[Before we go any further , we advise all our Faithful Readers without a sense of humor that this is Satire --- look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's] :
Another bit of foolishness has just been announced in an article in the New York World Telegram by the Department of the Army . Apparently at the behest of some thinkers from Cloud Cuckoo Land at the highest levels, our military services are ordering the design, development, and construction of a new device {apparently concocted by an inventor with the suspiciously Czarist Russian name of Sikorsky} called a HELI-COPTER --- when you hear the specifications and a description of the lifting mechanism, you will think it an April Fool's joke by some younger members of the General Staff . Unfortunately, this is no joke :
This device , instead of depending upon lift generated by wings (bad enough !), is supported in the air by making the wings rotate at high speed --- over 100 revolutions per minute . (NO, REALLY ! )The wings , called rotors --- sic --- are made to spin by a gasoline-powered engine , despite the very well-known propensity of gasoline to burst into flame at the slightest application of, or even proximity to , a flame.
Just picture our doughboys, relaxing after a sortie over the Hun army defenses, lighting up a well-earned cigar or cigarillo . In order to light this cigarette , one of them casually strikes a Wax Vesta, which bursts into flame and the entire aircraft, crew and all, explodes in a horrible fatal blast and fire .
Worse is to come : If one of our aeroplanes loses its motive power, it glides (more or less) safely to earth using its wings much as a bird does when returning to its nest . If a Heli-Copter loses power, nothing can save it from a terrible uncontrollable flight to earth, resulting in death to its entire complement of fly-boys (as they are coming to be known) .
To what end ? With what capability ? We are told that this device (we refuse to call it a flying ship) holds promise of carrying as much as 500 pounds. As this is almost the entire weight of its crew of three men and their equipment, nothing is left for cargo or transport ... a total waste of money, energy, and effort.
We are informed of its ability to hover in one place, as though it were an advantage . Just picture what would happen to it if it were to hover over the enemy lines . Immediately, one of the Huns, who has honed his skill as a shootist by hunting wild boars in the Austrian Alps, fires a single shot into the general areas of its tank containing refined petroleum (rated at 80 octane, a measure of its flammability on a scale of 100) . The bullet, red-hot from its passage through the closely-fitting barrel of the enemy weapon, will leave a long trail of ignition as it passses through the aerial vehicle , whose petroleum will burst into flame; the engine will stop, the "rotors" will cease to turn, and the entire craft will , again, plunge to earth .
Where are we obtaining this sort of advice regarding advances in technology ? Is this what our fine colleges and military academies are teaching our youth ? Another total waste of money and talent, and an example of the total lack of leadership and basic military experience of our current President, who, we learn too late, has spent his career as Professor (!) and President (!) at Princeton University (!?) , a "sleepy little college in a sleepy little town", as it has been described [TRUE !] by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University in New York --- a Man's Man in a Real City ! Wake up , America !
