Scientists and Engineers Who Thought Heavier Than Air Flying Machines Were Impossible
- Thread starter Rodney
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Looking around some more, it appears that Lord Kelvin actually rode in a steam-powered flying machine created by Hirman Maxim, but was dismissive of it, calling it a "kind of child's perambulator." Which is perhaps understandable, since it couldn't achieve an altitude of more than two feet.
(Source: pages of The Aeroplane: a History of It's Technology brought up by Google Books here
None of my (admittedly rather amateurish) research has turned up any sort of source for a flat statement like "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," and he couldn't have believed it if he rode in Maxim's machine. I assume that his comments expressing disdain for the concept simply got twisted and paraphrased over time.
mhaze
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Steam powered flight isn't impossible, just the concept of a piston steam engine powering a practical manned aircraft.
Evil Knieval's rocket jump across the Grand Canyon was propelled by a steam rocket, in which the pressure vessel holds superheated water at some 400-500 psi. When the water goes out the nozzle, it instantly vaporizes expanding gas for thrust.
Conceivably this could have been used to power some cool toy in 1890.
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dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
I am going to have to reread my copy of Jules Verne's "RObut The Conqueror/Master Of the World" which is the novel where he predicts a heavier then air craft that, if memory serves, is a sort of cross between a helicopter and a airplane.
Jimbo07
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My guess would be that Kelvin rode in Maxim's deliberately non-flying machine,* which he operated on tracks for a while after his crash -- which occurred during actual flight (an outrigger gave way) and must have scared the bejesus out of Hiram, because he never tired it again.
Maxim's approach to building airfoils was flawed, and like other early flyboys he didn't give enough thought to control. But he was a master steam engineer, and he clearly had enough power for flight.
ETA: * Maxim was a successful designer of amusement park rides, including a tethered-plane model. An odd, interesting man from an odd, interesting (and sometimes appalling) family.
Oh, and Rod? How many engineers have ever declared much of anything impossible?
Maxim's approach to building airfoils was flawed, and like other early flyboys he didn't give enough thought to control. But he was a master steam engineer, and he clearly had enough power for flight.
ETA: * Maxim was a successful designer of amusement park rides, including a tethered-plane model. An odd, interesting man from an odd, interesting (and sometimes appalling) family.
Oh, and Rod? How many engineers have ever declared much of anything impossible?
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Jimbo and TjW: Fascinating! More, more!
I can recall a 60s interest in steam power for automobiles. As the author in Jimbo's citation remarks, if fuel keeps costing so damn much, steam may make a comeback yet.
I can recall a 60s interest in steam power for automobiles. As the author in Jimbo's citation remarks, if fuel keeps costing so damn much, steam may make a comeback yet.
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The article states that, three days before the crash -- on May 22, 1979 -- Ray Pinkerton, the assistant manager for airway facilities, "took notes that would later verify Booth's account of the dreams." The article also states that Pinkerton and his assistant, supervisory electronics technician Paul Williams, "called the regional FAA offices in Atlanta that afternoon and reported all the details of the dream to Jack Barker, public-affairs officer."
mhaze
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According to the link I quoted in the opening post: "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." I take it, however, that you believe it was only [ivory tower, academic, egg head, out of touch with reality, etc.
] scientists who thought that?Well, Bo Derek is on the cover of that issue, and -- in the course of my demanding research -- I did sort of glance at a few of her pictures . . .Someone read an article in Playboy? That is hard to believe.
All stories have something which sets them apart from other stories. Otherwise there would be just one story.
After a premonition of an air crash, is there some period of time after which, if there is no crash fitting that description, we can say, "Okay, that was a failure"?
If so, it's apparently longer than three days. Three months? Three years? Three hundred years?
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
It only sets it apart if you can substantiate the implication that other people at other times have not called the FAA with their apprehensions or premonitions. Was this something special, or does the FAA deal with it frequently? I really don't know, but it would not take a terribly large number of such calls followed by no crash to make the call itself pretty unremarkable even when it chances to be followed by a crash.
Deep, very deep.
Depends on the content of the dream. Some dreams are time-specific, while others aren't.
If someone had forecast a plane crash three hundred years ago, that would have been very impressive.
But what is your conclusion regarding the timing of Booth's dreams and the crash of AA Flight 191 -- coincidence?There's a big difference between calling the FAA and saying: "I think a plane is going to crash somewhere" and what the Playboy article says was a specific prediction of the crash of an American Airlines DC-10 or similar plane that was not making the noise it should have before banking and nose-diving into a field.