In the Beginning

The various efforts by people over the centuries to get flying. The Chinese, Greeks, Monks etc. The various power sources used - human, wind, heat, steam and the internal combustion engine. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to the first full episode of the Hangar Up Podcast entitled And in the Beginning The History of Flight. We can't mention the history of flight without mentioning the Wright brothers. But they were by no means the first people to take flight. Power comes in many forms. It isn't just mechanical. There's human, there's wind power, there's steam, and there's even heat. Over the centuries, all these forms have been attempted. The Chinese, for instance, invented man-carrying kites. Which were obviously human powered and wind powered. And these were recreated in the 1800s by the likes of George Pocock in England, who was so inspired by the kites that he used them to pull carts and even boats. Soon after, Captain Baden Powell, brother of the Scout Movement founder, took kite experiments to New Heights. And even Samuel Franklin Cody, an American who made his home in Britain in the eighteen nineties, got in on the action, furthering the practical use of kites for military observation and signaling. Daedlas and Icarus were father and son, and they were imprisoned on a ta in a tower on the island of Crete. Daedlus was an I was an architect and artist who made two pairs of wings from the visiting seabirds, and held them together with the wax from their candles, which was their only source of light at night. He warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, otherwise the sun would melt the wax and he would fall to his death. On the day of escape, Icarus took off and did exactly what his father warned against, flew too close to the sun and he fell to his death. Davis, however, made it to Sicily and survived. That story was written by Diodorus between six hundred zero and three hundred zero BC. In England in the year ten, a monk from Montsbury Abbey, known as Elmer or Oliver, due to a misprint by a scribe, jumped from the church tower and flew for 200 meters on a homemade glider attached to his legs and hands. He did, however, break his legs and was lame ever after. This event was said to have taken place between the two sightings of Halias Comets in 989 and 1066. It was later documented in 1125 by William and Molnsbury, who said Elmer believed the Greek myth about Daedalus and Icarus, and had read various other reports about people taking flights. There are reports of many other attempted manpower flights between the years 1200 and 1850, but they all seem like copies of Daedalus and Icarus and Elmer of Mommesbury. Mann's fascination with flight has materialized in many ways, not only the attempts at flight by man himself, but for what he flies in or with. Leonardo da Vinci in 1493 drew what many people consider the first helicopter. His design was not discovered until the nineteenth century. It consisted of a platform surmounted by a helical screw driven by a somewhat rudimentary system, not unlike those of the rubber-powered model aircraft. He wrote that if the instrument in the form of a screw were well made of linen, the pores of which have been stocked with starch, it should, upon being turned sharply, rise into the air in a spiral. However, his design was never put to any practical use. Three hundred years on from Leonardo da Vinci, the French Montgolfier brothers, Jean Michel, 1740, 1810, and Jacques Etienne, 1745-1799, were the inventors of the first practical hot air balloon. Joseph had been inspired by the laundry drying over a fire that formed pockets of hot air and ranged laundry upwards to make a flying machine. In November 1782, he made a small box constructed out of light wood and covered in a lightweight taffeta cloth. He then made a fire under it and it quickly lifted. He convinced his brother Etienne to help build a larger balloon, and on the fourteenth of december 1782, it flew for nearly two kilometres but was destroyed on landing. After making further presentations and public exhibitions, they made a balloon, which flew on the nineteenth of september seventeen eighty-three. A sheep, a duck, and a rooster. The event was held in front of the Royal Palace at Versailles before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. It flew for three kilometres, or nearly two miles, and achieved a height of four hundred and sixty metres or fifteen hundred feet. A larger balloon was then built and flown in october nineteenth, seventeen eighty-three, but was tethered, and it had three passengers on board. This very balloon then flew untethered on the 21st of November 1783 and became the first free human flight. The passengers on this flight were Jean Francois Palatre de Rosier and Francois Laurent, Marquet de Ronde. The flight began from the grounds of the Chateau de la Mute on the western outskirts of Paris. They flew aloft about 3,000 feet and above Paris for a distance of five and a half miles, 9 kilometres. After 25 minutes, the balloon landed outside the city ramparts on the Butal. Horsel ballooning has improved no end from the days of the Mongolfia brothers, and is a very popular pastime, but it is also a very good way of seeing different parts of the world at different times of the day as well. With the invention of the steam engine. Some people even tried to put a steam engine on an aircraft. One such person was John Stringfellow of Sheffield. He accomplished a notable milestone in 1848 by successfully operating a steam-powered aircraft for over 120 feet, the feat paralleling the achievements of the Wright brothers. His triplane attracted significant attention at the 1868 Crystal Palace exhibition, providing Victorian audiences with a preview of the future possibilities in powered flight. It seemed that within each new effort of flying, some new advancement would be made. And George Cayley and Otto Lillianthel were no exception. In fact, George Cayley is sometimes known as the father of aviation or aeronautics. With his gliders, he b he invented wing warping, a form of controlling the aircraft to turn, a device that the Wright brothers developed and used successfully on their aircraft.