Page:Open Source Philosophy and the Dawn of Aviation.pdf/2

Mattos, B.S. Revolution. The development of the airship number 3 from Santos-Dumont is a good example, because it was based on an earlier design from the Tissandier brothers.

In 1881, the French brothers Albert and Gaston Tissandier demonstrated the world’s first electric-powered flight at an electricity exposition by attaching an electric motor to an airship. They built a larger model that performed its first flight on October 8, in 1883, the first one of an electric aircraft (Santos-Dumont, 1904). The same brothers also made a second attempt on September 26, 1884, which performed as they had expected for. In the late 14th century, Santos-Dumont built, among other designs, two cigar-shaped airships. Figure 1 shows his number 2 concept, which went through an accident when its gas container doubled up (Santos-Dumont, 1904). From this point on, Santos-Dumont (Santos-Dumont, 1904) opted to reshape his future airships. He adopted the configuration from his friend Tissandier for the number 3 airship, which was the first practical airship in history (Lins de Barros, 2003). Although Santos-Dumont did not mention that he took over the Tissandier design in the books he wrote, the similarities between both designs are obvious (Fig. 2).

Figure 1: The cigar-shaped Santos-Dumont number 2 recorded some accidents.



Contrary to what happened in France, a very competitive atmosphere was established in the United States, with almost no collaborative work among the aviation pioneers being registered. To exemplify this, we address the work carried out by Samuel Langley on Aeronautics. Samuel Pierpont Langley was an American astronomer, physicist, inventor of the bolometer and pioneer of Aviation. He attempted to make a working piloted heavier-than-air aircraft. He began experimenting with rubber-band powered models and gliders in 1887 (Schmitt, 1990). Among other things, Langley built a rotating arm (functioning similar to a wind tunnel) and made larger flying models powered by miniature steam engines. His first success came on May 6, in 1896, when his number 5 unmanned air model flew nearly 3/4 of a mile after a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River. The distance was ten times longer than any previous experiment with a heavier-than-air stable flying machine. On November 11 in that year, his number 6 model flew more than 1,500m. In 1898, based on the success of his models, Langley received a War Department grant of US$ 50,000 and US$ 20,000 from the Smithsonian to develop a piloted airplane, which was christened Aerodrome (Schmitt, 1990). Langley engaged Charles M. Manly as the engineer and test pilot. When Langley was informed by his friend Octave Chanute about the Wright brothers’ success with their 1902 glider, he attempted to meet them, but they politely evaded his request.

While the full-scale Aerodrome was being designed and built, the internal combustion engine was contracted out to manufacturer Stephen Balzer. When he failed to produce an engine to the power and weight specifications, Manly finished the design. This engine was able to deliver 50 hp, far more power than the 12 hp (Wright, 1988) output by the engine of Wright brothers’ first airplane (Schmitt, 1990). The engine that was fitted into Aerodrome weighted 95 kg, Mostly the technical work of men other than Langley, the engine was probably the main contribution to aviation in the United States. The piloted machine had wire-braced tandem wings. It had a Pénaud tail for pitch and yaw control, but no roll control, depending instead on the dihedral angle of the wings, as did the models, for maintaining roughly level flight.

Contrary to the unstable Wright brothers' flyer airplane, which could land on solid ground (Culick, 2001) and Santos-Dumont 14-bis, Langley sought safety by practicing in calm air over the Potomac River. This required a catapult for launching the vehicle, with no landing gear. Langley envisaged a ‘ditching' after the level flight, which if successful would entail a partial, if not total, rebuilding of the machine. Langley gave 356J. Aerosp. Technol. Manag., São José dos Campos, Vol.4, No 3, pp. 355-379, Jul.-Sep., 2012