Fig. 12.—Phillips’s Experimental Craft.
In furtherance of his views, Phillips built the strange-looking machine which is seen in [Fig. 12]. It resembled, more than anything else, a huge Venetian blind; and he adopted this form so as to introduce as many narrow planes as possible. There were, as a matter of fact, fifty in the machine, each 22 feet long and only 1½ inch wide. The craft, as can be seen, was mounted on a light carriage which, having wheels fitted to it, ran round and round upon a railed track. A steam engine was used as motive power, driving a two-bladed propeller at the rate of 400 revolutions a minute. The machine was so arranged on its metals that, although the rear wheels could raise themselves and show whether the planes exercised a lift, the front one was fixed to its track—thus preventing the apparatus from leaping into the air, overturning, and perhaps wrecking itself. Tests with the machine were successful. The lifting influence of the planes, when the engine drove them forward, was sufficient to raise the rear wheels from the track; and they did so even when a weight of 72 lbs., in addition to that of the apparatus, had been placed upon the carriage. In his main object, then, Phillips succeeded; and that was to show the lifting power of his planes. But his apparatus had not the makings of a practical aeroplane. He gained for himself, nevertheless, a name that has lived and will live. Even to-day, in discussing the wing-shape of some machine, draughtsmen will speak of the “Phillips entry.” Other workers did not pin themselves exactly to his shapes or theories, but these paved the way for a series of further tests.
Science was forging link by link indeed the chain that would lead to an ultimate conquest. Sir George Cayley suggested an arched plane; Wenham devised a machine in which narrow planes should be fitted one above another; and Phillips laid down the rule for a curve or camber of special shape, which should exercise most “lift” when thrust through the air. But still men lacked many things; all the links in the chain were far from being in their place; and one of the greatest flaws was that no man, even supposing he was able to build a machine that would fly, had learned as yet to balance that machine when it was in the air.
CHAPTER III
FIRST FRUITS OF STUDY
The building of large machines—Sir Hiram Maxim’s costly work—A steam-driven French craft which flew—Professor Langley’s research in America.
Of the way research next tended, it may be said that it was the first putting into practice of the theories science had laid down; for now, having an idea as to the shape of planes, and knowing that these planes could be made to carry a load through the air, there were engineers who began to build man-carrying, power-driven machines. In so doing, however, they may be said to have tried to run before they could walk. What they did was to provide the world with powerful flying craft before there were men who could handle them.
One of the most interesting and ambitious designs was that of Sir Hiram Maxim; and it was one to which he devoted years of labour and large sums of money. He is said, indeed, to have expended £20,000 upon aerial research. After a number of experiments with plane shapes, following the theories of Phillips, he began to build a very large machine, which he set upon a miniature railway as Phillips had done, using the same precaution of a check-rail to prevent it from rising more than a certain distance in the air. His apparatus, when built at Baldwin’s Park, Kent, weighed 8000 lbs.: it was, in fact, the largest machine ever built. The span of its planes was 105 feet, and they offered a total supporting surface of 6000 square feet.