Aircraft: An All Color Story of Modern Flight

112 Pages·1973·12.019 MB·English

by  David Mondey

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Confenfs
Introduction 6
Trainersand LightCraft 12
Reconnaissance 20
Fighters 24
Bombers 50
Close-support 58
CivilTransport 60
Seaborne 82
RotaryWingAircraft 85
ExperimentalandResearchAircraft 90
GeneralPurposeAircraft 98
Space 100
TablesofTechnical Data 102
Acknowledgments 104
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Introduction
Itwas,ofcourse,thebirdswhowereresponsibleforthe the history of aviation'. Such an honour was not bestowed
wholecomplicatedbusiness. without just cause: he was the first man to formulate the
There was prehistoric man; two feet tirmly on the basicconceptofmechanicalflight, isolatingtheaerodynamic
ground;ekingoutasomewhatprecarious livingby hunting. forcesoflift, thrust and drag. In 1804 he built and Hew the
There,too,wasthebird; his two 'feet' sometimes firmlyon firstreallysuccessfulmodelaeroplaneinhistory,agliderfive
Wthheegnromuannda;tpteecmkpitnegdutopaaddrebaisrodnatbolheislic\oionkgpoftr,ombirtdhesplraenadd. gfeleitdeirnwlietnhgtahw.iFnigvearyeeaaorfs3l0at0ersqCaftyl(2e7y-8c7onms'-t)r,ucatneddbayfhuilsl-8s0itzhe
wingsandflewaway. yearhadbuiltamore-advancedman-carryingversion.Onthis
Thefirstencountersofthisnaturemusthavecomeasan hisreluctantcoachmanwascarriedoverasmallvalley,inthe
eye-opener to man. The discovery of another two-legged groundsofCayley'shomeatBromptonHall.
creature winninga living from the land would have been a F"rom the time ofthat event, until the end ofthe nine-
surprise. To learn that it could also fly in the air, oser hill teenthcentury, attemptsatflight with heavier-than-aircraft
anddale,andconsequentlyhadabuilt-inmeansoftraxeland were dominated by the 'hoppers'. These were the pioneer
escape,wouldbeastaggeringrevelation. builders, whose machines still lacked the compact, light-
Thusbegan centuries offrustration for the pioneering weightpowerplantneededtogivebirthtopoweredflight.As
typeswhofeltthatthehumanracemustreachouttothesky. aresult,howeveradvancedtheirdesign, theseaircraft could
But as decade followed decade, it became clear that man makeonlybrief, uncontrolledhops, usuallyboosted into the
couldnotfly;so,heendowedhisgodswithwings,asasymbol airbystartingtheir'take-off'rundownaninclinedramp.
oftheirsupernatural powers. Nevertheless, hestill remained But the timehad arrived when the all-essential engine
enviousofthegods and the birds, who were able to cleave was only a few years away. Nineteen years after Cayley's
thecanopyoftheheavensonoutstretched wings. Thosewho death.Otto,inGermany,builtasuccessfulfour-strokeengine
thoughtdeeplyabouttheproblemconcludedtherewaslittle that was powered by coal gas. Nine years later, Gottlieb
likelihoodthatmanmightflyoneday. It would beexciting, Daimler adopted his fellow-countryman's four-stroke cycle
anduseful,butitwasreallyonlyadream. toproducetheworld'sfirstsingle-cylinderinternal combus-
So matters remained until the sixteenth century was tion engine. Twelve months later a Daimler engine was
Hearing its end, when a man with the brain of a scientist poweringitsfirstmotorcar.
begantothinkseriouslyaboutattainmentofthedream. This Thisdevelopmentoftheinternalcombustionenginehad
wasLeonardodaVinci(1452-1519), whosedetailedstudyof no direct association with aviation. Serious experimenters,
bird flight ne\ertheless led him to the erroneous conclusion realizingthatagreatdealoftimemightbewastediftheyjust
thatman'smuscularpower, so superiorto thatofthebirds, sataround andwaitedforsomeonetoprovidebetterengines
shouldenablehimtoflyinaproperlyconstructedornithopter, than those being used by the 'hoppers', decided to use this
orflapping-wingaircraft. interval to refine thedesign ofthe aeroplane's structure, or
The'flappers'werelegion.Sinceonlythebirdshadbeen airframe.
seen to fly itseemed reasonable to assume that, by copying Foremost among these men was the German, Otto
their flapping-wing mode of locomotion, man might also Lilienthal (1848-1896), whose graceful and beautifully-
succeed. In retrospect, one can only assume that their eyes constructedhang-glidersenabledhimtobecomethefirstman
weresotightlyclosed,togiveanimationtotheirdream, that intheworldtoflyconfidentlyandregularly,amassingatotal
theyfailedtonoticethegulls,whichsoaredmajesticallyover ofrathermorethan2,000flights. Hedid notdevelopcontrol
theirheadsonslender,andoftenstationary,wings. surfacesforhisgliders, but relied upon body movements to
The death ofda Vinci, in 1519, was the prelude to a providelimitedcontrolinthethreeaxesofpitch,rollandyaw.
periodofmorethanacenturywhich was virtually devoid of Lilienthalrecordedhisprogressindetail,tabulatingthe
progress. When, in 1680, Giovanni Alphonso Borelli's De effectsofvariations in wing camber and aspect ratio, and it
motu animalium was published posthumously, it was clear was his work that inspired Percy Pilcher in Britain (1866-
that,asa resultofhis detailed studyofbird flight, man did 1899) and Octave Chanute in America (1832-1910). But
not have the power output needed to lift himself and a despitehismethodicandunhurriedapproach, Lilienthallost
machineintotheair.Borelli'scommentthat;'Itisimpossible his life at the ageof48, on 10 August 1896, aday afterone
thatmenshouldbeabletoflycraftilybytheirownstrength', ofhis gliders stalled and crashed to the ground. Just over
broughtanendtopracticallyallheavier-than-airexperiments threeyearslater,on30September 1899, Pilcheralsocrashed
untilthenineteenthcentury. inhisHmvkglider,anddiedfromhisinjurieson 2 October.
Bythetimetheywereresumed,manhadalreadyflown. He, too, had relied upon body movement to provide some
jT4ObtFohiarculelmutralieobtno,nbirMeoreueynadttr,shndeh.ite1ash7T2wde8wh4aR3acdseo.issozrriemieLencipeecsnorlwstpnaesiildstiori,ntneeghtddhooe:aatfftneaahrwcMtse-tohoutruwinlcheraotccadssgehntemos-,fshawlolfieifanaurgisthlpcethcdrorrtsiuomawclfbhatoltdolaa,d-tetthee-eembnaordetiu:bgarerbiyirtyhnbfwytJnratdaheeilhreseanleongogfdac-oleoainFwongmpri-nhraattfoei.nihin-cclnewoltaieh1ooyds5eff modcbr'tfeaeueepsrtatsorithsryg-siuStpisneroisncl,teguaoortrifnobg'oedfl.yLdioicdflco1etioner9henats0ensr.r0ttlo,ahrylHasulseCrcf'iehotsssriwateopanahanrisnur,oscctgethceraehresoraesfwfsnswt.a,.aestlFhoyloeotouhauhoersnladgdyouenntdaeldorenyessgpriisietngulaaoenrrktleeviiridetnvrhgsti,eoenvtgtmehhhrreemhailillepjmlmmoeswdbbeailenbtfo-ryh,f
thewind. Nonetheless, the balloon had its moment ofglory Chanute'sgreatestcontributions towardsdesign refine-
and,invariousroles,hassurvivedintocontemporaryhistory. ment were the development of a biplane form ol the
Itservedalsf>anotherpurpose: itcapturedtheattentionand Lilienthal-type glider, and the introductioti of a new and
imaginationofa 10-year-old boy, (jeorgeCayley, who lived successfulformofbiplanerigging. Ilemade,al.so,aditlerent
nearScarborough,Yorkshire. kindofcontributiontowardspowered flight by virtueofthe
Sir (ieorge Cayley (1773-1857) has been described in fact that he lived in America and was able to communicate
modern timesas '. . . oneofthe most powerful geniuses in easilywiththeWrightbrothers.
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