bqphan — Balloons, Airships & other Flying Machines

balloons,

airships & other

FLYING

MACHINES by bqphan

CONTENT 3 INTRODUC TION 4

E ARLY PL ANS FOR FLYING

6 timeline 8 PAR ACHUTE 10

BALLOON

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AIRSHIP

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GLIDER

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AIRPL ANE

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HELICOP TER

“Kay Kāvus ascends to the sky”, folio 134r from the Shahnama (“Book of Kings”) of Shah Tahmasp. King Kay Kāvus fastens four young eagles to the corners of his throne, making them fly upward by attaching raw meat to four spears. Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1525–30. Text authored by Abu 'l-Qasim Ferdowsi (935–1020).

Painting attributed to Qadimi (active ca. 1525–65).

balloons, airships & other flying machines

INTRODUCTION T

he story of modern flight begins more than a century before the first successful manned aeroplane, and thousands of years before the earliest aircraft. From the earliest times, there have been legends of men mounting flying devices or strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. The Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus is one of the earliest to come down to us. According to Ovid, Daedalus tied feathers together to mimic the wings of a bird. Other ancient legends include the Indian Vimana flying palace or chariot, Ezekiel’s chariot, various stories about magic carpets, and mythical British King Bladud, who conjured up flying wings.

The kite was invented in China possibly as far back as the 5th century bc. These leaf kites were constructed by stretching silk over a split bamboo framework. The earliest known Chinese kites were flat (not bowed) and often rectangular. Later, tailless kites incorporated a stabilizing bowline.

Designs often emulated flying insects, birds, and other beasts, both real and mythical. Some were fitted with strings and whistles to make musical sounds while flying.

The obstacle for man in the way of his acquiring the art of flying is not the difficulty of constructing

wings, but that of obtaining the necessary force to work them. Birds are provided with muscles of large size, packed in their breasts, which are capable of exerting an enormous force—that is, enormous in relation to the size and weight of the body of the bird. By means of these muscles, she can strike the air with her expanded wings so energetically as to lift herself from the ground by them, and then to impel herself through the air. If the arms of a man could be invested with an equal power in proportion to the weight of his body, any respectable mechanician could easily adapt an arrangement to them for expanding the sur­face, so that he could raise and propel himself as easily as any bird. Thus, the trouble is not, as many people have supposed, in making wings, but in obtaining the strength to work them.

The earlier adventurers upon aerial enterprises possessed little accurate knowledge of the properties of air. They had only their observations of the birds as a guide, and knew of no motive power save that derived from muscular energy; hence their thoughts first turned to flapping wings, to be propelled by their own exertions. Some few, as we shall see, have considered the force of the wind, but it is only since the age of steam that artificial motors of any kind have been proposed for flying machines.

flying m achines — introduction

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

EARLY PLANS FO T

he well-worn legends of antiquity, concerning Dedalus, Abaris, Archytas, etc., may be passed over without comment. They merely indicate how the problem of artificial flight appealed to the imagination of men from the earliest periods, but some curious traditions will be mentioned, indicating partial successes in soaring flight, when we come to treat of aeroplanes. About the first authentic account which we have of a proposal to provide man with flapping wings seems to be due to Leonardo da Vinci, the painter, sculptor, architect. and engineer. He is said not only to have experimented with aerial screws made of paper, and to have designed a parachute, but also to have seriously contemplated building an apparatus to propel a pair of wings, of which several sketches have been found in his notebooks.

The first wing experiment reported by tradition seems to be that of a French tight-rope dancer named Allard who, under the reign of Louis XIV., announced that he would fly from the terrace at Saint Germain toward the woods of Vesinet in

fact : Da Vinci’s work remained unknown until 1797, and had no influence on developments over the next 300 years. His designs were also not based on particularly good science.

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presence of the king. It is probable that he had previously succeeded in gliding short distances, but upon trial before the court his strength failed him; he fell near the foot of the terrace, and he was grievously hurt. This probably occurred about the year 1660. In 1678, a French locksmith named Besnier constructed a pair of oscillating wings. The apparatus consisted of two bars of wood hinged over the shoulders, and carrying wings of muslin, arranged like folding shutters, so as to open flat on the down stroke and fold up edgewise on the up stroke. They were alternately pulled down by the feet and by the arms, in such wise, that when the right hand pulled down the right wing, the left leg pulled down the left wing, and so on, thus imitating the ordinary movements in walking.

Besnier did not pretend that he could rise from the ground or fly horizontally through the air.

He only tried short distances; having begun by jumping off from a chair, then from a table, then from a window-sill, and next from a second story, and finally from the garret, on which occasion he sailed over the roof of an adjoining cottage.

He gradually grew more expert, sold his first pair of wings to a mountebank, who performed with them at the fairs, and he expected with his second pair to fly across moderately wide rivers by starting from a height, but it is not known whether he ever performed this feat.

flying m achines — early pl ans for flying

OR FLYING

Top row and bottom right: “Leonardo da Vinci: Diagram of a proposed flying machine”, 1789. Prints by Carlo Giuseppe Gerli after sketches by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).

Bottom left: “Flying”, ca. 1830. Technical illustration showing Besnier's 1678 design for a flying machine, two views of Jakob Degen's man-powered flying machine, and two views after designs published in Thomas Walker's “Treatise upon the art of flying” providing plans for the construction of a flying car. Engraving by Joseph Wilson Lowry (1803–1879).

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

TIMELINE

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1000 bce

1485–1500

1680

Kite is invented in China.

Leonardo da Vinci designs flying machines and parachute.

Giovanni Borelli, Italian mathematician, concludes human muscle is inadequate for flight.

flying m achines — timeline

1870 Alphonse Pénaud experiments with twisted rubber to power model helicopter.

1891 Otto Lilienthal begins successful gliding experiments.

1783

1896

Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes make the first free aerial voyage in a Montgolfier hot-air balloon.

Samuel P. Langley produces successful steam-powered models that fly.

the same year Jacques Alexandre César Charles and M.N. Robert fly in a hydrogen balloon.

1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright make first powered, sustained, and controlled flight in a heavierthan-air flying machine.

1785

1927

Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries cross the English Channel by balloon.

Charles A. Lindbergh completes first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight.

1797

1932

André Jacques Garnerin makes the first human parachute descent from a balloon.

Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly a solo nonstop transatlantic flight.

flying m achines — timeline

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

PA R ACHUTE propul sion/lif t: air resistance material: umbrella e arly capacit y: one person

fact: The term parachute, of French origin, is a hybrid of para (“defense against”) and chute (“a fall”)—meaning “that which protects against a fall”.

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Lenormand jumps from the Montpellier observatory tower, 1783. Illustration from the late 19th century.

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fly ing m achines — pa r achu te

he history of the origin of the parachute, and of the gradual development of the idea, is very curious. Sebastien Lenormand had read in books of travels that in some part of the world, there were performers among the people who were accustomed—for the amuse­ ment of the king—to jumping from heights, with an instrument like an umbrella held over their heads to retard their fall. He was determined to try the experiment. His first trial was made with two umbrellas, one held in each hand. He chose umbrellas of the largest size, and strengthened them by additional ties within to prevent them from being turned inside out by the resistance of the air. With these in his hands, he leaped from the second story of a house in Montpellier, and came to the ground in safety.

fact : The oldest known depiction of a parachute (illusstration to the left) was by an anonymous author in Italy in the 1470s.

Lenormand was not the inventor of the parachute: the ancient Chinese may have devised one, and it was known to medieval Europe in the form of a toy.

Someone who witnessed this experiment reported it to the Abbe Bertholon, who was at that time a professor of Natural Philosophy at Montpellier.

He was much interested in the idea, and sent for Lenormand. Lenormand proposed to repeat the experiment in a new form. He obtained a large umbrella, one about thirty inches in diameter, and suspended a num­ber of animals to it, one after another, and let them fall from the top of the observatory. They all came to the ground in safety.

Lenormand then calculated—from the weight of the heaviest animal that fell safely from the tower of the observatory compared with the size of the umbrella­—to de­termine what size an ex­panded surface must be to be sufficient to sustain a man.

He found that an umbrella about fourteen feet in diameter would be required to retard sufficient­ly a weight of 200 pounds. When his parachute was finished, Lenor­mand, after some minor trials, leaped with it himself from the top of the tower of the observ­atory, in the presence of a vast crowd of spec­tators, and came down safely to the ground.

fly ing m achines — pa r achu te

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

BA LLOON propul sion/lif t: hot air, experimental material: varnished silk, wicker basket e arly capacit y: two to three persons

hydrogen, helium

fact : The discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black to propose its use as a lifting gas in about 1780.

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he modern era of lighter-than-air flight began early in the 17th centur y with Galileo's experiments in which he showed that air has weight. Around 1650, Cyrano de Bergerac wrote some fantasy novels in which he described the principle of ascent using a substance (“dew”) he supposed to be lighter than air, and descending by releasing a controlled amount of the substance. Francesco Lana de Terzi measured the pressure of air at sea level, and in 1670 proposed the first scientifically credible lifting medium in the form of hollow metal spheres from which all the air had been pumped out.

Technical illustrations of early balloon designs, 1818. Engraving by Ambrose William Warren (ca.

1781–1856).

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flying m achines — balloon

From the mid-18th century, the Montgolfier brothers in France began experimenting with balloons. Their balloons were made of paper, and early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on the paper as it condensed. Mistaking smoke for a kind of steam, they began filling their balloons with hot smoky air, which they called “electric smoke”, and— despite not fully understanding the principles at

fact : The first manned hot-air balloon, designed by the Montgolfier brothers, took off from the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, on November 21, 1783 (illustration to the left).

Just a few days later, on December 1, 1783, professor Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launched a new, manned hydrogen balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, amid vast crowds and excitement. work—made some successful launches. In 1783, they were invited to give a demonstration to the French Academie des sciences.

Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black in 1780 to propose its use as a lifting gas, though practical demonstration awaited a gastight balloon material. On hearing of the Montgolfier brothers' invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon. Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a gastight material of rubberised silk for the envelope. The hydrogen gas was to be generated by chemical reaction during the filling process.

On the 19th of September 1783, Pilatre De Rozier, a scientist, launched the first hot air balloon called Aerostat Reveillon. The passengers were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. The balloon stayed in the air for a grand total of 15 minutes, before crashing back to the ground. The first manned attempt came about two months later on the 21st of November, with a balloon made by two French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. The balloon was launched from the centre of Paris and flew for a period of 20 minutes. While the balloon has been from the beginning little more than a philosophical toy, it is significant in that it is the first successful human-carrying flight technology.

flying m achines — balloon

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

A IRSHIP propul sion/lif t: hydrogen, helium, hot air material: rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid, Alclad, several engines, e arly capacit y: varied greatly (Hindenburg: 35 to 50)

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y the mid-19th century, man wanted to be able to direct their course so as to go from one place to another without depending on the wind to blow them there. This idea was worked out in the dirigible, nowadays called an airship. Throughout the development of airships, many ideas were offered and tried. Some thought of adding sails to the balloons, hoping to steer by this means. Others thought of oars and paddle wheels. One such balloon was called the Dolphin.

It had movable fins and a large painted eye with a ship hanging beneath it. Another plan was for a balloon to be drawn by four great eagles harnessed to the ship and trained to obey the pilot. All of these plans turned out to be failures.

Balloons began being built in the shape of a cigar, steered by rudders, and guided by propellers powered by small steam engines—and

fact : Airships gain their lift from large bags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.

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flying m achines — airship

rudder

eventually by gasoline ones. It was not until the mid-century that a man successfully completed a sustained, powered, controlled flight. This flight, piloted by Henri Giffard, is believed to have taken place on September 24, 1852, and across a 15-mile stretch from Paris to Trappes, France. Giffard’s device was called the Giffard dirigible, and it was a non-rigid airship filled with hydrogen, and powered by a three-horsepower steam engine driving a three-bladed propeller.

Technology advanced, and eventually the Graf Zeppelin—a rigid airship filled with hydrogen—was developed in Germany. This passenger-carrying airship operated commercially from 1928 to 1937.

When it entered commercial service in 1928, it became the first commercial passenger transatlantic flight in service in the world. During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights, covering more than one million miles. It was the longest rigid airship at the time of its completion, and was only surpassed by the uss Akron in 1931.

The Graf Zeppelin was scrapped for fighter plane parts in 1940.

lz 127 Graf Zeppelin (Deutsches Luftschiff Zeppelin #127; Registration: d-lz 127) was a German-built and operated, passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled, rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. When it entered commercial service i n 1928, i t b e c a m e t h e f i r s t c o m m e r c i a l p a s senger transatlantic flight ser vice in the world.

fact: The Graf Zeppelin is the most famous airship. She made a flight around the world in 21 days and was the first commercial passenger transatlantic flight service in the world.

Airships were originally called dirigible balloons, from the Latin dirigere— meaning “to direct or steer”.

flying m achines — airship

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

GLIDER propul sion/lif t: gravity and air currents material: willow sticks or other wood, cotton, e arly capacit y: one to two persons

steel, aluminum, linen

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ll the time that these experiments were being made, men were still anxious to fly in the same way as the birds—and birds are heavier than air. How could this be done? It had been found that simply fastening feathers to birdlike wings would not work, so the secret did not lie in the feathers.

Then men noticed that birds never were perfectly still when flying in the air. Perhaps that was the reason they could fly. Perhaps the movement of the birds' wings through the air produced the lift which held them up. Yes, that was the answer!

A German whose name was Lilien­t hal became interested in flying. He watched the great white storks glide through the air with motionless wings.

fact: Lilienthal made close to 2,000 brief flights in 16 different designs based on aerodynamic research he conducted in the 1870's and 1880's.

He achieved flight distances up to 1,150 feet with his more sophisticated gliders.

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flying m achines — glider

Lilienthal gliding downhill.

Lilienthal preparing for an ornithopter flight, 1894.

He knew that these storks were heavier than air, and he figured it out that they must be gliding downhill or gliding in a rising current of air. He, too, was right; so he built gliders, using willow sticks and cloth covering for the wings and tail.

He made many successful glides by running and jumping off the top of steep hills near his home.

Lilienthal died tragically from injuries sustained in one of his flight experiments. Among his notes, lectures, and other writings, he left information that proved invaluable to subsequent aircraft designers, including Wilbur and Orville Wright.

fact : Lilienthal had a conical hill (about 45 feet high and 200 feet in diameter) constructed in 1894 near Berlin, Germany, at Gross-Lichterfelde, from which he could glide in any direction.

flying m achines — glider

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

A IR PLA NE propul sion/lif t: gliders material: catapult launch, steam engine, e arly capacit y: one to two persons

light gasoline engine

fact : Five people witnessed the Wright brother’s first flight.

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n the United States, Samuel Pierpont Langley built a model airplane, driven by a small steam engine for over a quarter of a mile. The next year, he built a man-sized airplane which was to be catapulted from the top of a house boat in the Potomac River, near Washington, dc. When this airplane was being launched, a part of it struck the sail on the house boat, and the machine crashed before taking to the air.

Wilbur Wright pilots a full-size glider down the steep slope of Big Kill Devil Hill in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on October 10, 1902. This model was the third iteration of the Wright brothers' early gliders, equipped with wings that would warp to steer, a rear vertical rudder, and a forward elevator.

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flying m achines — airpl ane

For several years two brothers, Wil­bur and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, had been experimenting with gliders and studying the results of all the others who had tried and failed to fly. They tried out model after model, and at last their man-carrying gliders made many successful flights of short distances. Finally, they found out a way how to keep their airplane from tipping over. Then they knew that if they had an engine light enough to drive the plane, they could control their flight.

The brothers drew lots to see which should make the first trial. Orville won. The engine was started and the signal given. Off went the airplane. Slowly

The Langley model aeroplane in flight above the Potamac.

fact: Langley’s craft had no landing gear. The plan was to descend into the water after demonstrating flight which if successful would entail a partial, if not total, rebuilding of the machine.

In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic.

it gathered speed, and—to the surprise of the men who were watching—rose off the ground and flew across the sands, landing safely a quarter of a mile away. This was the first time that a man had been carried into the air by a machine using its own power and under control of its pilot. It had taken hundreds of years of trials and experiments to learn how man could build a machine in which he could really fly and go from place to place at his own will.

In 1927, a young air-mail pilot named Charles Lindbergh dared to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone, from New York to Paris, France. His airplane, called the Spirit of St. Louis after his home city, was a monoplane with a single engine. Starting at

dawn on the morning of May 20, 1927, he soared away from New York on his lonely way to Europe.

For food, he carried only a few sandwiches.

The first part of his flight was along the coast to Newfoundland. People in cities and in ships along the coast sent back word of his progress.

At St. Johns, Newfoundland, he left the land and steered out over the ocean. No word was heard of him until the next morning when he reached the coast of Ireland, finding it within three miles of the place he had planned. On he went, and in 33 hours and 30 minutes after leaving New York, he landed safely on a flying field at Paris. It had taken Columbus about 70 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean in his little sailing ship.

flying m achines — airpl ane

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balloons, airships & other flying machines

HELICOPTER propul sion/lif t: engine-driven rotors material: steel or aluminum frame, light e arly capacit y: one to two persons

gasoline engine

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he earliest references for vertical flight came from China. Since around 400 bc, children had been playing with bamboo flying toys. This bamboo-copter is spun by rolling a stick attached to a rotor. The spinning creates lift, and the toy flies when released. Designs similar to the Chinese helicopter toy appeared in Renaissance paintings and other works in the 18th and early 19th centuries, around the time that scientists began developing flying machines based on the toy. Many extraordinary models were developed by an ever increasing number of great thinkers, but all the pioneers were missing two essentials: a true understanding of the nature of lift, and an adequate engine.

fact : Étienne Oehmichen became the first to fly a helicopter one kilometer in a closed circuit in 1924. It was a historic flight taking seven minutes and 40 seconds.

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flying m achines — helicopter

In 1870, Alphonse Pénaud, a member of the Société de Navigation Aérienne (“Aerial Navigation Society”) presided over by Hureau de Villeneuve, remained convinced that human flight would only be possible by means of the aeroplane. He had identified the problems which had to be solved in order to build the machine of his dreams: the resistance of the air, that of the materials used, and above all the essential need for a lightweight engine. He had foreseen everything that would make the flight of aeroplanes possible, but failed in the application of his theories.

In 1906, two French brothers, Jacques and Louis Breguet, began experimenting with airfoils for helicopters. In 1907, those experiments resulted in the Gyroplane No. 1, possibly as the earliest known example of a quadcopter. Although there is some uncertainty about the date, the Gyroplane No. 1 lifted its pilot into the air about two feet (0.6m) for a minute.

Étienne Oehmichen’s first experimental helicopter, 1921.

Étienne Oehmichen’s first successful flight with a helicopter took place on February 18, 1921.

On November 11, 1922, he first flew Oehmichen No. 2, an improved helicopter featuring small vertically mounted rotors which rotated in the opposite direction from the large lifting rotors, probably creating the first reliable flying helicopter capable of carrying a person. This work later led to the development of the tail rotor. On April 14, 1923, he broke the existing record for helicopter flight with a flight of 360 miles, and one of 525 miles a few days later, just before being surpassed by Raúl Pateras Pescara.

fact : In 1870, Alphonse Pénaud experimented with twisted rubber to power model helicopter.

Gyroplane No. 1 proved to be extremely unstable, and required a man at each corner of the airframe to hold it steady.

flying m achines — helicopter

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