Page:Aerial Flight - Volume 2 - Aerodonetics - Frederick Lanchester - 1908.djvu/35

Rh simple mica aeroplanes above described, are worthy of mention not only as constituting part of the history of the subject, but also as forming a fitting introduction to the study of a more highly developed type employed by the author for the purpose of experimental study, and subsequently made the object of a mathematical analysis.

In general the early experimenters appear to have taken their inspiration from the models provided by nature, the aerodones employed bearing, in most cases, a strong resemblance to a bird in gliding flight.

In addition to the examples described in the following section, a number of partially successful flying models or aerodromes have been produced, notably by Hargraves (1885), an account of whose experiments will be found in Engineering ; the author (1894), whose apparatus is described later in the present work, and Langley (1896), of which particulars are given in a recent publication.

There have also been a number of successful captive machines and also a few effective attempts at actual flight; the former are of but little interest to us from the present point of view, and the latter (as in the gliding machine of Lilienthal) have been reported as relying upon the skill of the aeronaut for their equilibrium, either in whole or in part, and may therefore be dismissed from the present stage of the discussion.

§ 9. Some Successful Gliding and Flying Models.—Some of the earliest successful model experiments were made by Penaud about the year 1870, an account of these is given in L'Aeronaut. Penaud experimented with small paper-winged models, to some of which he applied twisted rubber and a screw propeller as a means of propulsion; a model so fitted (Figs. 9 and 10) is stated to have crossed a pond 40 or 50 yards wide, and to have shown