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Lieutenant Ryck Boddike figured prominently in a number of successful flights, in one of which he attacked a French aeroplane on January 6, 1916, killing the aviator and bringing down the machine on the Anatolian coast, near Akbanca. On the following day he shot down, east of Yalova, a British Farman aeroplane.
At times Tom would be in advance, and again he would have to give place to the Curtis, the Farman, or the Santos-Dumont, as these speedy machines, favored by a spurt from their motors, or by some current of air, shot ahead. But, in general, Tom maintained the lead, and among the spectators there began a series of guesses as to how much he would win by. Tom glanced at the barograph.
The aeroplane engine of to-day is, of course, an infinitely more reliable piece of apparatus than it was in those early days when Henry Farman, working with extraordinary patience at Issy-les-Moulineaux, was endeavouring and for a long time without success to make the motor in his Voisin biplane run for five consecutive minutes without breakdown.
Across the rich blue of the evening sky a great Farman biplane came sailing like a gigantic bird. She was barely five hundred feet up, and heading straight for the village. What was more, she was actually coming lower every moment. Henkel, the other officer, the firing party, the bystanders all stood with their eyes fixed upon the plane. The cool insolence of her pilot held them spellbound.
Louis Paulhan, who had just arrived with his Farman machine, immediately got it unpacked and put together in order to be ready to make his attempt for the prize as soon as the weather conditions should admit. At 5.31 p.m., on April 27th, he went up from Hendon and had travelled 50 miles when Grahame White, informed of his rival's start, set out to overtake him.
The wind, which had forced his descent, fell again and permitted of starting once more; on this third stage he reached Lichfield, only to make his final landing at 7.15 p.m., near the Trent Valley station. The defective running of the Gnome engine prevented his completing the course, and his Farman machine had to be brought back to London by rail.
Meanwhile, the Voisin Brothers, who in 1904 made cellular kites for Archdeacon to test by towing on the Seine from a motor launch, obtained data for the construction of the aeroplane which Delagrange and Henry Farman were to use later.
THE WARPING PLANES. The only remedy to meet this condition is expressed in the mechanism which wraps or twists the outer ends of the planes, as constructed in the Wright machine, or the ailerons, or small wings at the rear margins of the planes, as illustrated by the Farman machine.
Those which received official approval included the Caudron, Henry, and Maurice Farman, Morane-Saulnier, and Voisin machines. This drastic order came somewhat as a thunderbolt, and the reason for the decree has not been satisfactorily revealed. Suffice to say that in one stroke the efficiency and numerical strength of the French aerial navy were reduced very appreciably.
These feats caused a great sensation at the time. While the Wrights were achieving fame for America, Henri Farman was busy in England. On October 26, 1907, he flew 820 yards in 52-1/2 seconds. On July 6, 1908, he remained in the air for 20-1/2 minutes. On October 31, same year, in France, he flew from Chalons to Rheims, a distance of sixteen miles, in twenty minutes.
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