Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1910 — KINKS SEEN IN FLYING FISH. [ARTICLE]

KINKS SEEN IN FLYING FISH.

Overhead Fin* Intended to Maintain Aeroplane’* Equilibrium. “I hope to fly through the air faster than any American has yet flown. Including the Wright brothers," Is the statement made by W. Starling Burgess, the millionaire yacht designer of this town, who, according to a Marblehead (Mass.) correspondent, has been making flights with his partner, A. M. Herring, the former partner of Glen H. Curtiss, In a new biplane of their own design at Plum Island. Associated Mr. Burgess and Mr. Herring are Norman Prince, a well known young Boston millionaire, and Prof. J. V. Martin, manager of the Harvard Aeronautical Society. The Herring-Curtlss biplane, which has been named the Flying Fish, is about the same size and somewhat like the Herring-Curtlss machine, and much smaller than the Wright brothers’ machine. One of the features of the machine is entirely different from any other machine, and Is designed especially to avoid litigation with the Wrights. To prevent It from tipping over It has eight overhead fins or sails, four near the center and two on each end. They are shaped like a leg-o’-mutton sail and are believed by Mr. Burgess to be a great Improvement over all other devices to prevent tipping. Another feature is the use of skids or runners Instead of wheels for making a rise Into the air from the ground. There are three of these, shaped like snow skis, and they have steel runners like a child’s ordinary sled. The machine, complete, weighs 408 pounds. It Is built of laminated spruce. It is 26 feet, 8 inches wide and 29 feet long. The control Is by the right hand and right foot and 1 steering la dope by a horizontal wheel with the left hand. It has a four-cylin-der twenty-five horse power engine, capable of developing thirty horse power. As a result of the flights that have been made with the two Herring-Bur-gess machines so far tried out, a few modifications will be made, principally ly looking to the better protection of the ends of the wings and to altering the controlling mechanism so that the engine levers can be operated without taking the hands from the steering and balancing controls. A more direct system for lateral stability has also been suggested and will probably be adopted. Meanwhile other machines of the same general type are nearing completion In the Burgess shops.