Lesson 8: A History of Aerodynamics – Part II
Section 3 - Who Was the First?
THE FIRST IN FLIGHT
While the primary position held by the Wright brothers in the history of mechanical flight has never been contested, there have always been small groups of dissenting scientists who have expressed contrary opinions as to who got off the ground first with the aid of mechanical flight. Samuel Langley and Glenn Curtiss have been names mentioned as possible forerunners, but there are also others.
Clement F. Ader was a French electrical engineer who became well-known for his work on the telephone. However, he has often been held up as the man who first flew a power-driven airplane.
This occurred in 1890, and there is evidence that Ader was able to get several machines off the ground, but he could not control them in the air, and crashed on every attempt. Had he waited a few years for the development of the Daimler engine, and a lateral-control aileron, he might have won the distinction that is now the undisputed honor of the Wright brothers.
From early childhood, Ader had been interested in the possibility of man-made flight, living in the interior of Algeria wearing Arab clothes to study vultures in flight. This influence of the bird structure is clearly showed in his aircraft designs, particularly the Avion with wings that are almost replicas of bird wings.
His earlier version, the Eole, was a birdlike monoplane, fitted with a tractor propeller forward, driven by a 40-horsepower engine that weighed 1100 pounds. The wingspan was 46 feet, and the overall length 21 feet. Its undercarriage had turned-up skids rather than wheels.
Friends who witnessed the initial test of the Eole, testified that Ader had flown a distance of 150 feet, but crash-landed because of insufficient equilibrium, and the machine was destroyed.
Octave Chanute was said to have tried to buy Ader’s machine for $100,000 to have the Wright brothers fly it for him. But the Wright brothers believed their designs were far superior.
Ader built his second model a year later, and received special permission to try it out on a prepared course of 2400 feet at an Army camp at Satory.
This model had wheeled gear and Ader taxied it over the course several times, finally flying it at a distance of 300 feet, but it smashed a wing on landing.
His third and last design, Avion, was not completed until August 18, 1897. This time, there were several French reports that it completed multiple flights successfully. However, on the second day, when Ader attempted to fly during a violent wind, the Avion was blown over and badly wrecked. Ader’s work ended with the crash.
PERCY SINCLAIR PILCHER
The First Englishman to successfully fly a glider was Percy Sinclair Pilcher, who was with Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. Pilcher was so important to the field that he is considered a member of the great international trio of glider exponents including Lilienthal of Germany, Chanute of the United States, and Pilcher of Great Britain, who all contributed greatly to the eventual accomplishment of power-driven flight.
Born in 1866, Pilcher served six years at sea, retired in 1885, and devoted the rest of his life to engineering. He taught as an assistance lecturer in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at Glasgow University.
Pilcher became interested in aeronautics and built a primary monoplane glider than he named the “Bat.” Before making it flight ready, Pilcher went to visit Otto Lilienthal in Germany for some instruction, and made several glider flights under Lilienthal’s guidance.
When he returned to Glasgow, Pilcher realized that his Bat needed various modifications. He then made several successful glides from a hill near the banks of Clyde at Cardross.
By September 1895, Pilcher had won his place as the first Englishman to complete a true glider flight. He then considered adding some sort of engine power.
After several painful accidents, he built two more gliders that he named the Gull and the Hawk. The Hawk was quite advanced compared to his previous efforts. It had a wingspan of 23 feet, and an area of 180 square feet giving it a loading slightly over one pound per square feet.
The Hawk was stabilized by movements of the pilot’s body. When Pilcher made a flight of 250 yards in June 1897, he decided to design an engine suitable for powered flight.
After listening to a lecture given by Lawrence Hargrave on the subject of soaring kites, he designed a triplane glider using many of Hargrave’s ideas, but before he could test out his new theories he was fatally injured in a glider accident.
With an engine built into his triplane, Pilcher planned to attempt a trial flight at Market Harborough in Leicestershire on September 30, 1899, but foggy weather caused a postponement.
He chose to use the Hawk instead. After taking off successfully, a critical guy wire snapped when Pilcher was about 30 feet in the air. The glider collapsed, and Pilcher was so seriously injured in the crash he died two days later.
