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Air-tractor Sledge
The air-tractor sledge was a converted fixed-wing aircraft taken on the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, the first plane to be taken to the Antarctic.Bickel 2000, p. 39. Expedition leader Douglas Mawson had planned to use the Vickers R.E.P. Type Monoplane as a reconnaissance and search and rescue tool, and to assist in publicity, but the aircraft crashed heavily during a test flight in Adelaide, only two months before Mawson's scheduled departure date. The plane was nevertheless sent south with the expedition, after having been stripped of its wings and metal sheathing from the fuselage. Engineer Frank Bickerton spent most of the 1912 winter working to convert it to a sledge, fashioning brakes from a pair of geological drills and a steering system from the plane's landing gear. It was first tested on 15 November 1912, and subsequently assisted in laying depots for the summer sledging parties, but its use during the expedition was minimal. Towing a train ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Esnault-Pelterie
Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie (8 November 1881 – 6 December 1957) was a French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist. He is referred to as being one of the founders of modern rocketry and astronautics, along with the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the Chinese Qian Xuesen, Germans Hermann Oberth, Fritz von Opel, Wernher Von Braun and the American Robert H. Goddard. Biography He was born on 8 November 1881 in Paris to a textile industrialist. He was educated at the ''Faculté des Sciences'', studying engineering at the Sorbonne. He served in World War I and was made an ''Officier de la Légion d'Honneur''. In November 1928, on board the ''Ile de France'' while sailing to New York City, he was married to Carmen Bernaldo de Quirós, the daughter of Don Antonio and Yvonne Cabarrus, and granddaughter of General Marquis of Santiago, Grandee of Spain, Head of the Military Household of Queen Isabella II. He died on 6 December 1957 in Nice, France. REP Esnault-Pel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entire large ships, cars, tanks and torpedoes followed. Airships and aircraft were added, and Vickers jet airliners were to remain in production until 1965. Financial problems following the death of the Vickers brothers were resolved in 1927 by separating Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, then merging the remaining bulk of the original business with Armstrong Whitworth to form Vickers-Armstrongs. The Vickers name resurfaced as Vickers plc between 1977 and 1999. History Foundry Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor & Sanderson, and Vickers' brother William owned a steel roll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essex Regiment
The Essex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment served in many conflicts such as the Second Boer War and both World War I and World War II, serving with distinction in all three. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot and the 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot. In 1958, the Essex Regiment was amalgamated with the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment to form the 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot). However, the existence was short-lived and, in 1964, was amalgamated again with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk), the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. The lineage of the Essex Regiment is continued by 'C' Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment. History Orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Evelyn Watkins
Hugh may refer to: * Hugh (given name) Noblemen and clergy French * Hugh the Great (died 956), Duke of the Franks * Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France under his father, Robert II * Hugh, Duke of Alsace (died 895), modern-day France * Hugh of Austrasia (7th century), Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia * Hugh I, Count of Angoulême (1183–1249) * Hugh II, Count of Angoulême (1221–1250) * Hugh III, Count of Angoulême (13th century) * Hugh IV, Count of Angoulême (1259–1303) * Hugh, Bishop of Avranches (11th century), France * Hugh I, Count of Blois (died 1248) * Hugh II, Count of Blois (died 1307) * Hugh of Brienne (1240–1296), Count of the medieval French County of Brienne * Hugh, Duke of Burgundy (d. 952) * Hugh I, Duke of Burgundy (1057–1093) * Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy (1084–1143) * Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy (1142–1192) * Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy (1213–1272) * Hugh V, Duke of Burgundy (1294–1315) * Hugh Capet (939–996), King of Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing configuration and is the simplest to build. However, during the early years of flight, these advantages were offset by its greater weight and lower manoeuvrability, making it relatively rare until the 1930s. Since then, the monoplane has been the most common form for a fixed-wing aircraft. Characteristics Support and weight The inherent efficiency of the monoplane is best achieved in the cantilever wing, which carries all structural forces internally. However, to fly at practical speeds the wing must be made thin, which requires a heavy structure to make it strong and stiff enough. External bracing can be used to improve structural efficiency, reducing weight and cost. For a wing of a given size, the weight reduction allows it to fly slower a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Scott
Edith Agnes Kathleen Young, Baroness Kennet, Royal British Society of Sculptors, FRBS (née Bruce; formerly Scott; 27 March 1878 – 25 July 1947) was a British sculptor. Trained in London and Paris, Scott was a prolific sculptor, notably of portrait heads and busts and also of several larger public monuments. These included a number of war memorials plus statues of her first husband, the Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes her as "the most significant and prolific British women sculptor before Barbara Hepworth", her traditional style of sculpture and her hostility to the abstract work of, for example Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore, has led to a lack of recognition for her artistic achievements. Kathleen Scott was the mother of Sir Peter Scott, the painter and naturalist and of the writer and politician Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, Wayland Young from her second marriage to Hilton Young, 1st B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blériot Aéronautique
Blériot Aéronautique was a French aircraft manufacturer founded by Louis Blériot. It also made a few motorcycles between 1921 and 1922 and cyclecars during the 1920s. Background Louis Blériot was an engineer who had developed the first practical headlamp for cars and had established a successful business marketing them. In 1901 he had built a small unmanned ornithopter, but his serious involvement with aviation began in April 1905 when he witnessed Gabriel Voisin's first experiments with a floatplane glider towed behind a motorboat on the river Seine. A brief partnership with Voisin followed, but after the failure of the Blériot III and its modified version, the Blériot IV, the partnership was dissolved and Blériot set up his own company, "Recherches Aéronautique Louis Blériot" (Louis Blériot Aeronautical Research) at Courbevoie in March 1909. Blériot's early experiments File:Bleriot V.jpg, Blériot V File:Bleriot VI.jpg, Blériot VI File:Bleriot VII.jpg, Blér ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeroplane
An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne-kilometersMeasured in RTKs—an RTK is one tonne of revenue freight carried one kilometer. of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled such as drones. The Wright brothers invented and flew the first airplane in 1903, recognized as "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Earth from the North Pole, at a distance of 12,430 miles (20,004 km) in all directions. Situated on the continent of Antarctica, it is the site of the United States Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, which was established in 1956 and has been permanently staffed since that year. The Geographic South Pole is distinct from the South Magnetic Pole, the position of which is defined based on Earth's magnetic field. The South Pole is at the centre of the Southern Hemisphere. Geography For most purposes, the Geographic South Pole is defined as the southern point of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface (the other being the Geographic North Pole). However, Earth's axis of rotat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
