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Steam-powered Aircraft
A steam-powered aircraft is an aircraft propelled by a steam engine. Steam power was used during the 19th century, but fell into disuse with the arrival of the more practical internal combustion engine at the beginning of the pioneer era. Steam power is distinct from its use as a lifting gas in thermal airships and early balloons. History * 1842: The Aerial Steam Carriage of William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow was patented, but was never successful, although a steam-powered model was flown in 1848. * 1852: Henri Giffard flew a 3-horsepower (2 kW) steam-powered dirigible over Paris; it was the first powered aircraft. * 1861 Gustave Ponton d'Amécourt made a small steam-powered craft, coining the name helicopter. * 1874: Félix du Temple flew a steam-powered aluminium monoplane off a downhill run. While it did not achieve level flight, it was the first manned heavier-than-air powered flight. * 1877: Enrico Forlanini built and flew a model steam-powered helicopter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1843 Engraving Of The Aerial Steam Carriage
Events January–March * January ** Serial publication of Charles Dickens's novel ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' begins in London; in the July chapters, he lands his hero in the United States. ** Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is published in a Boston magazine. ** The Quaker magazine ''The Friend (Quaker), The Friend'' is first published in London. * January 3 – The ''Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms'' (海國圖志, ''Hǎiguó Túzhì'') compiled by Wei Yuan and others, the first significant Chinese work on the West, is published in China. * January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island. * January 20 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, becomes ''de facto'' first Prime Minister of Brazil, prime minister of the Empire of Brazil. * February – Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa captures the fort and town of Riffa after the rival branch of the family fails to gain control of the Riffa Fort and flees t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Mozhaisky
Mozhaysky, identified as the "Creator of world's first airplane", on a 1963 Soviet postal stamp. Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaysky Pol. Aleksander Teodorowicz Możajski (also transliterated as Mozhayski, Mozhayskii and Mozhayskiy; russian: Алекса́ндр Фёдорович Можа́йский) ( – ) was an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy of Polish origin aviation pioneer, researcher and designer of heavier-than-air craft. Biography Mozhaysky was born to Polish parents in Rochensalm, in the Grand Duchy of Finland (present-day Kotka), southern Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, and Mozhaysky graduated from the Sea Cadet Corps in 1841. He spent the next seven years on voyages in the Baltic Sea and in the White Sea on various vessels, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1849. He served with the Baltic Fleet from 1850 to 1852. In 1853 he was selected as a member of Vice Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin’s e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clyde Pangborn
Clyde Edward Pangborn ( ''c''. October 28, 1895 – March 29, 1958), nicknamed "Upside-Down Pangborn", was an American aviator and barnstormer who performed aerial stunts in the 1920s for the Gates Flying Circus. He was its half-owner, chief pilot and operating manager, working in partnership with Ivan R. Gates. In 1931, Pangborn and co-pilot Hugh Herndon Jr. flew their plane, ''Miss Veedol'', on the first non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean. Early life and career Clyde Edward Pangborn, son of Max and Opal Lamb Pangborn, was born in Bridgeport, Washington, near Lake Chelan. His exact birth year is uncertain, because he used 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1896, on various documents, changing his age to appear older or younger as needed. The 1900 United States Census listed Clyde Pangborn (b. October 1893) and his brother Percy (b. January 1891) living with their mother Ola ic.in Spokane, Washington. In 1910 Clyde (age 16) and Percy (age 19) were boarders with the Alfred Heimark fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol Tramp
The Bristol Tramp was a British steam-powered passenger and airmail transport aircraft designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was built but never flew. Development The Tramp was a development of Bristol's earlier Pullman passenger aircraft. In 1919, Frank Barnwell entered discussions with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company about the feasibility of using flying boats as auxiliaries to ocean liners. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company had very limited experience with internal combustion engines, but long-term and deep knowledge of steam turbine powerplants, and so suggested the use of a steam turbine to power the aircraft. As Bristol's heavy bomber, the Braemar – the progenitor of the Pullman – had originally been designed to have a central engine room with driveshafts to wing-mounted propellers, the Pullman seemed a suitable candidate as a testbed for the installation of a steam turbine engine room. The powerplant was to consist of two 1,500 hp (1,120 kW) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyman Gilmore
Lyman Wiswell Gilmore, Jr. (June 11, 1874 – February 18, 1951) was an aviation pioneer. In Grass Valley, California, he built a steam-powered airplane and claimed that he flew it on May 15, 1902. Due to the requirement of a heavy boiler and the dependency on coal as a power source, the flights would have been unsustainable. Records and evidence relating to his claim were lost in a 1935 hangar fire. First flight Gilmore, in a 1936 interview, reported a successful tethered glider flight in 1893 and a free glider flight in 1894. Gilmore further added that (although he had not reported it until 1927) he made a controlled steam-powered flight on May 15, 1902; however, all records and papers related to his aircraft were destroyed in a fire. There are photographs from 1898 showing Gilmore's machine, but none showing it in the air. The claims of the aircraft achieving flight are unconfirmed, and given the weight evident by the grounded aircraft photos, the possibility of flight is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustave Whitehead
Gustave Albin Whitehead (born Gustav Albin Weisskopf; 1 January 1874 – 10 October 1927) was an aviation pioneer who emigrated from Germany to the United States where he designed and built gliders, flying machines, and engines between 1897 and 1915. Controversy surrounds published accounts and Whitehead's own claims that he flew a powered machine successfully several times in 1901 and 1902, predating the first flights by the Wright Brothers in 1903. Much of Whitehead's reputation rests on a newspaper article which was written as an eyewitness report and describes his powered and sustained flight in Connecticut on 14 August 1901. Over a hundred newspapers in the U.S. and around the world soon repeated information from the article. Several local newspapers also reported on other flight experiments that Whitehead made in 1901 and subsequent years. Whitehead's aircraft designs and experiments were described or mentioned in ''Scientific American'' articles and a 1904 book about ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flugan
Flugan (''The Fly'') was an early aeroplane designed and built by Carl Richard Nyberg outside his home in Lidingö, Sweden. Construction started in 1897 and he kept working on it until 1922. The craft only managed a few short jumps and Nyberg was often ridiculed, however several of his innovations are still in use.Sundbybergs Museum He was the first to test his design in a and the first to build a .Arlanda Flygsamlingar [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Richard Nyberg
Carl Richard Nyberg (28 May 1858 – 25 March 1939) was a Swedish inventor and industrialist. Nyberg was a pioneer in mechanical engineering. He received a patent for a blow lamp and was an aviation pioneer. Biography Nyberg was born at Arboga in Västmanland, Sweden. After school he started working for a jeweller and later he moved to Stockholm and worked with various metalworks. He later worked for Johan Erik Erikson (1838-1883) at J. E. Eriksons mekaniska verkstad. While working there he had the idea of the blowtorch. He later worked on the idea and created a blowtorch with strong, directed heat and with several safety measures. In 1882 he set up a workshop at Luntmakargatan in Stockholm making blowtorches. However the business didn't work well because it took too long to both manufacture and sell. In 1884 he moved his workshop to Sundbyberg. In 1886, he met Max Sievert (1849–1913) who had founded AB Sieverts Kabelverk in Sundbyberg. Sievert became interested in Nyberg' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Pierpont Langley
Samuel Pierpont Langley (August 22, 1834 – February 27, 1906) was an American aviation pioneer, astronomer and physicist who Invention, invented the bolometer. He was the third secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a professor of astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the director of the Allegheny Observatory. Life Langley was born in Roxbury, Boston, on August 23, 1834. Langley attended Boston Latin School and graduated from English High School of Boston, after which he became an assistant in the Harvard College Observatory. He then moved to a job at the United States Naval Academy, ostensibly as a professor of mathematics. However, he was actually sent there to restore the Academy's small observatory. In 1867, he became the director of the Allegheny Observatory and a professor of astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh (then known as the Western University of Pennsylvania), a post he kept until 1891 even while he became the third Secretary of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxim Gun
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historian Martin Gilbert, and was heavily used by colonial powers during the "Scramble for Africa". Afterwards, Maxim guns also saw extensive usage by different armies during the Russo-Japanese War, the First and Second World Wars, as well as by insurgent groups in contemporary conflicts. The Maxim gun was greatly influential in the development of machine guns, and it has multiple variants and derivatives. Design The Maxim gun featured one of the earliest recoil-operated firing systems in history. Energy from recoil acting on the breech block is used to eject each spent cartridge and insert the next one. Maxim's earliest designs used a 360-degree rotating cam to reverse the movement of the block, but this was later simplified to a toggle lock. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American-British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim laid claim to inventing the lightbulb. Maxim experimented with powered flight; his large aircraft designs were never successful. He designed a highly successful amusement ride called the "Captive Flying Machine" to fund his research while generating public interest in flight. Maxim moved from the United States to the United Kingdom at the age of 41, and remained an American citizen until he became a naturalised British subject in 1899, and received a knighthood in 1901. Birth and early life Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine on 5 February 1840. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 and ten years later, took up a job at the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stephens, at Fitc ... [...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] |
