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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 2155.PDF
490 FLIGHT International, 20 September 1962 NEW LIGHT ON CAYLEY By CHARLES H. GIBBS-SMITH Editor's Note: We are glad to publish these items from Mr Gibbs-Smith's new Science Museum handbook, "Sir George Cayley's Aeronautics, 1796-1855," published at 30s by HM Stationery Office. This is the first time a full account of Cayley's work has been undertaken, and the author has made an exhaustive study of both published and unpublished sources. In addition, and by what he has told us "amounts to an uncanny and almost unnerving series of lucky discoveries which by rights and mathe matics should happen to no one," a great amount of completely new material has come to light. For these two pages, Mr Gibbs-Smith has selected 14 items to suggest the range of both new discoveries and new research. Twelve of these have never before been published. Fig 1 was published in 1955, but in a mutilated form and with no hint of its date or its significance; and Fig 7—the most important Cayley discovery to date— was published in "The Times" last year, a few days after Mr Gibbs-Smith had found it in an unknown diary of Cayley's. Fig 3 Here is Cayley's intermediate type of model glider (of 1818), comprising a large kite bent to give a latere/ dihedral, with a small kite attached to form the tail unit. The e.g. was adjusted by the movable weight on the centre pole Fig 4 (below) Until now, only Cayley's historic whirling arm of 1804 was known, the first ever to be used for aeronautical research. Now four more have come to light. This one was built in 1818, with means of varying the angles of incidence of the aerofoils between the small quadrants Fig. I Published in a mutilated form in 1955 without diagnosis, this drawing can now be identified as the finished design for Cayley's first, epoch-making, aero plane concept, sketched on his silver disc of 1799, and realized here either in 1799 or 1800. Cayley demon strates his greatest contribution to aviation—the establishment of the modern-configuration powered fixed-wing aeroplane, in which the system of lift is (for the first time in history) separated from the system of thrust. At this stage he suggests fore-and-aft beating paddles, as he has not yet discovered the propulsion technique of birds Fig 2 (below) Although an excursion into the compound (flapper-cum-fixed-wing) field, this sketch of 1815 represents history's first tandem-wing aeroplane. The flapping outer panels were to beat alternately, A simultaneously with A, 6 with B. to counterpoise one another Fig 5 (left) An amusing jeu d'esprit dated 1829. It is a "design" for a bladed dihedral parachute, based on the Goatsbeard fruit, with a protective awning for the aeronaut! Fig 6 (right) Not Cayley's work, but a design which led to his own famous elaboration. It is the world's first design for a convertiplane, by Robert Taylor, sent to Cayley in 1842. It comprises concentric contra-rotating rotors which close to form a slightly concave circular wing: a pusher airscrew takes over for horizontal propulsion
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