Early Pioneers: Cayley to Langley

In this Module

Our Wings text covers numerous early pioneers in aviation; this module is intended to help you focus in on a handful of individuals who propelled forward the effort to achieve flight in the years prior to the Wright Brothers.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Describe the work and contributions of George Cayley, Alphonse Pénaud, Otto Lilienthal, Samuel Langley, and Octave Chanute to developments in manned flight between 1800 and 1900.

Sir George Cayley

Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) is often seen as a founding figure for manned flight because he designed several gliders--especially a model in 1804--that included many components now seen as core to fixed-wing aircraft. These include a central spar (now called a fuselage), a wing set above the wing at an angle, a weight to shift the center of balance, and a cruciform tail to provide some control in flight. His ideas inspired a century of efforts to develop machines to enable the first powered, manned flight. His "flying parachute" design is pictured below.

Alphonse Pénaud

Alphonse Pénaud (1850-1830) was a French aeronautical designer who is probably best know for the hélicoptère model described in the Wings reading and the later planophore design for an aircraft. The hélicoptère model was a vertical shaft with a propeller atop it; a rubber band running down the center powers the propeller and creates lift that raises the model into the air upwards of fifty feet. This quickly because a fascinating and popular toy, one that inspired Wilbur Wright in 1878, even thought at base it represented a sophisticated propeller design and teased at solutions for powering larger aircraft designs. The planophore was an effort to turn this model horizontal and test the rubber band-driven propeller with wings, much like a modern propeller aircraft has a propeller at the front and wings attached further behind it in a linear manner. Pénaud was not able to gather financial funding to build large-scale models for testing, but his ideas inspired others including the Wrights. You can see an example of this model in the video below.

Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896) was a German mechanical engineer and fearless pioneer in early aviation. He built numerous glider designs experimenting with wing size, shape, and angle. Although he flew what we now call hang gliders, his research into lift and inspiring efforts influenced others to pursue flying including the Wright Brothers. Lilienthal's death in 1896, when he crashed with one of his gliders and broke his back, inspired Wilbur Wright to take action on his childhood wonder at powered flight and led directly to the experiments and eventual flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

Samuel Pierpont Langley

Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906) was director of the Smithsonian Institute during the 1890s when we was working to develop a flying machine, which brought him into contact with government and scientific leaders and elevated the visibility of efforts to create a working airplane. He received funding from the government to build his steam-powered Aerodrome No. 5, which he unsuccessfully launched on the Potomac River in 1896. Although his designs were not successful, he spurred further interest in the problem of achieving manned flight.

Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute (1832-1910) was a civil engineer who worked primarily on railroad projects until he became fascinated with flight in the 1850s. Through his connections as a well-known engineer, he became an important linchpin in a global communications network serving as hub through which news of developments, experiments, and design ideas flowed from one aeronautical experimenter to another. He was influential in bringing together the latest thought on the problems of aviation during the period 1885 to 1903 and was an important connection for the Wright Brothers--even visiting them several times along the North Carolina Coast in 1902 and 1903 before their successful flight.  He also has interesting local connections to Lenexa, Kansas, and Kansas City, which you can learn about in the video below.

Summary

Our text Wings goes into some detail on each of these individuals, and it is important to consider how they connect both through their shared ideas (and communication hubs like Octave Chanute) and their shared curiosity and resiliency in seeking solutions to the problem of achieving powered, manned flight.