Scientists and Engineers Who Thought Heavier Than Air Flying Machines Were Impossible

[Rodney]

In this thread, Robin argues that "every scientist and intelligent person for thousands of years had known that heavier than air flight was possible since it was an observable, inescapable fact." However, according to -- http://technology.newscientist.com/...y-science.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt15_p --

"The number of scientists and engineers who confidently stated that heavier-than-air flight was impossible in the run-up to the Wright brothers' flight is too large to count. Lord Kelvin is probably the best-known. In 1895 he stated that 'heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible', only to be proved definitively wrong just eight years later."

Further, as late as January 1905 -- more than a year after the Wright Brothers' historic first flight -- Scientific American magazine expressed skepticism about whether they had flown. An article titled "The Wright Aeroplane and its Fabled Performance" states: "If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face--even if he has to scale a fifteen-story sky-scraper to do so-- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?" See http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/WrightSiAm1.html

So, prior to the Wright Brothers flights being confirmed as fact, how many well-known scientists and engineers questioned whether heavier than air flying machines were possible?

 

[TjW]

Wilbur Wright, 1901: "Man will not fly for a thousand years!"


Of course, he wasn't a household name, then. Does it still count?

 

[H3LL]

We're lucky that impossible heavier than air flight is not part of religious dogma or we would still be told to believe that heavier than air flight is not possible.

.

 

[bokonon]

Since birds are heavier than air, I can't imagine how anyone observant could have concluded that such machines are impossible. Maybe they thought angelic assistance or a pinch of pixie dust was necessary?

 

[Jimbo07]

Since birds are heavier than air, I can't imagine how anyone observant could have concluded that such machines are impossible. Maybe they thought angelic assistance or a pinch of pixie dust was necessary?

I wonder if any engineers were ever misquoted. That is, did they throw down a wrench one night and yell in disgust, "*******, this ******* thing'll never work in a thousand years!" , when what they really meant was, "I can get this thing working tomorrow, if only I can figure out this problem. I need a drink."?

 

[mhaze]

In this thread, Robin argues that "every scientist and intelligent person for thousands of years had known that heavier than air flight was possible since it was an observable, inescapable fact." However, according to -- http://technology.newscientist.com/...y-science.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt15_p --

"The number of scientists and engineers who confidently stated that heavier-than-air flight was impossible in the run-up to the Wright brothers' flight is too large to count. Lord Kelvin is probably the best-known. In 1895 he stated that 'heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible', only to be proved definitively wrong just eight years later."

Further, as late as January 1905 -- more than a year after the Wright Brothers' historic first flight -- Scientific American magazine expressed skepticism about whether they had flown. An article titled "The Wright Aeroplane and its Fabled Performance" states: "If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face--even if he has to scale a fifteen-story sky-scraper to do so-- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?" See http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/WrightSiAm1.html

So, prior to the Wright Brothers flights being confirmed as fact, how many well-known scientists and engineers questioned whether heavier than air flying machines were possible?

I think there is possibly an error with your question. First note that manned balloon flights had been going on for several centuries, and at least a century of parachute jumps from them. Second, note that everybody knew about rockets, birds and bugs flying. Manned gliders had been around for what, two or three decades.

What they were skeptical about was a propulsion system that would enable manned heavier than air flight using machines with wings. So their skepticism may have been rightfully based on extrapolating from the capability of the steam engine to power such aircraft.

Problems with geometric scaling were well understood, as an example a boat twice the size weighed eight times as much and needed way more than twice as much sail. Etc. They probably thought that scaling from small known flying things like birds was impossible, and on good reason.

The Wright brothers invention was predicated on a new gasoline powerplant and then and only then, could their engineering skills produce success.

"We are always propulsion limited".

 

[H3LL]

I always thought it was in reference to powered heavier than air flight.

Engines were mostly large, heavy and low powered and it was reasonable to assume that it would be impossible if a little short-sighted.

I've never bothered to check and that hasn't changed.

.

ETA: mhaze obviously has checked and posts quicker than I.

 

[richardm]

Kelvin's quote is quite an interesting case. He made it in 1895, four years after Otto Lilienthal had started making regular heavier-than-air flights in his glider. I haven't seen the quote in context, but I wonder if he meant "not practical" rather "not possible".

Interestingly enough one of Kelvin's own students was killed in a glider accident (i.e. a heavier-than-air machine) in 1898. He was planning to fit a Daimler engine to it and could have pipped the Wright Brothers to the first powered flight by a good few years had he successfully done so. He was inspired to work with gliders by Lilienthal, who had also been killed in a glider crash a couple of years beforehand. None of this would have helped to persuade Kelvin that he was far wrong, I suspect.

And if he was wrong, so what? Nobody's right all the time and besides, looking at the state-of-the-art in motors in 1895 wouldn't have been very encouraging.

 

[richardm]

The Wright brothers invention was predicated on a new gasoline powerplant and then and only then, could their engineering skills produce success.

Some contemporaries whose name escapes me were doing some interesting work on an aircraft powered with a steam engine.

It didn't work, but it was interesting!

 

[Rodney]

Since birds are heavier than air, I can't imagine how anyone observant could have concluded that such machines are impossible.

Robin made this same point on the other thread, but as the newscientist link that I cited notes:

"The problem was set out in 1716 by the scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg in an article describing a design for a flying machine. Swedenborg wrote: 'It seems easier to talk of such a machine than to put it into actuality, for it requires greater force and less weight than exists in a human body.'

"Swedenborg's design, like so many, was based on a flapping-wing mechanism. Two things had to happen before heavier-than-air flight became possible. First, flapping wings had to be ditched and replaced by a gliding mechanism. And secondly, engineers had to be able to call on a better power supply – the internal combustion engine. Ironically, Nicolaus Otto had already patented this in 1877."

 

[richardm]

And secondly, engineers had to be able to call on a better power supply – the internal combustion engine. Ironically, Nicolaus Otto had already patented this in 1877."

Why is this ironic?

 

[H'ethetheth]

I wonder if any of the scientists would have agreed that it is impossible in principle. As pointed out, gliders had been around for some time. I assume that many of the scientists would have understood it was just a question of an engine powerful enough to produce the 'headwind' to lift itself and an aircraft off the ground.

 

[sol invictus]

"The number of scientists and engineers who confidently stated that heavier-than-air flight was impossible in the run-up to the Wright brothers' flight is too large to count. Lord Kelvin is probably the best-known. In 1895 he stated that 'heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible', only to be proved definitively wrong just eight years later."

Lord Kelvin was a smart guy, so this quote is certainly taken out of context. At the time he said it there were already man-made gliders, and the existence of flying animals makes it obvious that heavier-than-air flight is possible.

I would guess he was referring to the possibility of steam-powered flight (and if so he was correct). He probably did an estimate of how heavy the engine, fuel, and water would need to be and concluded it wasn't possible. To be sure, we would need to know what came before and after that that phrase, but I'd actually be willing to bet on it.

 

[H'ethetheth]

Robin made this same point on the other thread, but as the newscientist link that I cited notes:

"The problem was set out in 1716 by the scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg in an article describing a design for a flying machine. Swedenborg wrote: 'It seems easier to talk of such a machine than to put it into actuality, for it requires greater force and less weight than exists in a human body.'

"Swedenborg's design, like so many, was based on a flapping-wing mechanism. Two things had to happen before heavier-than-air flight became possible. First, flapping wings had to be ditched and replaced by a gliding mechanism. And secondly, engineers had to be able to call on a better power supply – the internal combustion engine. Ironically, Nicolaus Otto had already patented this in 1877."

Hm, I think this quote by swedenborg is exactly on the money. He's basically saying he needs an engine with a better power to weight ratio than a human using his pecs to fly. I'm not sure what early 'otto motors' did in that respect, but I gather they might not have been that great.

 

[mhaze]

Hm, I think this quote by swedenborg is exactly on the money. He's basically saying he needs an engine with a better power to weight ratio than a human using his pecs to fly. I'm not sure what early 'otto motors' did in that respect, but I gather they might not have been that great.

Well, at the era in question, the dynamics of gliding were pretty well understood. Propulsion by flapping wings was not well understood, and isn't too well today either. In the transfer of momentum to an air mass by flapping it's easy to observe that the speed of the flapping wing goes down as one moves from insect to large bird. Drawing a chart of that curve, and/or looking at the speed vs the flying (bug/bird) weight, the conclusion that men were not going to fly by flapping would have been logical and inescapable.

Flapping has inverse characteristics to the required propulsion system. As the object doubles in size, it likely increases in weight by the cube factor, but the flapping surface is 2 dimensional geometry, and that surface is seen in nature to go down in speed of operation, when to maintain the scale relationships the speed should go up. Some other mechanism is required for propulsion. Propellers do this by movement limited to speed of sound at the blade tips, or in water by the cavitation issues.

The two innovations required were

• the gasoline engine
• the adaptation of ship propeller to air propeller

Other issues, which were plaguing the early aviators, were control and stability, but those were not central problems. Unlike today, these people were not risk averse, did not have a TV telling them everything they needed to worry about, etc....

 

[Rodney]

Why is this ironic?

I think the article is alluding to the fact that many prominent late-19th Century scientists and engineers were clinging to their old heavier-than-air flight paradigm of steam power and flapping wings.

 

[Jimbo07]

Unlike today, these people were not risk averse, did not have a TV telling them everything they needed to worry about, etc....

Oh! Ain't that the truth? Where would private spaceflight be if it didn't matter that somebody died pursuing a dream?

(to be clear, by "didn't matter," I specifically mean that risk doesn't become an excuse NOT to pursue a dream under any circumstances. Of course, death always matters to someone)

 

[Mojo]

In this thread, Robin argues that "every scientist and intelligent person for thousands of years had known that heavier than air flight was possible since it was an observable, inescapable fact." However, according to -- http://technology.newscientist.com/...y-science.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt15_p --

"The number of scientists and engineers who confidently stated that heavier-than-air flight was impossible in the run-up to the Wright brothers' flight is too large to count. Lord Kelvin is probably the best-known. In 1895 he stated that 'heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible', only to be proved definitively wrong just eight years later."

Further, as late as January 1905 -- more than a year after the Wright Brothers' historic first flight -- Scientific American magazine expressed skepticism about whether they had flown. An article titled "The Wright Aeroplane and its Fabled Performance" states: "If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face--even if he has to scale a fifteen-story sky-scraper to do so-- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?" See http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/WrightSiAm1.html

So, prior to the Wright Brothers flights being confirmed as fact, how many well-known scientists and engineers questioned whether heavier than air flying machines were possible?

Haven't we been here before?

 

[fuelair]

A long (for me) internet search finds NO source that quotes any of Kelvin's lines except the "Heavier-than-air...impossible" partr. Would love to see the whole statement!!

 

[Rodney]

Haven't we been here before?

Not specifically. Robin claims that "every scientist and intelligent person for thousands of years had known that heavier than air flight was possible since it was an observable, inescapable fact." I am trying to document who believed what with respect to the possibility of heavier-than-air flight.