"almost faster than the transmission of light sensation to the optic nerves"
I recall reading in an article from that same timeframe that dogfighting at speeds over 400 mph was impossible because you were moving at a speed faster than the nerve impulses between your mind and your hands.
A hundred years before it was asserted that travel at speeds of 60 mph would prove to be deadly.
George Westinghouse, a man of no little capabilities, once asserted that ground based vehicles would always be faster than aircraft, because weight equated to power and aircraft would always have to be lighter than ground vehicles, and therefore less powerful, and hence slower.