The du Temple Monoplane was a

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 ...

made of

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

, built in

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France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, by naval officer

Félix du Temple Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, S ...

in 1874. It had a

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

of 13 m (43 ft) and weighed 80 kg (180 lb) without the pilot. Several trials were made with the aircraft, and it is generally recognized that it achieved lift-off – described by Dollfus as "short hop or leap" and in ''Flight International'' as "staggered briefly into the air" – (from a combination of its own power and running down an inclined ramp), glided for a short time and returned safely to the ground, making it the first successful powered flight in history though not the first self-powered one. It was displayed at the 1878 ''Exposition Universelle'' ("World Fair") in Paris. Felix de la Croix du Temple airplane mockup

Felix de la Croix du Temple airplane mockup

Steam engine

1857 patent drawing of Du Temple monoplane

The aircraft used a very compact, high-speed circulation

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

for which Félix du Temple applied for a patent on 28 April 1876. The engine used very small pipes packed together "to obtain the highest possible contact surface for the smallest possible volume" : "When he began with the aid of his brother, M. Louis du Temple, to experiment on a large scale, the inadequacy of all motors then known became apparent. They first tried steam at very high pressures, then a hot-air engine, and finally built and patented, in 1876 a very light steam boiler weighing from 39 to 44 lb. to the horse power, which appears to have been the prototype of some of the light boilers which have since been constructed. It consisted in a series of very thin tubes less than 1/8 in. in internal diameter, through which water circulated very rapidly, and was flashed into steam by the surrounding flame." This type of boiler, which boils the water instantly, has come to be known as a

flash boiler A flash boiler is a type of water-tube boiler. The tubes are close together and water is pumped through them. A flash boiler differs from the type of monotube steam generator in which the tube is permanently filled with water. In a flash boiler, t ...

. The engine design was later adopted by the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

for the propulsion of the first French

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

s: : "Officers and engineers have now made up their opinion regarding Du Temple's steam engine. Everybody proclaims the superiority of its qualities… orders are pouring in from our commercial harbours and from the French government."

Notes

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Flying machines

19th-century French experimental aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Steam-powered aircraft

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 confi ...

Shoulder-wing aircraft fi:Höyrylentokone

Steam engine

See also

Notes

External links