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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0272.PDF
270 FLIGHT, 9 March 1956 A British Gliding Pioneer The Experiments of Percy Pilcher By PETER W. BROOKS EARLY in 1952, an old gentleman who had been up toLondon to attend the funeral of King George VI died ona railway platform on his way home to Northamptonshire. The death of Adrian Verney Verney-Cave, the sixth Baron Braye,attracted little attention; yet his passing severed a final link with the earliest days of successful human flight. Lord Braye, in hisyouth, had been a friend of Percy Pilcher, the first man to fly a glider in this country and one who, but for his death in 1899as a result of a gliding accident on the Braye estate, might have become the first man in the world to achieve successful poweredflight. Percy Sinclair Pilcher was bom in January 1866. He joined theBritannia at the age of thirteen to train for a life in the Navy, but left that Service in 1885 and turned his attention to engineer-ing as a career. After studying at London University, he became an assistant lecturer in naval architecture and marine engineeringat Glasgow University in 1893. From early youth, Pilcher took a close interest in the flightof birds and in the possibilities of mechanical flight. In 1891 he first heard of the gliding experiments which the great pioneer OttoLilienthal was then making in Germany but it was not until early in 1895 that he started constructing his first glider in his sparetime, modelling it largely on photographs in the Press of Lilienthal's machine. This glider, which was called the Bat, waswithout a tailplane but had a fixed rear fin. The wings had an area of 151 sq ft and pronounced dihedral. The glider weighed55 lb, was built of Riga pine covered with nainsook fabric and was of the "hanging" type, in the Lilienthal tradition. That isto say, the pilot was suspended from the centre section and con- trolled the machine by swinging his body. In June, 1895, before flying the Bat, Pilcher went to Germanyto see Lilienthal and watch him fly his glider. On his return to England in July he made a number of unsuccessful attemptsto fly the Bat in its original form before modifying it in the light of what he had learnt in Germany. After adding a tailplaneand reducing the dihedral of the wings, Pilcher succeeded, on September 12th, 1895, in making the first controlled flight evermade in the British Isles. It lasted 20 seconds, during which a little height was gained in the slope-lift of the hill where Pilcherwas making his experiments—at Wallacetown Farm, near Card- ross on the North bank of the Clyde. A second flight on the same day was started from a tow by aman with a rope and lasted nearly a minute from a release height of about twenty feet. This technique of towed launching was aninnovation of Pilcher's which had not been previously used in practice, although it had first been suggested—and was possiblytried—by that other great British pioneer of aeronautics, Sir George Cayley, nearly fifty years earlier. Many successful flightsfollowed these initial trials and later that summer Pilcher built a second glider which he called the Beetle. This also was a"hanging" glider, but the wing was without dihedral and was mounted above the pilot so as to keep the wing-tips off theground. Pilcher had had trouble from catching the Bat's wings on the ground during landings. In the event, the Beetle did notprove as successful as its predecessor, because of too great a weight and too low a centre of gravity. The Beetle was made strongerthan the Bat so as to be suitable for the installation of an engine Percy Sinclair Pilcher. and propeller which Pilcher was contemplating. This greaterstrength increased the weight to 79 lb for an area of 172 sq ft and made the glider very difficult to handle. It was not a success. Pilcher's third glider was the Gull, which had a greatlyincreased wing area of 300 sq ft but a weight cut back to that of the original—551b. This design was again not entirely satis-factory. The "hanging" method of control proved inadequate for so large a machine in anything but a dead calm. The Gull wascompleted in Glasgow early in 1896 and was tried out in the summer of that year, only to be crashed several times duringattempted flights in strong winds. In the spring of 1896 Pilcher left Glasgow University andmoved to Eynsford in Kent, where he had got a job with Sir Hiram Maxim, who was engaged nearby at Baldwyn's Park ona series of experiments aimed at solving the problems of powered flight. When he had settled down in his new home, Pilchcrstarted work on his fourth glider, the Hawk, which was a marked advance on his previous designs. Made largely of bamboo,covered with linen and braced with piano wire, this glider—which was again of the "hanging" variety—weighed about 50 lb andhad a span of 28 ft 4 in and a wing area of 180 sq ft. The wings could be folded for transport and two small wheels on springstruts were provided as an undercarriage. The Hawk was most successful. It was usually launched eitherby towing with a 400-yd length of fishing line, pulled by helpers, or by means of a rope and pulley system drawn by a horse. Thslatter form of launching was probably the practical beginning of winch launching as we know it today. (The first engine-poweredwinch launches were later also made with a "hanging" glider. This was at a gilding demonstration given by Capt. WilliamAvery of the U.S. Army on a Chanutc glider at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1903. Power was derived from a 10 h.p. electricmotor.) One of Pilcher's reasons for favouring towed launching was thatit enabled him to reach greater heights above the ground than could be gained while gliding down the slope of a hill. Hebelieved that, if he could get high enough, he would be able to make use of the up-currents which he could see soaring birdsusing. A favourite method of launching involved taking off from the top of one hill, towed by a light line which passed across asmall valley to a pulley mounted on the summit of a neighbouring hill. After the line had been passed through this pulley, itwas taken to helpers who pulled on it as they ran down the hill. In this way considerable heights were attained over theintervening valley, where Pilcher hoped to find up-currents. It appears that, unfortunately, he never succeeded in contactingone. Between 1896 and 1899, Pilcher made a large number ofsuccessful glides on the Hawk near Eynsford. His best effort was on June 19th, 1897, when a distance of over 250 yd at a height The Hawk, Pilcher's fourth glider, as reconstructed. (Right) The designer making one of his successful flights. Science Museum photographs
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