Artificial and Natural Flight (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Artificial and Natural Flight It was in 1856 that I first had my attention called to the subject of flying machines.My father, who was a profound thinker and a clever mechanician, seems to have given the subject a great deal of thought, and to have matured a plan identical with what has been proposed by hundreds since that time. I was then sixteen years of age, and a fairly good mechanician, and any new thing in the mechanical line interested me immensely. My fathers proposed machine, of which he made a sketch, was of the Helicoptere type, having two screws both on the same axis - the lower one to be right hand and mounted on a tubular shaft, and the top one to be left hand and mounted on a solid shaft running through the lower tubular shaft. These screws were to be rotated in reverse directions by means of a small pinion engaging a bevel gear attached to each of the shafts. His plan contemplated large screws with very fine pitch, and he proposed to obtain horizontal motion by inclining the axis forward. He admitted that there was no motor in existence light enough, but thought one might be invented, and that an engine might be worked by a series of explosions in the cylinder, that is, what is known to-day as internal combustion; but he was not clear how such an engine could be produced. He, however, said that a flying machine would be so valuable in time of war, that it mattered little how expensive the explosive might be, even if fulminate of mercury had to be used. It is interesting to note in this connection that the great Peter Cooper of New York thought out an identical machine about the same time, and actually commenced experiments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.