Page:Aerial Flight - Volume 1 - Aerodynamics - Frederick Lanchester - 1906.djvu/162

§ 108 About the same time as Lilienthal was at work the author succeeded in evolving the arched form, or dipping front edge, purely from theoretical considerations, at that time having no knowledge of the previous work of Phillips or the experiments then being conducted by Lilienthal. The author first formulated his theory in 1892, the basis being the study of the special case of an aeroplane of infinite lateral breadth. Sections of the aerofoil employed in model experiments in 1894 are given in Fig. 60.

The author gave a resume of his theory in a paper read at the annual meeting of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society on June 19th, 1894, a wall diagram of which Fig. 68 is a reproduction being exhibited. A more complete account of this work formed the subject-matter of a paper offered to the Physical Society of London, but rejected (September 3rd, 1897).

In the present chapter, on wing form and the motion of the fluid in its vicinity, the main argument and demonstration are taken without substantial alteration from the rejected paper, the subsequent work being a revision of the theory on more orthodox hydrodynamic lines.