John Stringfellow, 1799 - 1833
but at last nights get together at 388 a question was asked, "when was the first mechanical flight made?" mechanical, i.e. with a form of engine like internal combustion etc, surprisingly some one knew within 2 years the answer, it was in 1848, but wait for this, it was steam powered!
Stringfellow's Steam Engine Powered Large Model Biplane - 1868
just imagine in those days building a boiler and engine with valves and push rods etc and getting it to fly! as an aside apprentices at Rolls Royce in Bristol have built 2 of Stringfellows machines but with so far little success of actual flight - but their day will come! as I said "Who'd Have Thought It!"
3 comments:
Not true Stan!
The first powered flight was made in 1784/5, when Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the English Channel in a hot air baloon, using a mechanical flapping device to move his balooon about.
Hi Jil, nice to know you are still reading the blog, I should have said first powered flight with out using a ballon for LIFT, but in any event the first powered flight was made some months earlier than Blanchard, he made HIS first successful balloon flight in Paris on 2 March 1784, in a hydrogen gas balloon launched from the Champ de Mars.
The first successful manned/powered balloon flight took place only a few months earlier, on 21 November 1783, when Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes took off at the Palace of Versailles in a tethered hot air balloon constructed by the Montgolfier brothers, he had a device to row himself in the air.
Hi Jil, nice to know you are still reading the blog, I should have said first powered flight with out using a ballon for LIFT, but in any event the first powered flight was made some months earlier than Blanchard, he made HIS first successful balloon flight in Paris on 2 March 1784, in a hydrogen gas balloon launched from the Champ de Mars.
The first successful manned/powered balloon flight took place only a few months earlier, on 21 November 1783, when Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes took off at the Palace of Versailles in a tethered hot air balloon constructed by the Montgolfier brothers, he had a device to row himself in the air.
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