A History of Aeronautics | Page 3

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A History of Aeronautics by E. Charles Vivian

FOREWORD
Although successful heavier-than-air flight is less than two decades old, and successful dirigible propulsion antedates it by a very short period, the mass of experiment and accomplishment renders any one-volume history of the subject a matter of selection. In addition to the restrictions imposed by space limits, the material for compilation is fragmentary, and, in many cases, scattered through periodical and other publications. Hitherto, there has been no attempt at furnishing a detailed account of how the aeroplane and the dirigible of to-day came to being, but each author who has treated the subject has devoted his attention to some special phase or section. The principal exception to this rule--Hildebrandt--wrote in 1906, and a good many of his statements are inaccurate, especially with regard to heavier-than-air experiment.
Such statements as are made in this work are, where possible, given with acknowledgment to the authorities on which they rest. Further acknowledgment is due to Lieut.-Col. Lockwood Marsh, not only for the section on aeroplane development which he has contributed to the work, but also for his kindly assistance and advice in connection with the section on aerostation. The author's thanks are also due to the Royal Aeronautical Society for free access to its valuable library of aeronautical literature, and to Mr A. Vincent Clarke for permission to make use of his notes on the development of the aero engine.
In this work is no claim to originality--it has been a matter mainly of compilation, and some stories, notably those of the Wright Brothers and of Santos Dumont, are better told in the words of the men themselves than any third party could tell them. The author claims, however, that this is the first attempt at recording the facts of development and stating, as fully as is possible in the compass of a single volume, how flight and aerostation have evolved. The time for a critical history of the subject is not yet.
In the matter of illustrations, it has been found very difficult to secure suitable material. Even the official series of photographs of aeroplanes in the war period is curiously incomplete' and the methods of censorship during that period prevented any complete series being privately collected. Omissions in this respect will probably be remedied in future editions of the work, as fresh material is constantly being located.
E.C.V. October, 1920.
CONTENTS Part I--THE EVOLUTION OF THE AEROPLANE I. THE PERIOD OF LEGEND II. EARLY EXPERIMENTS III. SIR GEORGE CAYLEY--THOMAS WALKER IV. THE MIDDLE NINETEENTH CENTURY V. WENHAM, LE BRIS, AND SOME OTHERS VI. THE AGE OF THE GIANTS VII. LILIENTHAL AND PILCHER VIII. AMERICAN GLIDING EXPERIMENTS IX. NOT PROVEN X. SAMUEL PIERPOINT LANGLEY XI. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS XII. THE FIRST YEARS OF CONQUEST XIII. FIRST FLIERS IN ENGLAND XIV. RHEIMS, AND AFTER XV. THE CHANNEL CROSSING XVI. LONDON TO MANCHESTER XVII. A SUMMARY--TO 1911 XVIII. A SUMMARY--TO 1914 XIX. THE WAR PERIOD--I XX. THE WAR PERIOD--II XXI. RECONSTRUCTION XXII. 1919-1920
Part II--1903-1920: PROGRESS IN DESIGN I. THE BEGINNINGS II. MULTIPLICITY OF IDEAS III. PROGRESS ON STANDARDISED LINES IV. THE WAR PERIOD
Part III--AEROSTATICS I. BEGINNINGS II. THE FIRST DIRIGIBLES III. SANTOS-DUMONT IV. THE MILITARY DIRIGIBLE V. BRITISH AIRSHIP DESIGN VI. THE AIRSHIP COMMERCIALLY VII. KITE BALLOONS
PART IV--ENGINE DEVELOPMENT I. THE VERTICAL TYPE II. THE VEE TYPE III. THE RADIAL TYPE IV. THE ROTARY TYPE V. THE HORIZONTALLY-OPPOSED ENGINE VI. THE TWO-STROKE CYCLE ENGINE VII. ENGINES OF THE WAR PERIOD
APPENDICES


PART I
THE EVOLUTION OF THE AEROPLANE
I. THE PERIOD OF LEGEND
The blending of fact and fancy which men call legend reached its fullest and richest expression in the golden age of Greece, and thus it is to Greek mythology that one must turn for the best form of any legend which foreshadows history. Yet the prevalence of legends regarding flight, existing in the records of practically every race, shows that this form of transit was a dream of many peoples--man always wanted to fly, and imagined means of flight.
In this age of steel, a very great part of the inventive genius of man has gone into devices intended to facilitate transport, both of men and goods, and the growth of civilisation is in reality the facilitation of transit, improvement of the means of communication. He was a genius who first hoisted a sail on a boat and saved