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Ornithopters
An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as flying animals. Larger, crewed ornithopters have also been built and some have been successful. Crewed ornithopters are generally either powered by engines or by the pilot. Early history Some early crewed flight attempts may have been intended to achieve flapping-wing flight, but probably only a glide was actually achieved. They include the purported flights of the 11th-century Catholic monk Eilmer of Malmesbury (recorded in the 12th century) and the 9th-century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas (recorded in the 17th century). Roger Bacon, writing in 1260, was also among the first to consider a technological means of flight. In 1485, Leonardo da Vinci began to study the flight of birds. He grasped that humans ...
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Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 million people live within the administrative limits of the City of Belgrade. It is the third largest of all List of cities and towns on Danube river, cities on the Danube river. Belgrade is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the world. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thracians, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it ''Singidunum, Singidūn''. It was Roman Serbia, conquered by the Romans under the reign ...
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Edward Frost Ornithopter
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte. Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo and Odoardo, German, Dutch, Czech and Romanian Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy and Ned. Peop ...
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Compressed Air
Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air is an important medium for transfer of energy in industrial processes, and is used for power tools such as air hammers, drills, wrenches, and others, as well as to atomize paint, to operate air cylinders for automation, and can also be used to propel vehicles. Brakes applied by compressed air made large railway trains safer and more efficient to operate. Compressed air brakes are also found on large highway vehicles. Compressed air is used as a breathing gas by underwater divers. It may be carried by the diver in a high pressure diving cylinder, or supplied from the surface at lower pressure through an air line or diver's umbilical. Similar arrangements are used in breathing apparatus used by firefighters, mine rescue workers and industrial workers in hazardous atmospheres. In Europe, 10 percent of all industrial electricity consumption is to produce compressed air—amountin ...
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Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Steam that is saturated or superheated is invisible; however, "steam" often refers to wet steam, the visible mist or aerosol of water droplets formed as water vapor condenses. Water increases in volume by 1,700 times at standard temperature and pressure; this change in volume can be converted into mechanical work by steam engines such as reciprocating piston type engines and steam turbines, which are a sub-group of steam engines. Piston type steam engines played a central role in the Industrial Revolution and modern steam turbines are used to generate more than 80% of the world's electricity. If liquid water comes in contact with a very hot surface or depressurizes quickly below its vapor pressure, it can create a steam explosion. ...
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Lawrence Hargrave
Lawrence Hargrave, MRAeS, (29 January 18506 July 1915) was a British-born Australian engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer. Biography Lawrence Hargrave was born in Greenwich, England, the second son of John Fletcher Hargrave (later Attorney-General of NSW), and was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, where there is now a building named in his honour. He immigrated to Australia at fifteen years of age with his family, arriving in Sydney on 5 November 1865 on the ''La Hogue''. He accepted a place on the ''Ellesmere'' and circumnavigated Australia. Although he had shown ability in mathematics at his English school he failed the matriculation examination and in 1867 took an engineering apprenticeship with the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in Sydney. He later found the experience of great use in constructing his models and his theories. In 1872, as an engineer, he sailed on the ''Maria'' on a voyage to ...
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Pressure Measurement
Pressure measurement is the measurement of an applied force by a fluid (liquid or gas) on a surface. Pressure is typically measured in units of force per unit of surface area. Many techniques have been developed for the measurement of pressure and vacuum. Instruments used to measure and display pressure mechanically are called pressure gauges, vacuum gauges or compound gauges (vacuum & pressure). The widely used Bourdon gauge is a mechanical device, which both measures and indicates and is probably the best known type of gauge. A vacuum gauge is used to measure pressures lower than the ambient atmospheric pressure, which is set as the zero point, in negative values (for instance, −1 bar or −760  mmHg equals total vacuum). Most gauges measure pressure relative to atmospheric pressure as the zero point, so this form of reading is simply referred to as "gauge pressure". However, anything greater than total vacuum is technically a form of pressure. For very low press ...
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Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines and road building. Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn at subsonic speeds), whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellan ...
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Gustave Trouvé
Gustave Pierre Trouvé (2 January 1839 – 27 July 1902) was a French electrical engineer and inventor in the 19th century. Trouvé was born on 2 January 1839 in La Haye-Descartes (Indre-et-Loire, France) and died on 27 July 1902 in Paris. A polymath, he was highly respected for his innovative skill in miniaturization. Youth Gustave Trouvé was born into a modest family, his father, Jacques Trouvé, was a cattle dealer. In 1850, he studied to be a locksmith in Chinon College, then in 1854-55 at the École des Arts et Métiers in Angers. His studies incomplete through poor health, he left his local region for Paris where he obtained a job with a clockmaker. Paris From 1865 Trouvé set up a workshop in central Paris where he innovated and patented many widely differing applications of electricity, regularly reported on by popular science magazines of the time such as La Nature. He invented a carbon-zinc pocket-sized battery to power his miniature electric automata which soon b ...
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Pichancourt
In 1889; Pichancourt (first name is not known) developed the L'Oiseau Mechanique (Mechanical Bird Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...) which aimed to imitate the motion of a bird's wings in flight. Image:pichancourt-flyingbird.jpg, Mechanical Bird 1889 References * Chanute, Octave, ''Progress in Flying Machines'', Dover, 1894 (reprinted 1998), 19th-century French inventors {{Greece-engineer-stub ...
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Victor Tatin
Victor Tatin (1843–1913) was a French engineer who created an early airplane, the ''Aéroplane'', in 1879. The craft was the first model airplane to take off using its own power after a run on the ground. The model had a span of and weighed . It had twin propellers and was powered by a compressed-air engine.Exhibit Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace It was flown tethered to a central pole on a circular track at the military facilities of Chalais-Meudon. Running under its own power it took off at a speed of 8 metres per second. Between 1890 and 1897 Tatin and Charles Richet experimented with a steam-powered model with a wingspan of and weighing with fore and aft propellers. They succeeded in flying this for a distance of at a speed of 18 metres per second. In 1902-3 he collaborated with Maurice Mallet on the construction of the dirigible ''Ville de Paris'' for Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe and in 1905 he designed the propeller used by Traian Vuia for his experimental aircraft ...
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Abel Hureau De Villeneuve
Abel Hureau de Villeneuve (1833 – 2 June 1898) was an aeronautical experimenter, and ran a major French aeronautical society and journal in the late nineteenth century. He was also a vegetarianism activist. Aviation research In the 1870s, Dr. Hureau de Villeneuve was the permanent secretary-general of the Aerial Navigation Society ("Société de Navigation Aérienne") and editor of its journal ''L'Aéronaute''. He worked with aeronautical experimenters Alphonse Pénaud and Étienne-Jules Marey. Hureau de Villeneuve had promoted the use of flapping wings ("ornithopters, ornithopter designs") with perhaps 300 experimental models for 25 years since the 1860s, according to Octave Chanute, who discussed an 1872 model in particular. Vegetarianism In 1880, Hureau de Villeneuve founded the Vegetarian Society of Paris () and became its president. He became a vegetarian because he suffered from rheumatism. After some years of vegetarian dieting his health completely recovered. Hureau ...
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