COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS

1
Developing Aircraft
2
Overview

• Key individuals involved in early aircraft
  development
• The names and anatomy of period aircraft
• The significance of other American pioneers in
  aviation following the Wright brothers

3
Quick Write

• Both the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtiss were
  heavily involved with bicycles before taking up
  flight.
• What similarities do you see between bicycles,
  early motorcycles, and early airplanes?

4
Key Individuals Involved in Early Aircraft
Development

• In the first decade of the 1900s the Wright
  brothers were making aviation history
• But other people were also becoming aviation
  pioneers

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute(Dumont)
Taken from wikipedia.com (Bierot and Rogers)
5
Glenn Curtiss

• Thomas Baldwin was looking for a lightweight
  engine for his dirigible
• He saw how well Curtisss bike engine performed
  and asked if he could buy one
• Curtiss agreed and tweaked one of his engines for
  use in an aircraft
• Baldwins aircraft, with a Curtiss engine, was
  the first powered dirigible in America

Courtesy of Underwood Underwood/Corbis
6
The Aerial Experiment Association

• Curtiss joined the Aerial Experiment Association
• Alexander Graham Bellbest known as inventor of
  the telephoneformed this group
• The group made some important design
  breakthroughs
• First, they built the first American plane
  equipped with ailerons

7
The Aerial Experiment Association
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
8
Ailerons

• An aileron is a small flap on the wing for
  controlling turns
• Ailerons replaced the Wright brothers
  wing-warping technique
• The aileron was a more effective means to move an
  aircraft left or right
• It also provided lateral balance
• The association introduced ailerons to America
  but the idea originated in England

9
First Seaplane

• Members of the group also built and flew the
  countrys first seaplane
• Curtiss would later win the first government
  contract with the US Navy for seaplanes

Courtesy of the US Navy
10
Curtisss Fame Grows

• He won awards for distance and speed (the
  Scientific American trophy and an award at the
  Rheims Air Meet in France)
• Curtiss opened a flight school in 1910, the same
  year the Wright brothers opened their school
• Curtisss effect on aviation can still be felt
  today

Courtesy of Bettman/Corbis
11
Louis Blériot

• French pilot Louis Blériot was the first man to
  cross the English Channel in a heavier-than-air
  craft
• Although Blériot encountered problemshe got lost
  and his engine overheatedhe managed to land
  safely
• The flight took 37 minutes

12
Blériot XI

• Blériot built and flew the first powered
  monoplane

Courtesy of the Library of Congress
13
Names and Anatomy of Period Aircraft

• Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie was the first
  to fully enclose the fuselage and use ailerons
• A fuselage is the body of an airplane containing
  the crew and passengers (or cargo)
• Enclosed cabins protected pilots and passengers
  from the wind and rain

14
Multiengine Planes

• English brothers Eustace, Howard, and Oswald
  Short experimented with adding engines to their
  aircraft
• A multiengine plane is a plane with more than one
  engine
• Two (or more) engines upped an aircrafts power,
  reliability, and safety

15
The Triple Twin

• The Short brothers built the Triple Twin, a
  two-engine, three-propeller aircraft, in 1911
• They placed one engine in front of the cockpita
  space inside the fuselage where the crew sits
• They mounted the second engine behind the cockpit

16
Le Grand

• Russian pilot Igor Sikorsky designed a
  four-engine aircraft called Le Grand
• He flew it on 13 May 1913
• He used four 100-horsepower engines to lift the
  92-foot-wingspan airplane

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute
17
Rotary Engines

• The earliest engines were relatively heavy and
  inefficient
• One reason was that these early engines used
  water as a coolant
• Brothers Laurent and Gustav Seguin of France set
  out to reduce the motor weight
• Their solution? Rotary engines

18
Rotary Engines

• Rotary engines used circulating air, rather than
  water, as a coolant
• The Seguins placed the engines cylinders in a
  radial, or round, pattern
• They fitted each cylinder with a fin to draw out
  the heat as the plane flew
• With these changes, engines became more efficient
  and their weight dropped

19
Helicopters

• Helicopters are different from other aircraft in
  two important ways
• First, they dont have fixed wingsthey have
  rotating wings
• Second, they take off and land vertically

Courtesy of Branger/Getty Images
20
Helicopters

• The wings of helicopters, like those of other
  aircraft, must be in constant motion
• Helicopters have rotorsanother name for
  propellers
• Rotors are made up of blades, each of which acts
  as a wing, and as the blades rotate, they lift
  the helicopter
• Helicopters are also known as rotary-wing
  aircraft

21
Manned Helicopters

• In 1842 W. H. Phillips got a model helicopter
  with a steam engine into the air
• In 1907 Frenchman Louis Bréguet flew one, as did
  his countryman Paul Cornu
• In 1909 Americans Emile and Henry Berliner also
  built and piloted a helicopter
• All these men faced one common problem
  helicopters are difficult to balance
• No one would find a solution for 30 years

22
American Aviation Pioneers

• While some aircraft pioneers were achieving fame
  as inventors, others were breaking barriers as
  pilots
• Those barriers ranged from distance to altitude
  to gender and race
• The early 20th century was a time when all kinds
  of records could be broken

23
The Vin Fiz Flyer

• Could Calbraith Perry Rodgers fly across the
  United States in 30 days? That was his goal in
  1911
• Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst was
  offering a 50,000 prize
• Rodgers asked soft drink manufacturer Vin Fiz if
  it would provide financial support for his flight
  in exchange for nationwide publicity

24
The Vin Fiz Flyer

• Rodgers took off on 17 September 1911 from
  Sheepshead Bay on New Yorks Long Island
• The plane needed countless repairs and made many
  stops along the way
• It took 49 daysRodgers didnt win the award
  because the flight took too longbut he made
  history

25
The Vin Fiz Flyer

• Rodgers had earned a place in aviation historyhe
  made the first airplane crossing of the US from
  coast to coast

Taken from centennialofflight.gov
26
First Enlisted Pilot Gets His Wings

• PFC Vernon Burge was the first enlisted man to
  become a pilot
• The US Army Signal Corps Aeronautical Division
  had a general rule that only officers could be
  pilots
• Enlisted men trained as mechanics
• Burge was one of eight enlisted men who joined
  the division in 1907

27
First Enlisted Pilot Gets His Wings

• Burge helped build a landing system for 1st Lt
  Benjamin Foulois airplane
• During this time, Burge learned as much as he
  could about airplanes
• He became a pilot in 1912
• It wasnt until 18 July 1914 that the US House of
  Representatives passed a bill that authorized
  enlisted men to fly
• It also gave official status to the Armys
  aviation arm

28
Bessie Coleman

• Bessie Coleman faced two obstacles to becoming a
  pilother race and her gender she overcame both
• In 1921 Coleman became the first black woman to
  get a pilots license
• She had to go to France for training because no
  flight school in the United States would accept
  her
• She died in an airplane crash only four years
  after getting her license

29
Blanche Stuart Scott

• Scott was Glenn Curtisss only female student in
  1910
• Curtiss worried about thisif Scott crashed, he
  feared hed be blamed for putting a woman in
  harms way
• So Curtiss did what he could to keep Scott from
  being able to take off

30
Blanche Stuart Scott

• Nonetheless, Scott managed to fly one of
  Curtisss planes one day
• Scott had become the first American woman to solo
  in a fixed-wing airplane

Courtesy of Hill Air Force Museum
31
Bessica Medlar Raiche

• Some aviation historians think Bessica Medlar
  Raiche was really the first woman to go solo
• She made that flight on 13 October 1910
• Raiche never got a license, but flying excited
  her
• She and her husband, François, formed a
  lightweight airplane company called the
  French-American Aeroplane Company

32
Harriet Quimby

• In 1911, Quimby became the first American woman
  to earn her pilots license
• She was also the first woman to fly at night
  (1911) and to pilot across the English Channel
  (1912)
• She broke a fashion barrier, too, by designing
  and wearing a jumpsuit

Courtesy of the Library of Congress
33
Harriet Quimby

• Quimby entered the Boston Air Meet in 1912
• She and her passenger took off over Boston Harbor
  in hopes of making a record 58 mph flight over a
  body of water
• At 5,000 feet, the plane flipped and nosed
  downward
• Quimby and Willard fell from the plane and
  plunged into the watersboth perished

34
Matilde Moisant

• On 13 April 1911, Moisant became the second woman
  in America to get a pilots license
• She won the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy for flying at
  an attitude of 2,500 feet
• She also a court to acknowledge it was legal to
  fly on Sundays
• Her brother John Moisant, also a pilot, had died
  in a crash in 1910
• His death deeply affected her and on 13 April
  1912, she said shed make her last flight the
  next day

35
Julia Clark

• On 19 May 1912, Julia Clark was the third
  American woman to gain her pilots license
• Sadly, she was also the first woman pilot to die
  in a crash
• She learned to fly at the Curtiss Flying School
  at North Island in San Diego
• After soloing in a Curtiss plane, she joined an
  exhibition group
• She took a text flight on 17 June 1912 she hit a
  tree limb, crashed, and died

36
Katherine and Marjorie Stinson

• Katherine Stinson earned her pilots license on
  24 July 1912
• She was the fourth American woman to do so, and
  at age 16, she was also the youngest
• She would eventually become one of the most
  successful women in aviation
• Her younger sister, Marjorie, graduated from the
  Wright Flying School in August 1914
• When WWI began, the sisters opened a school to
  train Americans and Canadians as pilots for the
  war

37
Review

• The first powered dirigible in America was
  equipped with a Glenn Curtiss engine
• Louis Blériot was the first man to build and fly
  a powered monoplane
• A multiengine plane had greater power,
  reliability, and safety than a single-engine
  plane
• Laurent and Gustav Seguin of France invented
  rotary engines that used circulating air rather
  than water

38
Review

• Calbraith Perry Rodgers made the first airplane
  crossing of the United States from coast to coast
• PFC Vernon Burge was the first enlisted man to
  become a pilot
• Bessie Coleman became the first black woman to
  get a pilots license

39
Review

• Blanche Stuart Scott was the first American woman
  to solo in a fixed-wing airplane
• Harriet Quimby was the first American woman to
  earn her pilots license
• Bessica Medlar Raiche, Matilde Moisant, Julia
  Clark, and Katherine and Marjorie Stinson were
  also famous female aviators of the period

40
Summary

• Key individuals involved in early aircraft
  development
• The names and anatomy of period aircraft
• The significance of other American pioneers in
  aviation following the Wright brothers

41
Next.

• Donedeveloping aircraft
• Nextair power in World War I

Courtesy of the EAA/Jim Koepnick