Author: Tom D. Crouch Publisher: National Geographic ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Presents a biography of the Wright brothers, focusing on their systematic research of flight mechanics which proved the key to their success.
Author: Richard P. Hallion Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190289597 Category : Transportation Languages : en Pages : 560
Book Description
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: John David Anderson Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 9780801868757 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 188
Book Description
The invention of flight craft heavier than air counts among humankind's defining achievements. In this book, aviation engineer and historian John D. Anderson, Jr., offers a concise and engaging account of the technical developments that anticipated the Wright brothers' successful first flight on December 17, 1903. While the accomplishments of the Wrights have become legendary, we do well to remember that they inherited a body of aerodynamics knowledge and flying machine technology. How much did they draw upon this legacy? Did it prove useful or lead to dead ends? Leonardo da Vinci first began to grasp the concepts of lift and drag which would be essential to the invention of powered flight. He describes the many failed efforts of the so-called tower jumpers, from Benedictine monk Oliver of Malmesbury in 1022 to the eighteenth-century Marquis de Bacqueville. He tells the fascinating story of aviation pioneers such as Sir George Cayley, who in a stroke of genius first proposed the modern design of a fixed-wing craft with a fuselage and horizontal and vertical tail surfaces in 1799, and William Samuel Henson, a lace-making engineer whose ambitious aerial steam carriage was patented in 1842 but never built. Anderson describes the groundbreaking nineteenth-century laboratory experiments in fluid dynamics, the building of the world's first wind tunnel in 1870, and the key contributions of various scientists and inventors in such areas as propulsion (propellers, not flapping wings) and wing design (curved, not flat). He also explains the crucial contributions to the science of aerodynamics by the German engineer Otto Lilienthal, later praised by the Wrights as their most im Kitty Hawk as they raced to become the first in flight, Anderson shows how the brothers succeeded where others failed by taking the best of early technology and building upon it using a carefully planned, step-by-step experimental approach. (They recognized, for example, that it was necessary to become a skilled glider pilot before attempting powered flight.) With vintage photographs and informative diagrams to enhance the text, Inventing Flight will interest anyone who has ever wondered what lies behind the miracle of flight. undergraduates, that would tell the connected prehistory of the airplane from Cayley to the Wrights. In light of the recognized excellence of his technical textbooks (with their stimulating historical vignettes), I can't think of a better person than Professor Anderson for the job. He has the rare combination of technical and historical knowledge that is essential for the necessary balance. Inventing Flight will be a welcome addition to undergraduate classrooms.--Walter G. Vincenti, Stanford University
Author: Tom D. Crouch Publisher: National Park Service Handbook ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 122
Book Description
Describes the Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio and the events that lead to the world's first successful flight of a man-carrying, power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. The Wright brothers' first flight occurred on Dec. 17, 1903 and lasted just 12 seconds at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Author: Orville Wright Publisher: Courier Corporation ISBN: 0486135691 Category : Antiques & Collectibles Languages : en Pages : 96
Book Description
This fascinating firsthand account covers the Wright Brothers' early experiments, construction of planes and motors, first flights, and much more. Introduction and commentary by Fred C. Kelly. 76 photographs.
Author: Peter L. Jakab Publisher: Smithsonian Institution ISBN: 158834438X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
This acclaimed book on the Wright Brothers takes the reader straight to the heart of their remarkable achievement, focusing on the technology and offering a clear, concise chronicle of precisely what they accomplished and how they did it. This book deals with the process of the invention of the airplane and how the brothers identified and resolved a range of technical puzzles that others had attempted to solve for a century. Step by step, the book details the path of invention (including the important wind tunnel experiments of 1901) which culminated in the momentous flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the first major milestone in aviation history. Enhanced by original photos, designs, drawings, notebooks, letters and diaries of the Wright Brothers, Visions of a Flying Machine is a fascinating book that will be of interest to engineers, historians, enthusiasts, or anyone interested in the process of invention.
Author: Richard Hallion Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195160355 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 555
Book Description
Uses extracts from journals, diaries, and memoirs, as well as rare photographs and drawings, to provide a history of humanity's attempts at flight, including kites, balloons, rockets, and steerable airships.
Author: Tom D. Crouch
Author: Tom D. Crouch
Author: Tom D. Crouch
Author: Richard P. Hallion
Author: John David Anderson
Author: Tom D. Crouch
Author: Orville Wright
Author: Russell Freedman
Author: Peter L. Jakab
Author: Richard Hallion