JF Ptak Science Books

A Shadowy, Watery Window into Early Flight (1907)

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It seeped into recognition that the photo below is remarkable to my experience for showing an early airplane being pushed through a puddle--marsh, actually--prior to flight, and we can see its progress and its helpers in a  reflection in the water. Now it is easy to find an aircraft with pontoons made for a watery environment, but the other, well, it seems to be remarkable to me. The photo  is from Henry de la Vaux's  heavy and highly illustrated Le Triomphe de la Navigation Aerienne, Aeroplanes, Dirigiables Spheriques, printed in Paris in 1911, and shows the Euro-famous Henri Farman's Voisin aeroplane across an inundated section of the fields at Issy.  Farman used this aircraft (made by Gabriel and Charles Voisin of Aeroplanes Voisin, founded 1905) in March 1907 and “… flew the first successful powered aircraft designed by aeronautical engineer… to make the first heavier-than-air flight lasting more than a minute in Europe, and also to make the first full circle”. (Wikipedia) And yet for that the thing that attracts me to this photo, found serendipitiously while flipping through the pages of the big book, was were the reflection of the underside of the plane in the mirror surface of the wet field. Simple, and unusual.  

And the full image:

A Trafalgar of the Air--the Battleship Aeroplane, 1907

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“Is t he Future War-Ship to be Aeroplane or Balloon?”, is a glorious 2pp (16” x 23”) illustration in the Illustrated London News, published August 31, 1907, and drawn by Harry Grant Dart¹ only four years after the Wrights’ powered flight at Kill Devil. It features four images of enormous aircraft as well as two smaller images, none of these seem to be the balloons in question in the title of the artwork, the artist seeming to have come down on the side of the aeroplane. That said, these aircraft are massive—iterating by the figures on deck the plane was close to 50’ tall with wings that must’ve been 100’ wide. Everything seems to be massively heavy, looking more like steam-fired ships (“flying battle-ships”) than anything else…except for their resemblance to birds and dragonflies.  Also of note in the upper right corner is a missile—an “aerial torpedo"—fired at one of the aircraft.

Notes:

1.  Harry Grant Dart (1869-1938) was a correspondent, artist, and cartoonist who worked for the New York World, Life, and Judge, whose specialties seem to involve techno-future-vision. 

 

 

Bombing Dirigibles, from Above (1913)

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“Fishing for the Enemy, Hooked Bombs for Catching Dirigibles”, a drawing by H.W. Koekkoek, in the April 12, 1913 issue of the Illustrated London News. Samuel F. Cody (born Cowdery, adjusting the surname of Buffalo Bill/William in his youth) was a Wild West showman at the beginning, and then a showman through his middle years in other fields, and then finally becoming an advanced pioneer in aviation. Cody was the first person to fly in England in 1906 and experimented with different (and successful designs in aircraft) as well as human-lifting kite designs, some of which were employed by the Brits in the Boer War and also used in place of observation balloons under appropriate weather conditions. There is no doubt that Cody was more on the frontier of aviation than on the U.S. Western frontier. Unfortunately Cody would be killed flying one of his experimental aircraft four months after this story appeared.

Cody went fishing for dirigibles with this invention. The idea was to fly an airplane about 2000’ above a dirigible with a towline of the same length with a grapnle-bomb attacked to the end. The plane would try to hook the dirigible with the grapnel at which point the bomb would detach and detonate.

Birds of a Feather: Flying and Perpetual Motion Machines (1848)

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Here's a wonderful and short editorial comment from the Scientific American on the possibilities of human flight, coupled with the observed fruitless pursuit of perpetual motion machines.  There wasn't much hope expressed in flight, but "the end of flying machines is not yet" and the author shares a vision for one possible flying machine, which was a huge, steam-driven, wrought iron 40' x 8' design with between four and twelve wings. No mention is given of its weight. 

"Flying Machines", in Scientific American, December 23, 1848, vol 4, #14.

“Flying Machines and Perpetual Motions are very old and unfortunate acquaintances. No people have invented so many as the Germans, and many a poor fellow has lost his life by his fool hardy confidence in some machines he had invented to ride upon the winds, yet for all the accidents that have taken place to high flyers, from the Dutch Doctor at Ratisbone in 1692 to the unfortunate Englishman who perished a few years ago in London when descending by a parachute, there are still to be found new flying machines coming out every few months.”

“But the end of flying machines is not yet, and here we insert the description of a new and an original one certainly, taken from the Jacksonian published at Pontiac, Michigan…”

“As wings then, have failed, and balloons been attended with no better success, men have begun to think that the end is unattainable, and that flying is a victory which man can never achieve. The art of flying simply consists in the suspension and motion of a heavy body in a lighter. Although this may appear contrary to the nature of things, it is what takes place every day, and is seen exemplified in the case of every insect and bird that flies—all of which are heavier than the air.”

“Let us suppose a machine to be constructed resembling a long railway car, with arms projecting at certain distances from the roof and floor, appearing like the long axles of a wagon wheel. At me extremities or these arms the axles of the screw wheels or wings are inserted, which thus work parallel to the earth, instead of perpendicular, as in a vessel. At the stern of the car are from two to four wheels, to serve as propellers, the side wheels being merely to elevate and suspend the car. In the interior of the car, at the centre, is the steam engine, with the fuel and water, while the extremities are reserved for passengers and baggage. The wings are moved by independent bands connected with the internal machinery, so that the whole or a portion of them may be used at once, for the convenience of ascending and descending.”

“This machine instead of having two wings like a bird, will have from four to twelve, according to the length. The forward end should be built sharp, to offer less resistance to the wind. Having more wheels than are necessary to its elevation, no danger can occur from any accident that may occur to one or two of them. The machine can be guided by some kind of rudder, or by stopping one or two of the stern wheels, which are attached to each side of the stern. At first sight, such a machine as this may appear the production of a visionary, but the same would have been said fifty years since had any man described a locomotive engine and a railway. Every step towards the construction of this machine can be based on mathematical principles The air furnishes a vast fund of power for the use of mankind, although as yet they have only used it to propel ships and wind-mills. “

“A car forty feet long, with five wheels on each side, eight feet in diameter and three smaller propellers at the stern, would certainly appear a novel object, when roaring along through the air. If a certain breadth of wheel be not sufficient, try broader ones—if the velocity be too slow, increase it.”

“We however wish the inventor success—but before he proceeds to construct his machine we hope he won’t forget the law that was discovered by the great Newton in the falling of an apple.”

The Mysteries of Air Travel (1945)

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There's very little detail of the aircraft in general, though like a lot of free-thinkers the artist has imagined plenty of life being lived in the interior of the plane's wings, where all of our attention is directed. It seems that the plane has banked to such a degree that it has completely upset the pace of life of its passengers. Many of the travelers have taken a big tumble, and we can see a guy hanging onto another man's suspenders who in turn is hanging on to a woman clutching a man grabbing a man holding onto a door. Beneath that circus routine is another--we see a small band jostled and imploded into itself (with the clarinetist swallowing his instrument and someone landing in a tuba) while a man in sock garters and a night shirt takes aim at the group with something-or-other.  

Evidently, the plane's performance was destabilized by a moth--all was brought back to normal.  

In any event, I came upon this looking for early published tech reports on the V-1, so there was something that came from this rabbit-hole research:

Source: L'Air, revue mensuelle: organe de la Ligue Nationale populaire de l'aviation (France).  January 15, 1945 (via the wonderful Gallica site)

 

A Not-So-Good Idea for Air Travel (1922)

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This October issue of Popular Mechanics 1922 is robust! Here's another attractive piece of design with loads of character and one central question:  "why?"  The image is that of a giant aeroplane capable of hauling 100 or more souls (not this particular version, though) for long distance uninterrupted flight of 1000 miles--so in order for there to be no in-between landings the aircraft came equipped with a glider aircraft (an altogether different version of the "hang glider") that was released for the mother ship. As you can see it is a much smaller aircraft and looks to me to be pretty well packed, leading no doubt to questionable utility and much prayer. The thing is, why bother with another aircraft when you can just stop the plane and let people off? This beast was half-stopped in the air anyway by modern standards, probably chugging away at, what, 100mph? (The airspeed record at this time was just a touch over 200mph.) and it wasn't flying very high (relative to even 1950), so stopping may not have been such a big deal. The airport or air station wouldn't've been an issue either, because the glider would near to land somewhere. Anyway, I just couldn't figure out this piece of The Possible Future.

Aircraft Cross Sections, WWII

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2781

I'm sharing some of the collection here of the published work of George.H. Davis (1881-1963), the prolific and vastly accomplished artist for The Illustrated London News. His work with that magazine for the forty or so years that I am familiar with is superb, and his great strengths can be found in rendering technical cross sections and infographics.  He had a great sense of design and a very fine hand, and so far as I can tell he displayed an excellent control of his subject, thousands and thousands of times (2,500 times, according to Mr. Davis).

Here are some fabulous examples of technological cross sections of WWII aircraft by Davis--the drawings are just superb, and you can easily get lost in them, following the geography of engineering detail from one logical place to the next.

Blohm u. Voss BV141 

Surprise!  My first cross section isn't one--I just couldn't resist posting it, though. This aircraft is the Blohm u. Voss "BV 141"a very unusual-looking aircraft as it appeared in The Illustrated London News for 23 May 1942--it gives an excellent view of what the editors called "a lop-sided freak".  Perhaps the editors of the ILN wanted to educate its readers on the plane since it was supposed to be widely employed on the Russian Front, though it looks like only 38 were ever built (and none survive today). Actually, the plane, designed by Dr. Richard Vogt (1894-1979),  was a high-flying three-seater  surveillance aircraft capable of 220 mph at 17,000 feet, powered by a single 1000 hp Bramo Fafnir 9-cylinder radial engine.  The idea for the design was to give the pilot and co-pilot a very wide field of view--and by this, I'm guessing that the field of view most affected and aided by this would be straight down. The rear gunner also had an enormous field of view. 

As it turns out Vogt survived the war and spent his Golden Years in the U.S., seven of them (1960-1966) with Boeing to evaluate hydrofoils and vertical liftoff systems:  he had built other odd planes during his career, and carried them with them into near-retirement, making this sort of design his metier.

"The Mustang--Fastest Army Co-operation in the World", appearing in The Illustrated London News for 12 December 1942.  

 

 The Spitfire (perhaps the most beautiful-sounding aircraft of WWII):

 

The Early Airplane in Popular Culture: Sheet Music (1897-1911)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2780

I'm posting these following sheet music covers because of their lovely airplane covers. They are located at the wonderful (and highly available and useful) Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection at Johns Hopkins University.  

"I Could Live in An Airplane", by James O'Dea, with music by Edward Buffington, 1909. [Image source: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/catalog/levy:060.048]

 

"Sixty Miles an Hour. March and Two-Step',  Frederick W. Hager, 1910.  [Image source: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/catalog/levy:059.065]

"The Aeronautical World"--a Great Advertisement from 1903.

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Here's a clearer picture, which is from the front cover of the magazine, and which identifies the fliers--as you can see the middle flyer that looks like a Wright plane was Octave Chanute, and which was moved over to the left in a new design to accommodate the title of the journal in the ad. Chanute was really very helpful to the Wrights and gave them support at nearly all times during their experiments...but I think it was his interest in them early on that was most beneficial, as the Wrights were just starting out and Chanute was a recognized world-wide authority who actually traveled to Dayton to meet them.  Anyway, that's his flyer, though not Chanute himself, who I'm pretty sure never flew one of his own inventions--the Wrights on the other hand insisted upon that, saying it was of the most supreme importance for understanding motion in the air and controlling the aircraft. As the Wrights realized at the outset, it wasn't getting into the air that was the problem--it was staying there. And in order to stay there you had to be able to move the aircraft, and so move different parts of the aircraft. Everything else flowed from that. 

It was in volume 1 issue 7 that Chanute was quoted saying that the Wrights "flew like a vulture" which was a high compliment, given the ability of vultures, and that with them "soaring flight was almost an accomplished fact". (p. 147). See Internet Archives for the magazine: https://archive.org/details/aeronauti111118021903glen/page/148

Fantasia of the Air--Cops, Booze, Marriage, and a Monkey. (1890)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2776

Well, not quite a fantasia, but more like a "fanciful/fantastical/imaginary" collection of  "flying objects" ("objets volants de fantaisie"), a whimsical look at the very near future (or so) of airship flight in 1890. This future seems to make room for everyone in the air, and celebrated by a collection of worldwide nationalities on the ground. There really isn't a title for it,  and the print is indexed according to the posters/signs adorning the floating businesses and municipal pleasantries.  According to the excellent French library  site "Galica" the print is catalogued as "Sanatoir aérien du docteur Farceur, bureau volant de mariage, police aérienne [objets volants de fantaisie]", which is entirely unpoetic and slightly galling given the subject matter, and merely describes some of the objects in the print. The only part of the title that hints at the delightful subject matter is the "police aerienne", which would in spite of its clumsiness at least raise an eyebrow of just about any overworked research mole:

[Image source: Galica https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53024091c/f1.item]

What vision of the future of aviation doesn't include two flying doggies and a monkey? This one does. At top right we have part of the title, a marquee for a floating sanitarium run by "Dr. Farceur", which is probably some very light wordplay implicating a medical jester. There's the police station, marriage chapel, a hook-up joint (sounding better as a "ballon de rendez-vous"), and a bar/cafe/restaurant. The law is there directing traffic and making an arrest; there are two ships, one a warship with a skull-and-bones and the other probably not; there's a pamphleteer literally dropping his suggestions, some ladies with attaches, and a long-shoe Flaneur. Belting it all together is some sort of chorus line, though these ladies aren't attached to any flying thing save for the wings on their backs. All in all, this is a fine and pleasing work, full of action, and probably not so impressed with the actual future of human flight.  

Pioneering Effort on a Circular-Winged Aircraft (1909)

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Claude Auguste Joseph Givaudan's  handiwork was presented in the June 5, 1909 issue of Scientific American as part of a longer article on the history of human heavier-than-air motorized flight. The image is, well, engrossing.  It is both pretty and then not so much in a double-ended sausagey kind of way, wanting to look the role of a new age aircraft but winding up looking clunky and breakable and heavily unflyable. The "Vermorel" was a step towards flight, but a step in the not-right direction, though it does seem to be among the first circular wing planes attempted. Sometimes you don't know something is wrong until you know it, and then the information can be useful in the History of Wrong Things. Givaudin (1872-1945) was an excellent candidate for this sort of pioneering work, having an expertise in chemical engineering and machine work in general, working across many fields, not the least of which was making motorized bicycles (motorcycles) at the turn of the century. He just didn't have the proper insight for flying, evidently, though people would return to his circular wing numerous times over the decades.

The barrels fore and aft were fitted with wings that were supposed to catch the wind produced by the 7.8' propeller (which is barely visible up front) and lift the plane into the air. The (air)craft had no rudders and was going to depend on the movable front barrel for control, but at first glance nothing seems to have come of it except for showing others what was not successful. But it seems that there was something that developed: Givaudan seems to have developed among the first (air-cooled) V-8 engines in a plane, which he evidently developed as much as a decade earlier. 

It also seems that there is no published record of an attempted flight of this aircraft.  He did continue in his aeronautical/aviation work, and was heavily involved with the development of the machine and the science for forty+ years until his death n 1945 (in October, long enough to see the end of WWII).

Here's another version of this image, this one clearer and sharper, from a French photographic postcard of the time. The engine is more distinct here:

[Image source: http://www.cpa-bastille91.com/histoire-de-laviation-en-1909-le-givaudan/]

The Wright Brothers at the Bottom of the Pile? (1909)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2774

Here's a busy title page of an interesting fairly early aviation work published in 1909 by John Grand-Carterett  and Leo Delteil, La conquête de l'air vue par l'image (1495-1909) : ascensions célèbres, … The funny thing about all of the flying machines on the cover is that the Wright machine is way down on the bottom, and small.

The other thing about the Wright flyer: it fits in very comfortably with the only birds that are depicted o the cover. The brothers figured out that it was easy to get into the air; the hard part was staying there. And what kept you in the air was maneuvering the wings to control your flight—that was a mega-important realization, the inspiration for which came from watching birds in flight for some years on end. Anyway the French establishment in general was antagonistic to the Wrights, many people not believing that the Wrights had actually flown, and considered them fakers.

The French in general were leading the field in flight in Europe, but in the year that this publication appeared, they still were nowhere near where the Wrights had been in 1902/3. The Wrights worked mostly privately with only a couple of skilled hands, accepting money from no one, financing everything from their bike shop. (In the end the brothers spent just slightly under $1000 to finance their entire undertaking, from theory to powered flight, including shipping and travel, to the end of 1903. Their counterparts in France for the most part were of some sort of money, and did not have to work a demanding job to finance their pursuit. Ion any event when the brothers were turned down again by the U.S. Army for a sale of their aircraft, they left in 1908 to pursue sales on the continent.

Perhaps it was their secrecy which led to the French discontent, perhaps it was the relative nothingness that greeted their enormous accomplishment in the U.S. And perhaps that is why in 1909 their flyer is depicted as a smallish thing at the bottom of a page.

The thing is that it was in 1908 that the Wrights became truly famous, finally showing their flyer before large crowds, and showing absolutely that their work was far superior to others in the field, that their aircraft was more maneuverable, and more dependable, and their flying skills were unsurpassed. Wilbur famously performed at Le Mans in France to help secure European contracts, and Orville at Ft. Myer for a performance for the U.S. Army. (Orville's flight was successful enough, though one resulted in a crash that killed his passenger and severely injured him.) So this in hand in 1908, why are the Wrights featured in such a lowly position? Perhaps the cover design was contracted and completed before all of the 1908 successes? I don't know—its just annoying that they are down there at the bottom of the page, when in fact they delivered a working Magna Carter to aviation.

 

The Wright Stuff in Alabama, 1910

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2772

In the times that I've had to research the Wright Brothers (they do deserve that capital “B” if they are not named separately) I've never seen a reference for their 1910 flight school in Montgomery, Alabama. The school came to be as part of an effort to educate a team of fliers who could then go out and educate the general public in the art of flying.

This was a solidly-grounded idea much in the same tradition as any of the concerted and considered efforts by the Wright Brothers. (It is remarkable how competent and exploratory they were in their pursuit of flight. Right from the time that Wilbur was laid up in bed recovering from typhoid fever in 1896, he was doing some clear and excellent thinking on the matter, beautifully concluding that getting into the air in an aeroplane was not so much the case as it was staying in the air; and that depended upon control of the aircraft, and for that he gave very considerable time to the study of how birds control their flight. This realized, flight was not long to follow—five years from sickbed and near-death to 1000 glides, seven to powered flight, all paid for by the brothers, and mostly funded by their bike shop. And by the way, according to David McCullough in his biography of the Wrights the whole flying exercise--including materials, books, machinery, travel, food, and so on--from 1900 to 1903, cost the brothers under $1000. )

Seven years after Kill Devil Hills and the great success, the Wrights came to establish their first flight instruction school in a parcel of land that had been a cotton field, a wide piece of flat land outside of Montgomery, Alabama. There was nothing there except for the flatness, and so to attract the school local businesses worked to clear the land and construct a building that would serve many purposes, which explains the advertisements for those who contributed to the project:

[Photo source: Alabama Pioneers,  https://www.alabamapioneers.com/airplane-montgomery/]

Wilbur had made the first flight in Alabama in March 1910, and the school followed soon after. After a relatively short period of instruction, the first graduate of the place, Walter Brookins (1889-1953), would become one of the celebrated Wright Exhibition Team, and set records that same year for highest and longest flights in the U.S. Another early graduate was Henry Arnold, “Hap” Army, General of the Army and only USAF five-star general, who was among other things a barnstormer before his military career.

In any event, I just wanted to share this picture, as I like it so much.

With a fair dose of poetry sprinkled on it, that cotton field is now covered by Maxwell Air Force Base.

Notes:

1. There's a ton of other stuff, too, that I've not seen concerning them, but in this instance the photo of the hangar/school is so charming and the story so compelling that I think I just missed something that is probably a piece of highly visible popular culture.

 

An Outstanding Display of Air Power (1932)

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Here's an unexpected bit that turned up in a 1932 issue of Popular Mechanics: a remarkable illustration showing formations of aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Corps. (And, just a short note before the money shot: it was the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1926-1941, the U.S. Army Air Force from 1941-1947 (during which in 1944 the USAAF was composed of 80,000 aircraft and 2.4 million airmen), and the U.S. Air Force (since September 1947). 

 

Invading England with 50,000 Planes (1908)

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 2764

Some of the most striking things in my collection/store/accumulation are the hundreds of images that portray data for display purposes--even more so, those that use a vernacular setting to put some anthropomorphic breath into a statistic.

The print that we're looking at here appeared in the 19 December 1908  issue of The Illustrated London News and is entitled "The Futility of Herr Rudolf Martin's¹ Plan of Invasion by Aeroplane", and reports on a possible German invasion scenario of Great Britain that was delivered in Berlin on 2 October 1908. This fantastic piece of  artwork by Hermanus Willem Koekkoek (1867-1929) graphically depicts what the author maintained was the impossibility of a German force to invade England by landing 50,000 flying machines and 100,000 men on the Kentish coast of England--undoable because "of the impossibility of finding landing-room (for the planes) and cover for an army on aeroplanes. The artist depicts a small town and what I guesstimate to be 60 planes in the air and 75 or so on the ground, leaving it to the imagination of the reader where the other 49,875 might go. He DOES make a point, and very vividly. 

"Nothing could show better the futility of Government Councillor Rudolf Martin's idea that Germany could construct 50,000 flying machines for 50-million pounds...and land 100,000 men on the Kentish coast from Calais within half an hour." I would imagine that this illustration drove the point home to the folks who didn't actually bother to read anything about the Martin defense plan. (It was in a similar way that Thomas Nast was able to control public opinion and sway political refuge and protection away from Boss Tweed. Tweed famously boasted that he didn't care what the newspapers said about him because his power base didn't read--he might've been and probably was correct here, so Nast took after Tweed via the political cartoon, and big too, and frequently; and the cartoons, even if the people looking at them couldn't read, told the whole story graphically, and it was this that brought an end to Tweed more than anything else.)

In 1908 Martin gave an interview to the Daily Mail in which he outlined another plan by which he felt Germany could launch 3,500 "specially design" airships (I'm guessing dirigibles) and land 350,000 (!) men in England in a half-hour. This evidently whipped itself into a frothy aeroplanitis in 1909, despite such efforts as this graphical reasoning by the ILN to dispense with the unreasonable fears.

The airplane flown by the Wrights (the first powered heavier-than-air flight) occurred barely six years prior to these frantic events.  Their invention was still fresh (and basically "foreign", as the Brits lagged well behind the other major powers in flight until WWI) and understandable in a way that the fears were not understandable, not really, because of the newness and exotic aspect of the possibly-threatening invention. Also it should be noted that the first heavier-than-air airplane crossing of the Channel didn't take place until the next year, by Louis Bleriot, who claimed a 1000-pound prize for being the first to do so. The first passenger wasn't taken across until 1910, and the first airship didn't make a flight across until 1915. So no doubt Martin was looking into a far off future, except that the planes were still mostly of Wright design. 

• For a tour of the chronological history of the graphical representation of quantitative data as well as innovations in statistical and representational cartography, please have a look at Michael Friendly's fantastic work at York University https://datavis.ca/milestones/index.php?group=1900%2B--it is an historical site the way it should be done, complete with all the trimmings, as well as the usually-absent but very important citations to the original articles used in the chronology. 

Notes:

1. I don't know much about Mr. Martin at all except that in Richard P. Hallion's Taking Flight, Inventing the Aerial Age, from Antiquity to the First.... (pg 298) we find Martin being mentioned among other "popular authors" as Verne, Wells, Kipling, and Fawcett as being somewhat responsible for forming the perception of future flight. Martin was also the president of the German Airship League and author of The Coming War in the Air.