Taking Flight Inventing the Aerial Age, from Antiquity through the First World War

by Hallion, Richard P.

• ISBN13: 9780195160352
• ISBN10: 0195160355
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The invention of flight represents the culmination of centuries of thought and desire. Kites and rockets sparked our collective imagination. Then the balloon gave humanity its first experience aloft, though at the mercy of the winds. The steerable airship that followed had more practicality, yet a number of insurmountable limitations. But the airplane truly launched the Aerial Age, and its subsequent impact--from the vantage of a century after the Wright Brother's historic flight on December 17, 1903--has been extraordinary. Richard Hallion, a distinguished international authority on aviation, offers a bold new examination of aircraft history, stressing its global roots. The result is an interpretive history of uncommon sweep, complexity, and warmth. Taking care to place each technological advance in the context of its own period as well as that of the evolving era of air travel, this ground-breaking work follows the pre-history of flight, the work of balloon and airship advocates, fruitless early attempts to invent the airplane, the Wright brothers and other pioneers, the impact of air power on the outcome of World War I, and finally the transfer of prophecy into practice as flight came to play an ever-more important role in world affairs, both military and civil. Making extensive use of extracts from the journals, diaries, and memoirs of the pioneers themselves, and interspersing them with a wide range or rare photographs and drawings, Taking Flight leads readers to the laboratories and airfields where aircraft were conceived and tested. Forcefully yet gracefully written in rich detail and with thorough documentation, this book is certain to be the standard reference for years to come on how humanity came to take to the sky, and what the Aerial Age has meant to the world since da Vinci's first fantastical designs.

Author Biography

Author of numerous award-winning books and formerly the Air Force Historian, Richard Hallion teaches widely at American and foreign universities and defense colleges. He has gained flying experience as a mission observer in a wide range of civil and military aircraft, served as a NASA historian, and in 1974, joined the Smithsonian Institution as one of the founding curators of the National Air and Space Museum.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Myth to Machine	p. xv
Preparing the Way: from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
Of Dreams and Desires	p. 3
Hellenic and Hellenistic Avian Influences: Archytas' Dove and the Sakkara Bird
Islam, Christendom, and the Consciousness of Flight
Brother Eilmer, the Flying Monk of Malmesbury
The Rocket and the Helicopter: The First Powered Flying Machines
Conflicting Ideas and Societies	p. 24
Of Birds and Ornithopters
The Search for Alternative Solutions: Lana de Terzi and Gusmao Envision Aerostatics
Why Europe?
Science, Technology, and Inventing Flight
Ethereal Flight: Inventing the Balloon and Airship, 1782-1900
The Astonishing Year	p. 47
Two Brothers from Annonay
The Battle of the Balloons (I): Montgolfiere versus Charliere--the
First Trials
The Battle of the Balloons (II): Humanity Aloft
Consequences
Exploiting the Balloon	p. 61
Professor Charles's Invention Goes to War
The Civil War
The French Revival and the Siege of Paris
Trials and Tragedy: Scientific Ballooning to the End of the Nineteenth Century
The Quest for Steerable Flight	p. 81
Precursors
The First Successful Airship: The Renards, Krebs, and la France
Small Airships ...
... and Large
Winged Flight: Early Conceptions of the Airplane, 1792-1903
Sir George Cayley and the Birth of Aeronautics	p. 101
Aerodynamics before Sir George
The Country Gentleman as Aeronautical Researcher
Cayley and his Work
Cayley's Other Interests and Influence
The Way Forward
Creating "an Artificial Wind": Wenham, Phillips, and the First Wind Tunnels
The Frustrated Hopes of French Aeronautics	p. 120
The French Crucible
After Penaud: Tatin and Goupil
Birds, Bats, and Clement Ader
"L'affaire Ader": Attempting the World's First Military Airplane
The Tragedy of Early French Aviation
The Anglo-American School of Power and Lift	p. 138
Maxim: The Businessman as Airplane Inventor
Langley: The Scientist as Airplane Inventor
Langley and the Military
Aftermath
The Airmen Triumphant: Lilienthal, Chanute, and the Wrights, 1891-1905
The Lilienthal Legacy	p. 161
The Making of an Airman
Lilienthal's Influence: An Assessment
Octave Chanute and the Transferring of Aeronautics from Europe to America
Into the Air: Chanute and the Birth of American Flight Testing
Enter the Wrights	p. 178
Richard Rathbun: The Unsung Bureaucrat
"Annihilating" Time and Space
The Wrights as Engineers
Control and Stability: The Anticipated and Unanticipated Challenges
The Wrights Aloft: First Experiences
"They Done It, They Done It, Damned If They Ain't Flew!"	p. 193
Rethinking Their Design
The Prime Mover
Final Preparations
Triumph of "the Whopper Flying Machine"
Afterwards
Europe Resurgent, 1905-1909
"L'affaire Wright"	p. 213
Concerns, Irritations, and Frustrations
"Fliers or Liars": The Growing "l'affaire Wright"
Santos to the Rescue, Archdeacon to the Attack, and Ader to the Barricades
The Roots of European Resurgence
Hunaudieres
"The Flying Industry Is Already Born"	p. 234
The Spectre of Obsolescence: America's First Fliers and France's Fast Seconds
The First Aeronautical Salon
France, Europe, and the First Aerodynamic Laboratories
"The Age of Flight Is the Age We Live In"	p. 250
Crossing la Manche
The Great Aviation Week at Reims
Denouement
Expansion, Incorporation, Maturation: Beginning the Aerial Age, 1910-1914
Global Expansion	p. 271
Aviation in Britain
Flight in the Vaterland
Italy, Scandinavia, Russia, and Asia
Whither America? The Wright Patent Muddle
The Loss of Innocence	p. 296
Visions of Future War
America and the First Demonstrations of Military Value
The Birth of Maritime Aviation
Airships: The Prewar "Wunderwaffen"
Europe Exercises Its Military Aviation
To War on Wings
Triumphs of Speed and Distance	p. 316
The Triumph of the French
La glorieuse annee
... and Afterwards
Tennyson Fulfilled: Putting Prophecy into Practice, 1914 and Afterwards
Into the Whirlwind	p. 335
The Road to War
Tannenberg: Annihilation of an Army
Decision on the Marne
Grappling in the Central Blue	p. 349
The Rise of the Fighter: The Birth of Air Superiority Warfare
The Coming of the Bomber and the Advent of Strategic Air Attack
Air Power over the Battlefield
Aviation at Sea
The Industrial Dimension
Reflections on the Beginning of the Aerial Age	p. 380
Questions ...
... and Answers
What Happened in America
Echoes and Resonances
Transformations, Civil and Military
Afterword: Technology of Light or Technology of Darkness? Considering Flight after 9/11/01	p. 405
Acknowledgments	p. 413
References	p. 415
Index	p. 505
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.