Grandfather of Flight

When they built the first airplane that carried a man, the Wright brothers were inspired tinkerers, not original thinkers; they did not concoct the theories on which their contraption was based. That job had largely been done by a British baronet who published a lengthy paper on aerodynamics in 1809, nearly a century before Orville Wright made his historic 120-ft. hop. In a new book, Sir George Cayley (Max Parrish, London; 425.), Aeronautics Historian J. Laurence Pritchard, former secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society, has put together an astonishing catalog of the accomplishments of that prolific genius.

The leisurely world of Cayley's youth knew little about the mechanics of aviation, but the Industrial Revolution was transforming England; bold ideas were sprouting in a climate of change. In 1792 Cayley was already experimenting with a model helicopter. He came down to earth for a while in 1804 and designed artillery shells for the British navy to shoot at Napoleon. But his journal shows that he was also searching for a light, powerful engine to drive some sort of airplane. In 1809 he published an extraordinary scientific treatise, "On Aerial Navigation," that outlines most of the principles of aeronautics.

Wings & Rudders. Cayley knew fairly well why wings work. To get proper stability, he explained, they should be set at a slight angle, the "dihedral" of a modern airplane. To keep them headed properly into the wind, he said, they needed vertical and horizontal "rudders"--a reasonable description of a modern plane's tail assembly.

"All these principles," wrote Cayley, "upon which the support, steadiness, elevation, depression and steerage of vessels for aerial navigation depend, have been abundantly verified by experiments upon a large and small scale. I made a machine having a surface of 300 sq. ft. ... and it would sail downwards in any direction according to the set of the rudder . . . When any person ran forward in it with his full speed, taking advantage of a gentle breeze in front, it would bear upward so strongly as scarcely to allow him to touch the ground, and would frequently lift him up and convey him several yards together."

More Power. Cayley was convinced that if he could find the proper engine, he could make his machine fly. "The best mode of producing the propelling power," he wrote, "is the only thing that remains yet untried towards the completion of the invention ... I feel perfectly confident that this noble art will soon be brought home to man's general convenience, and that we shall be able to transport ourselves and families and their goods and chattels more securely by air than by water, and with a velocity of from 20 to 100 miles per hour. To produce this effect it is only necessary to have a first mover which will generate more power to a given time in proportion to its weight than the animal system of muscles."

When Cayley wrote those prophetic words, the only "first movers" available were monstrously heavy steam engines. He saw little chance of making them light enough for flight, and he tried unsuccessfully to build a light, powerful engine that worked by expanding air. He also invented the tension-spoke wheel, the principle of which is still used in bicycles, a surprisingly modern-looking caterpillar tread for large land vehicles, an artificial hand, and an automatic railroad brake. But although he lived to be 83, he never crowned his career by building an airplane that actually flew.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.