Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was an English

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the most important people in the history of

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies ...

. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying principles and forces of

flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

and the first man to create the wire wheel. * * * In 1799, he set forth the concept of the modern aeroplane as a

fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...

flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. He was a pioneer of

aeronautical engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: Aeronautics, aeronautical engineering and Astronautics, astronautical engineering. A ...

and is sometimes referred to as "the father of aviation." He identified the four forces which act on a heavier-than-air flying vehicle:

weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a Euclidean vector, vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weigh ...

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...

, drag and

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

. Modern aeroplane design is based on those discoveries and on the importance of cambered wings, also proposed by Cayley. He constructed the first flying model aeroplane and also diagrammed the elements of vertical flight. He also designed the first glider reliably reported to carry a human aloft. He correctly predicted that sustained flight would not occur until a lightweight engine was developed to provide adequate thrust and lift. The Wright brothers acknowledged his importance to the development of aviation. Cayley represented the Whig party as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

from 1832 to 1835, and in 1838, helped found the UK's first Polytechnic Institute, the Royal Polytechnic Institution (now

University of Westminster , mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength , type = Public , established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster , endowment = £5.1 million ...

) and served as its chairman for many years. He was elected as a Vice-President of the

Yorkshire Philosophical Society The Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS) is a charitable learned society (charity reg. 529709) which aims to promote the public understanding of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the archaeology and history of York and Yorkshire. ...

in 1824. He was a founding member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was a distant cousin of the

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

Arthur Cayley.

General engineering projects

Cayley, from Brompton-by-Sawdon, near

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

, inherited Brompton Hall and Wydale Hall and other estates on the death of his father, the 5th baronet. Captured by the optimism of the times, he engaged in a wide variety of

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

projects. Among the many things that he developed are self-righting

lifeboat Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen ...

s, tension-spoke wheels, the "Universal Railway" (his term for caterpillar tractors), automatic signals for railway crossings, seat belts, small scale

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s, and a kind of prototypical

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...

fuelled by

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). ...

(

Gunpowder engine A gunpowder engine, also known as an explosion engine or Huygens' engine, is a type of internal combustion engine using gunpowder as its fuel. The concept was first explored during the 1600s, most notably by famous Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens ...

). He suggested that a more practical engine might be made using gaseous vapours rather than gunpowder, thus foreseeing the modern internal combustion engine. He also contributed in the fields of

prosthetic In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

s, air engines,

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

ballistics Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially ranged weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets or the like; the science or art of designing and a ...

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

and

land reclamation Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...

, and held the belief that these advancements should be freely available.Ackroyd, J.A.D
Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics
''Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 56 (2), 167–181'' (2002). Retrieved: 29 May 2010. According to the

Institution of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 member ...

, George Cayley was the inventor of the hot air engine in 1807: "The first successfully working hot air engine was Cayley's, in which much ingenuity was displayed in overcoming practical difficulties arising from the high working temperature." His second hot air engine of 1837 was a forerunner of the

: "In 1837, Sir George Cayley, Bart., Assoc. Inst. C.E., applied the products of combustion from closed furnaces, so that they should act directly upon a piston in a cylinder. Plate No. 9 represents a pair of engines upon this principle, together equal to 8 HP, when the piston travels at the rate of 220 feet per minute."

Flying machines

Cayley is mainly remembered for his pioneering studies and experiments with flying machines, including the working, piloted

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

that he designed and built. He wrote a landmark three-part treatise titled "On Aerial Navigation" (1809–1810),''Cayley, George''. "On Aerial Navigation
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
''Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy'', 1809–1810. (Via

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

)
Raw text
Retrieved: 30 May 2010. which was published in

Nicholson Nicholson may refer to: People *Nicholson (name), a surname, and a list of people with the name Places Australia * Nicholson, Victoria * Nicholson, Queensland * Nicholson County, New South Wales * Nicholson River (disambiguation) * Nicholson ...

's ''Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts''. The 2007 discovery of sketches in Cayley's school notebooks (held in the archive of the

Royal Aeronautical Society The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest aeronautical society in the world. Members, Fellows ...

Library) revealed that even at school Cayley was developing his ideas on the theories of flight. It has been claimed that these images indicate that Cayley identified the principle of a lift-generating inclined plane as early as 1792. To measure the drag on objects at different speeds and angles of attack, he later built a "whirling-arm apparatus", a development of earlier work in ballistics and air resistance. He also experimented with rotating wing sections of various forms in the stairwells at Brompton Hall. These scientific experiments led him to develop an efficient cambered airfoil and to identify the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: ''thrust'', ''lift'', ''drag'', and ''weight''. He discovered the importance of the dihedral angle for lateral stability in flight, and deliberately set the

centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force ma ...

of many of his models well below the wings for this reason; these principles influenced the development of

hang gliders Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered ...

. As a result of his investigations into many other theoretical aspects of flight, many now acknowledge him as the first

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...

. His emphasis on lightness led him to invent a new method of constructing lightweight wheels which is in common use today. For his landing wheels, he shifted the spoke's forces from

compression Compression may refer to: Physical science *Compression (physics), size reduction due to forces *Compression member, a structural element such as a column *Compressibility, susceptibility to compression * Gas compression *Compression ratio, of a ...

tension Tension may refer to: Science * Psychological stress * Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression) * Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions * Voltage or el ...

by making them from tightly-stretched string, in effect "reinventing the wheel".Pritchard, J. Laurence
Summary of First Cayley Memorial Lecture at the Brough Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society
''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

'' number 2390 volume 66 page 702, 12 November 1954. Retrieved: 29 May 2010" Wire soon replaced the string in practical applications and over time the

wire wheel Wire wheels, wire-spoked wheels, tension-spoked wheels, or "suspension" wheels are wheels whose rims connect to their hubs by wire spokes. Although these wires are generally stiffer than a typical wire rope, they function mechanically the sam ...

came into common use on bicycles, cars, aeroplanes and many other vehicles. George Cayley Glider (Nigel Coates)

The model glider successfully flown by Cayley in 1804 had the layout of a modern aircraft, with a kite-shaped wing towards the front and an adjustable tailplane at the back consisting of

horizontal stabiliser A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplan ...

s and a vertical fin. A movable weight allowed adjustment of the model's

. Around 1843 he was the first to suggest the idea for a convertiplane, an idea which was published in a paper written that same year. At some time before 1849 he designed and built a biplane in which an unknown ten-year-old boy flew. Later, with the continued assistance of his grandson George John Cayley and his resident engineer Thomas Vick, he developed a larger scale glider (also probably fitted with "flappers") which flew across Brompton Dale in front of Wydale Hall in 1853. The first adult aviator has been claimed to be either Cayley's coachman, footman or butler. One source ( Gibbs-Smith) has suggested that it was John Appleby, a Cayley employee; however, there is no definitive evidence to fully identify the pilot. An entry in volume IX of the 8th Encyclopædia Britannica of 1855 is the most contemporaneous authoritative account regarding the event. A 2007 biography of Cayley (Richard Dee's ''The Man Who Discovered Flight: George Cayley and the First Airplane'') claims the first pilot was Cayley's grandson George John Cayley (1826–1878). A replica of the 1853 machine was flown at the original site in Brompton Dale by

Derek Piggott Alan Derek Piggott (27 December 1922 – 6 January 2019) was one of Britain's best known glider pilots and instructors. He had over 5,000 hours on over 153 types of powered aircraft and over 5,000 hours on over 184 types of glider. He was hon ...

in 1973Piggott, Derek
Gliding 1852 Style
''Gliding Magazine'' issue 10, 2003. Accessed 11 August 2008 for TV and in the mid-1980sShort, Simine
Stamps that tell a story
''Gliding Magazine'' issue 10, 2003. Retrieved: 29 May 2010 for the

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme F ...

film '' On the Wing''. The glider is currently on display at the

Yorkshire Air Museum The Yorkshire Air Museum & Allied Air Forces Memorial is an aviation museum in Elvington, York on the site of the former RAF Elvington airfield, a Second World War RAF Bomber Command station. The museum was founded, and first opened to the pu ...

. Another replica, piloted by Allan McWhirter,Cayley Flyer, oldest plane welcomes home Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer
''Virgin'', 4 March 2005. Retrieved: 29 May 2010. flew in

Salina, Kansas Salina is a city in, and the county seat of, Saline County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,889. In the early 1800s, the Kanza tribal land reached eastward from the middle of the Kansas Territory. In 1 ...

just before

Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...

landed the

Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer The Scaled Composites Model 311 Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer ( registered N277SF) is an aircraft designed by Burt Rutan in which Steve Fossett first flew a solo nonstop airplane flight around the world in slightly more than 67 hours (2 days 19 h ...

there in March 2003, and later piloted by

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

at Brompton in summer 2003.Duplicate better than the original
''

Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...

'' page 20, November 2003. Retrieved: 24 February 2017.

Memorial

Cayley died in 1857 and was buried in the graveyard of All Saints' Church in Brompton-by-Sawdon. He is commemorated in Scarborough at the

University of Hull, Scarborough Campus , mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £18.8 million (2016) , budget = £190 million ...

, where a

hall of residence A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

and a teaching building are named after him. He is one of many scientists and engineers commemorated by having a hall of residence and a bar at Loughborough University named after him. The

also honours Cayley's contribution to the formation of the institution with a gold plaque at the entrance of the

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place ...

building. There are display boards and a video film at the

Royal Air Force Museum London The Royal Air Force Museum London (also commonly known as the RAF Museum) is located on the former Hendon Aerodrome. It includes five buildings and hangars showing the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force. It is part of the Royal Air Fo ...

in Hendon honouring Cayley's achievements and a modern exhibition and film "Pioneers of Aviation" at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, York. The Sir George Cayley Sailwing Club is a North Yorkshire-based free flight club, affiliated to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, which has borne his name since its founding in 1975. In 1974, Cayley was inducted into the

International Air & Space Hall of Fame The International Air & Space Hall of Fame is an honor roll of people, groups, organizations, or things that have contributed significantly to the advancement of aerospace flight and technology, sponsored by the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Sin ...

Family

On 3 July 1795 Cayley married Sarah Walker, daughter of his first tutor

George Walker George Walker may refer to: Arts and letters * George Walker (chess player) (1803–1879), English chess player and writer *George Walker (composer) (1922–2018), American composer * George Walker (illustrator) (1781–1856), author of ''The Co ...

.J Laurence Pritchard. "Sir George Cayley", Max Parrish, 1961, p. 23 (J W Clay's expanded edition of Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire incorrectly gives the date as 9 July 1795,J W Clay. "Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, with Additions", Vol. III. J W Pollard, 1917, p. 299

/ref> as does George Cayley's entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.) They had ten children, of whom three died young. Sarah died on 8 December 1854.

Notes

References

* Gibbs-Smith, Charles H. ''Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 17, No. 1 (May 1962), pp. 36–56 * Gibbs-Smith, C.H. ''Aviation''. London, NMSO, 2002 *

Gerard Fairlie Francis Gerard Luis Fairlie (1 November 1899 – 31 March 1983) was a Scottish writer and scriptwriter on whom Sapper (H. C. McNeile) supposedly based the character of Bulldog Drummond. After Sapper's death in 1937, Fairlie continued the Bulld ...

and Elizabeth Cayley, ''The Life of a Genius'',

Hodder and Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publishe ...

, 1965.

External links

*
Cayley's principles of flight, models and gliders
a 1954 ''Flight'' article

a 1954 ''Flight'' art

a 1973 ''Flight'' article *Ackroyd, J.A.D. "Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 56 (2002
Part 1 (2), pp167–181Part 2 (3), pp333–348
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cayley, George Cayley, Sir George Cayley, Sir George 18th-century English people 19th-century English people Aerodynamicists Aviation inventors Aviation pioneers Cayley, George, 6th Baronet

George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...

English aviators English inventors English aerospace engineers Independent scientists Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies People from Brompton, Scarborough UK MPs 1832–1835 Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society