Powering the aircraft

Patent drawings of Clément Ader Eole

Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph).

Throughout this period, a number of attempts were made to produce a true powered aircraft. However the majority of these efforts were doomed to failure, being designed by ill-informed amateurs who did not have a full understanding of the problems being discussed by Lilienthal and Chanute.

In 1884, Alexander Mozhaysky's monoplane design made what is now considered to be a powered take off assisted by the use of ramp, flying between 60–100 ft (20–30 m) near Krasnoye Selo, Russia.

In France Clément Ader built the steam-powered Eole and may have made a 50-meter flight near Paris in 1890, which would be the first self-propelled "long distance" flight in history. Ader then worked on a larger design which took five years to build. In a test for the French military, the Avion III failed to fly and, caught by a gust of wind, was seriously damaged. Ader's later claims to have achieved a flight of 300 metres were later proved false. Sir Hiram Maxim made a number of experiments in Britain, eventually building an enormous 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) machine with a wingspan of 105 feet (32 m), powered by two advanced lightweight steam engines which delivered 180 hp (134 kW) each. Maxim built it to study the basic problems of construction, lift and propulsion. He used a 1,800 feet (550 m) track with a second set of restraining rails for test runs. After a number of tests, on 31 July 1894 he started a series of runs at increasing power settings. The first two were successful, with the craft lifting off the track. In the afternoon the crew of three fired the boilers to full power, and after reaching a speed of over 42 mph (68 km/h) about 600 feet (180 m) down the track the machine produced so much lift it broke one of restraining rails and crashed after flying at a low altitudes for about 200 feet (61 m).

Having spent around £30,000, and unwilling to spend more, he abandoned these experiments, only resuming his work in the 20th century, when he tested a number of smaller designs powered by gasoline engines.

Also in Britain Percy Pilcher, who had worked for Maxim and had built and successfully flown several gliders during the mid to late 1890s, constructed a prototype powered aircraft in 1899 which, recent research has shown, would have been capable of flight. However, he died in a glider accident before he was able to test it.

The "Pioneer Era" (1900–1914)

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11