Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/216

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A Photographic Eye for the Airman

���With this camera apparatus every detail of the world below the airman is minutely registered on the roll of film which runs over the camera lens at a speed regulated by the operator

��GREATER progress has been made in aerial pliotography during the ]>resent war than in the years fol- lowing 1858, when M. Nadar, of Paris, took a view of that city by means of a camera attached to the basket of a bal- loon. The fact that a ]>hotograph (nnn an aeroplane of fori ificat ions, damaged railways, bodii's of troops, and the con- tour of the enemy's country gi\-es valu- able information which is absolutely relialjle, not being dependent for its accuracy on the skill ami coolness of the observer, makes this form of reconnais- sance of the highest military importance. Indeed, it is of such \ahie that a dozen

��different t>'pes of aerial photographing apparatus ha\-e been e\olved in the short duration of the present world strug- gle. The latest development is found in the Fabbri automatic aeroplane camera, which includes some features already tried out b\- other inventors but which is, in the main, an ingenious mechanism of original construction. With it an aerial scout can take a continuous photograph of the earth's surface one hundred and ihirtN' miles long. When operatetl on an aeroplane at an altitude of two thousand feet it will take into its field a strip of ground one thousanil two hundred feet wide. In clear weather excellent work

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