The Aviation World

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20490, 15 February 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

The Aviation World

HEAVIER - THAN - AIR FLIGHT.

EARLY DEVELOPMENTS.

MALMESBURY MONK'S ATTEMPT.

BY C. E. DE MONTALK,

From earliest times tho dream of man has been mechanical flight. For centuries

ho has thought upon and experimented with flying contrivances both heavier and lighter than air. But not until very recent years havo his efforts been attended with success the modernity of his achievements being amply demonstrated by the fact that a good encyclopaedia of the year 1862 contains no word on human flight; and at least one excellent dictionary published in tho year 1889 has no mention of tho word aviation which applies to heavier than air flight. Hie earliest ex- , periments cf fnan were confined to heavier than air machines. . Tho first aerial venture on record in England is that of a monk, Oliver of Malmesbury, who, about the year 1040 made a flight of more than a furlong, sustaining a broken thigh as a result. It is related that other persons had flown from St. Mark's, Venice and at Nuremberg; while Giovanni Battiste Dante is said to have flown several times across Lake Trasimene. .At the beginning of the sixteenth century an Italian alchemist who was collated to the abbey of Tunglad in Galloway, Scotland, by James IV., undertook to fly from tiie walls of Stirling castle through the air to France. He actually attempted the feat but soon tamo to the ground and broke his thigh-bone in the fall —an accident he explained by averring that tho wings ho wore contained a quantity of fowls' feathers which had a natural affinity for tho dung lull; whereas if they had been composed solely ot eagles' feathers, they would have had an affinity for the air. This ingenious explanation was soon the subject of satire. . . About the same timo Leanardo da \ inci, whoso genius as a mechanic equalled his fame as a painter, approached the subject in a more scientific spirit, and his notebooks contained several sketches ot wings to be lifted to the arms and legs. This was the subject of a lecture delivered in 1617 by Fleyder, rector of the Grammar School at Tubingen. The publication of this address eleven years later incited a ! poor monk to attempt the theory in ' practice, but his machinery broke down i and ho was killed. However, in the same ' century in 1660 and 1678, two Frenchi men, Allard and Besnier, are said to havo succeeded in making short flights. Robert Hooke, in the seventeenth century, the first great English scientist to mako experiments in aeronautics, tested model flying machines fitted with wings. Ihe realisation by him and other savants of his timo that man is not endowed with sufficient strength to flap large wings led to consideration of the only possible alternative—the lighter than air principle. This was first formulated, by Lana in 1670 and will be discussed in detail later on . . , Continuing with heavier than air flight, Sir George Cayley in 1796 gave a practical illustration of the efficacy of the screw propeller as applied to the air by constructing a small toy. This consisted of two "screws made of quill feathers inserted into corks so as to be slightly inclined like sails of a windmill, but in opposite directions in each set. A round shaft fixed in the upper cork terminated in a sharp point, which pivoted' in a hole in the centre of a whalebone bow attached to the lower cork: Tho bow was strung equally on either side to the upper portion of the shaft and the string wound up by turning the corks in opposite directions. When set in motion this machine would rise to the ceiling. Thereafter many more contrivances of a similar nature were constructed until, with the advent of steam power in aerial flight, the making of efficient machines became more practicable.

(To ba continued.)