![Victor Tatin aeroplane 1879](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Victor_Tatin_aeroplane_1879.jpg)
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
A pneumatic motor (air motor), or compressed air engine, is a type of motor which does mechanical work by expanding compressed air. Pneumatic motors generally convert the compressed air energy to mechanical work through either linear or rotary ...
.
[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
Chalais-Meudon is an aeronautical research and development centre in Meudon, to the south-west of Paris. It was originally founded in 1793 in the nearby Château de Meudon and has played an important role in the development of French aviation.
B ...
. Running under its own power it took off at a speed of 8 metres per second.
[
Between 1890 and 1897 Tatin and ]Charles Richet
Charles Robert Richet (25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France known for his pioneering work in immunology. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on ...
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
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
''Ville de Paris'' for Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe
Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe (; 25 September 1846 – 24 November 1919), born Salomon Henry Deutsch, was a successful French petroleum businessman (known as the "Oil King of Europe"Howard, Fred, ''Wilbur & Orville: A Biography'', Dover Publicati ...
and in 1905 he designed the propeller used by Traian Vuia for his experimental aircraft of 1906-7. In 1908 Tatin designed an unsuccessful pusher monoplane which was exhibited at the 1908 Paris Aéro Salon.Clement Bayard
''Flight'', 9 January 1901, p.21 In 1911 he collaborated with
Louis Paulhan on the design of the
Aéro-Torpille, a
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 ...
with a remarkably streamlined design.
Works
* Victor Tatin, ''Elements d'aviation'' (Paris: Dunod et Pinet, 1908).
See also
*
Early flying machines
Notes
External links
The Pioneers: Victor Tatin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tatin, Victor
19th-century French inventors
Aviation inventors
1913 deaths
1843 births
Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
People from Paris