Aviation
1910
"The Practice and Theory of Aviation" by Grover Loening. And! "Recent Progress in Aviation" by Octave Chanute. And two small articles about early airplane engines.
We all know that the Wright brothers achieved controlled, powered flight in 1903. But it really wasn't until 1908 until others built or bought their own planes and took to the air. In 1909 flying became the rage after Louis Bleriot flew the English Channel in a home-built monoplane that look like little more than wooden sticks, piano wire, bedsheets, and a primitive engine.
The
first article you get is a college thesis covering the technical details of
airplanes of 1910. You get simple scale drawings and technical details of
the Farman, Doy, Curtiss, Wright, original Voisin, new Voisin, the Sommer,
the Antoinetter, the Santos Dumont, the Bleriot XI, Bleriot XII, the Grade,
Pelterie, and the Pfitzner.
Loening talks about control surfaces, landing gear, engine horsepower, transverse controls, the frame and all the rest. He also provides extensive references to other publications, most likely very hard to find, where he dug up his information. The drawings may be simple, but it might fun to build a radio control model of one of these early beasts and use it to dive bomb your dumb neighbor's barking dog! Image seeing one of these strange looking planes come racing toward you! If you're not an early aviation buff, you'll probably find this information new and fascinating.
Then
the grand ol' man of aviation, Octave Chanute will tell you about the state
of the aviation art as it was in 1910. He'll give you a quick history lesson,
and show you with incredible photographs what was happening in this high-tech
arena. You'll see the Wright brothers, Santos-Dumont, Henry Farman, DeLagrange
and others in flight, both alone and while racing. In the final article of
Chanute's series, he presents an extensive list of the significant flights
made by all pilots from the Wright brothers on December 17, 1903 to Hubert
Latham's flight at Mourmelon, France in December 1910. He rose to the incredible
height of 1500 feet in a 40 mph wind storm!
Then you get details on two new Wolseley engines built for airplanes. When you read the details of an engine competition held in October 1909 and how unreliable the entrants were, you'll know without a doubt, the early fliers risked their lives every time up. Finally you get Octave Chanute's obituary reprinted from Flight magazine.
Fascinating technology. It must have been an incredible adventure not only for the pilots but for the people on the ground watching. Get a copy and imagine yourself at the controls of one of these overgrown kites. Good stuff! 8-1/2 x 11 softcover 64 pages
No. 23470 ... $8.95
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