The wounded are being carried in the boxes on the swaying backs of the camels. The picture is thoroughly typical of the many weird conditions under which the campaigns in the near East are being conducted. Two bearers have dashed out into the storm of bullets that is sweeping across the plain, and are picking up a wounded officer, while on the dead run. In doing so, they have forfeited their right to immunity, because under the ordinary rules, firing need not cease if a bearer or surgeon ventures into a space where an engagement is actually in progress, as they are doing here. Dismounted Austrian hussars going after a group of Cossacks hidden at the other side of the field. The little launch to the right is conveying Norwegian officials, who are going to warn the German war vessel that it must quit the fiord in which it has taken shelter, within twenty-four hours. ATLING gun motor exhausts will enter the lists in place of the late firecracker on the Fourth of July, 1915. The rattle of the open mufflers will be just as loud as the roars of the ancient firecrackers, the flights of the planes will be just as thrilling as the balloon ascensions of old, the danger to the populace will be infinitesimal, the Sane Fourth triumphant. All this will happen because on that day, in cities dotted from Coast to Coast over the United States, aeroplanes and hydroaeroplanes of every description will spread their wings to the blue sky as they open the one hundred days' tournament and launch the most tremendous series of flights ever begun in the United States. Stabilizers of every kind will be tried out under the most severe conditions, and one of the many already invented may be finally established, to take its place as the logical instrument to make the aeroplane genuinely foolproof. Monoplane parasols, built for speed, will compete with great water planes. The public will learn that an aeroplane is a real vehicle, fast approaching a useful position beside the telephone and the automobile; it will be shown by cross country flights, speed races and general utility stunts, that in spite of the appetite of the public for daredevil feats, there is room for the sane aeroplane and sane flying. THE THEATER OF THE COMPETITION The main distance and speed contests will be held along the main automobile highways shown on this map. Incidental flights will be made to all outlying districts. The Aero Club of Illinois has offered a prize of ten thousand, one hundred dollars for the daily distance competition, the award to be split into one hundred dollar prizes for the longest flights made each day. The Aero Club of America has offered a similar amount to be awarded to the aviators making the eight best records in the daily distance flights. There are prizes of from five thousand to ten thousand dollars for the best demonstration of mail carrying; prizes of the same amounts for the aviators who cover the greatest total number of miles during the entire one hundred days; prizes of from one to five thousand dollars for the best land and water aeroplanes competing, for the best demonstration given by machines utiliz ing automatic stabilizers, for the lowest consumption of fuel and oil for miles covered, for the largest number of passengers carried a given distance, and for the best demonstration of an aeroplane equipped with two motors, each of which can be run independently of the other. A total of almost one hundred and fifty AMERICA'S DISTANCE CHAMPION One of the tests of the competition will consist of the effort by a hundred machines to rob this Grinnell monoplane of its present title. thousand dollars will be distributed among the winning flyers. cross To carry the competition into every State, three main trans-continental routes have been outlined, so that every aviator in America will be able, by a country flight of moderate length, to reach one of these routes. The main aerial highway will be the central route, or over the Lincoln Highway. Aeroplane circuit races, with distances up to fifteen hundred miles, have been arranged to provide flying demonstrations for every part of the country. These may be held simultaneously in different parts of the country, and any records made by the participants will count in the competition for the awards. In on these contests, as in all others, land and water aeroplanes will compete equal terms. The latter can find landing places anywhere along the Coasts, the Great Lakes, the Gulf, and along the rivers and streams. of the entire country. When the great meet is over, on Columbus Day, October twelfth, towns that have never yet seen a plane will know the airship as a familiar sight, the National Guard will have a fleet of aeroplanes which will be twice as formidable as the present corps of the United States Army and Navy combined, and we shall have a huge corps of trained flyers ready for military service. The National Aeroplane Competition, as the great tournament has been designated, will be held as an effort to rouse greater interest in machines of the air; to develop a fleet of planes for protection of the country in time of war; to dem onstrate for the Post Office department the practicability of carrying mail by aeroplane to hundreds of isolated places which now require days for the delivery of mail; to develop the sporting and business abilities of the aeroplane as it is today. In making these plans, special consideration was given to the pressing need of creat- might be utilized daily for All conditions imposed upon the contestants have been made with the intention of fostering normal flying by normal aviators, and to emphasize the useful side of flying at the expense of the over-exploited sensational side, which has so long depended for its drawing power upon the extent of danger involved in it. For this reason the Contest Committee has limited the "flying day" to ten hours. There are but one hundred and fifty aviators in the United States who can provide themselves with machines and who are ready to fly, but when the Com petition was first announced, twenty-five of the most prominent immediately wired their entries. State and city governments are co-operating and some public subscriptions have been received as well. Wherever official appropriations have been made, and in fact in all cases where the public has provided funds for the purchase of machines to enter, the machines will go to the organized militia. |