has a reputation of brilliance and provocativeness. Mr. Oliver Stewart's account of the future of the flying machine amply maintains this reputation. The writing is clever, the argumentation is fearless, and the prophecy is unhampered by any hesitation to speculate on the barest foundations. In civil aviation, Mr. Stewart foresees a severe struggle between the present-day type of fixed-wing aeroplane and the moving-wing flying machine of which the autogyro is a forerunner. He concludes that the moving-wing type will prevail for short-distance flight, while the fixed-wing machine, in the form of monster flying boats weighing a thousand or more tons, will prevail for long-distance and transoceanic flight. An amusing forecast of the relationships between the police and sporting aviation is followed by a fantastic and gruesome account of the future battle in the air round and over London. Why has nobody yet written on the renewed sense of dignity and privilege that the provincial will acquire as the result of the concentration of aerial warfare round the large centres of population ?
Æolus: or The Future of the Flying Machine.
By Oliver Stewart. (To-day and To-morrow Series.) Pp. 96. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York. E. P. Dutton and Co., nd.) 2s. 6d. net.
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B., S. Æolus: or The Future of the Flying Machine . Nature 120, 544 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120544a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120544a0