Topics Of The Times: Aviation Needs a Stabilizer.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 19, 1913:
    This has been an almost appalling week in the history of aviation, the fatalities having been so numerous that considering how small the number of aviators still is, to speak of wholesale slaughter is hardly an exaggeration. The perfectly understandable lure of the air, however, is so strong, that the places of the dead are promptly taken by eager students of the new art, in spite of the fact that their risk of death not long deferred is almost indistinguishable from a certainty. One after another they meet the fate that is and will remain next to inevitable as long as aeroplanes lack the quality possessed by every other vehicle used by human beings except the bicycle — an inherent tendency in large or small degree to maintain its own equilibrium.
    This is entirely lacking from aeroplanes as they are now made. It is a vital fault, but one which, theoretically, is by no means irremediable. At least a dozen inventors have suggested self-right devices, all more or less promising, and the problem, though difficult, is one for the solution of which science is unquestionably competent.
    The finding of the required solution would be hastened if the many people with money who are interested in mechanical fight would stop offering prizes for altitude, speed, distance, weight carrying, and the traversing of especially dangerous courses, and would instead promise a really handsome reward for a practicable and efficient "stabilizer." That is what is needed, not further incitement of too courageous aviators to achievements which add nothing to present knowledge, even when successfully performed, and with tragic frequency end in death and the consequent strengthening of the false belief that for man movement through the air must remain what it is — a most perilous form of sport.
    There is no such necessity. The aeroplane is a magnificent machine, even in its present imperfect state of development. Unfortunately for the attainment of all its possibilities, glory can be won and money made with it as it is, and its improvement lags simply because attention has been too much diverted from the right direction.
    There is little or no likelihood that the required equilibration will be effected by an aviator. It is work for a mathematician who is also an engineer. The right idea once found in a laboratory or study, any skilled mechanic will be competent to give it material form.