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1 Phillips, Horatio Frederick
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 2 February 1845 London, Englandd. 15 July 1926 Hampshire, England[br]English aerodynamicist whose cambered two-surface wing sections provided the foundations for aerofoil design.[br]At the age of 19, Phillips developed an interest in flight and constructed models with lightweight engines. He spent a large amount of time and money over many years, carrying out practical research into the science of aerodynamics. In the early 1880s he built a wind tunnel with a working section of 15 in. by 10 in. (38 cm by 25 cm). Air was sucked through the working section by an adaptation of the steam injector used in boilers and invented by Henry Giffard, the airship pioneer. Phillips tested aerofoils based on the cross-section of bird's wings, with a greater curvature on the upper surface than the lower. He measured the lift and drag and showed that the major component of lift came from suction on the upper surface, rather than pressure on the lower. He took out patents for his aerofoil sections in 1884 and 1891. In addition to his wind-tunnel test, Phillips tested his wing sections on a whirling arm, as used earlier by Cayley, Wenham and Lilienthal. After a series of tests using an arm of 15 ft (4.57 m) radius, Phillips built a massive whirling arm driven by a steam engine. His test pieces were mounted on the end of the arm, which had a radius of 50 ft (15.24 m), giving them a linear speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). By 1893 Phillips was ready to put his theories to a more practical test, so he built a large model aircraft driven by a steam engine and tethered to run round a circular track. It had a wing span of 19 ft (5.79 m), but it had fifty wings, one above the other. These wings were only 10 in. (25 cm) wide and mounted in a frame, so it looked rather like a Venetian blind. At 40 mph (64 km/h) it lifted off the track. In 1904 Phillips built a full-size multi-wing aeroplane with twenty wings which just lifted off the ground but did not fly. He built another multi-wing machine in 1907, this time with four Venetian blind' frames in tandem, giving it two hundred wings! Phillips made a short flight of almost 500 ft (152 m) which could be claimed to be the first powered aeroplane flight in England by an Englishman. He retired from flying at the age of 62.[br]Bibliography1900, "Mechanical flight and matters relating thereto", Engineering (reprint).1891–3, "On the sustentation of weight by mechanical flight", Aeronautical Society of Great Britain 23rd Report.Further ReadingJ.Laurence Pritchard, 1957, "The dawn of aerodynamics", Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (March) (good descriptions of Phillips's early work and his wind tunnel).J.E.Hodgson, 1924, The History of Aeronautics in Great Britain, London.F.W.Brearey, 1891–3, "Remarks on experiments made by Horatio Phillips", Aeronautical Society of Great Britain 23rd Report.JDSBiographical history of technology > Phillips, Horatio Frederick
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2 Wenham, Francis Herbert
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1824 London, Englandd. 11 August 1908 Folkestone, England[br]English engineer, inventor and pioneer aerodynamicist who built the first wind tunnel.[br]Wenham trained as a marine engineer and later specialized in screw propellers and high-pressure engines. He had many interests. He took his steamboat to the Nile and assisted the photographer F.Frith to photograph Egyptian tombs by devising a series of mirrors to deflect sunlight into the dark recesses. He experimented with gas engines and produced a hot-air engine. Wenham was a leading, if controversial, figure in the Microscopical Society and a member of the Royal Photographic Society; he developed an enlarger.Wenham was interested in both mechanical and lighter-than-air flight. One of his friends was James Glaisher, a well-known balloonist who made many ascents to gather scientific information. When the (Royal) Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was founded in 1866, the Rules were drawn up by Wenham, Glaisher and the Honorary Secretary, F.W.Brearey. At the first meeting of the Society, on 27 June 1866, "On aerial locomotion and the laws by which heavy bodies impelled through the air are sustained" was read by Wenham. In his paper Wenham described his experiments with a whirling arm (used earlier by Cayley) to measure lift and drag on flat surfaces inclined at various angles of incidence. His studies of birds' wings and, in particular, their wing loading, showed that they derived most of their lift from the front portion, hence a long, thin wing was better than a short, wide one. He published illustrations of his glider designs covering his experiments of c. 1858–9. One of these had five slender wings one above the other, an idea later developed by Horatio Phillips. Wenham had some success with a model, but no real success with his full-size gliders.In 1871, Wenham and John Browning constructed the first wind tunnel designed for aeronautical research. It utilized a fan driven by a steam engine to propel the air and had a working section of 18 in. (116 cm). Wenham continued to play an important role in aeronautical matters for many years, including a lengthy exchange of ideas with Octave Chanute from 1892 onwards.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary Member of the (Royal) Aeronautical Society.BibliographyWenham published many reports and papers. These are listed, together with a reprint of his paper "Aerial locomotion", in the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (August 1958).Further ReadingTwo papers by J.Laurence Pritchard, 1957, "The dawn of aerodynamics" Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (March); 1958, "Francis Herbert Wenham", Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (August) (both papers describe Wenham and his work).J.E.Hodgson, 1924, History of Aeronautics in Great Britain, London.JDSBiographical history of technology > Wenham, Francis Herbert
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3 Green, Charles
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 31 January 1785 London, Englandd. 26 March 1870 London, England[br]English balloonist who introduced the use of coal gas for balloons.[br]Charles Green lived in London at a time when gas mains were being installed to supply coal gas for the recently introduced gas lighting. He was interested in the exploits of balloonists but lacked the finance needed to construct a balloon and fill it with expensive hydrogen. He decided to experiment with coal gas, which was very much cheaper, albeit a little heavier, than hydrogen: a larger balloon would be needed to lift the same weight. Green made his first ascent on 19 July 1821 to celebrate the coronation of King George. His large balloon was prepared in Green Park, London, and filled from the gas main in Piccadilly. He made a spectacular ascent to 11,000 ft (3,350 m), thus proving the suitability of coal gas, which was readily available and cheap. Like many balloonists, Green was also a showman. He made ascents on horseback or with fireworks to attract spectators. He did, however, try out some new ideas, such as cemented fabric joints (instead of stitching) for a huge new balloon, the Royal Vauxhall. On its first flight, in September 1836, this impressive balloon carried Green plus eight passengers. On 7 November 1836 Green and two friends ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, London, to make a long-distance flight. They landed safely in the Duchy of Nassau, Germany, having covered a record 480 miles (772 km) in eighteen hours. To help control the height of the balloon on this flight, Green fitted a long, heavy rope which trailed on the ground. If the balloon started to rise, then more of the "trail rope" was lifted off the ground, resulting in an increase in the weight to be lifted and a reduction in the rate of ascent. This idea had been suggested earlier by Thomas Baldwin in 1785, but Green developed it and in 1840 proposed to use if for a flight across the Atlantic: he later abandoned this plan.Charles Green made over five hundred ascents and died in bed at the age of 85, no small age for a balloonist.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the (Royal) Aeronautical Society, founded in 1866.Bibliography1836, Authentic Narrative of the Great Balloon Voyage and Descent in Germany, London (a pamphlet).Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1966, The Aeronauts, London (provides a full account of Green's achievements).J.E.Hodgson, 1924, the History of Aeronautics in Great Britain, London.T.Monck Mason, 1838, Aeronautica, London.JDS -
4 Braun, Wernher Manfred von
[br]b. 23 March 1912 Wirsitz, Germanyd. 16 June 1977 Alexandria, Virginia, USA[br]German pioneer in rocket development.[br]Von Braun's mother was an amateur astronomer who introduced him to the futuristic books of Jules Verne and H.G.Wells and gave him an astronomical telescope. He was a rather slack and undisciplined schoolboy until he came across Herman Oberth's book By Rocket to Interplanetary Space. He discovered that he required a good deal of mathematics to follow this exhilarating subject and immediately became an enthusiastic student.The Head of the Ballistics and Armaments branch of the German Army, Professor Karl Becker, had asked the engineer Walter Dornberger to develop a solid-fuel rocket system for short-range attack, and one using liquid-fuel rockets to carry bigger loads of explosives beyond the range of any known gun. Von Braun joined the Verein für Raumschiffsfahrt (the German Space Society) as a young man and soon became a leading member. He was asked by Rudolf Nebel, VfR's chief, to persuade the army of the value of rockets as weapons. Von Braun wisely avoided all mention of the possibility of space flight and some financial backing was assured. Dornberger in 1932 built a small test stand for liquid-fuel rockets and von Braun built a small rocket to test it; the success of this trial won over Dornberger to space rocketry.Initially research was carried out at Kummersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, but it was decided that this was not a suitable site. Von Braun recalled holidays as a boy at a resort on the Baltic, Peenemünde, which was ideally suited to rocket testing. Work started there but was not completed until August 1939, when the group of eighty engineers and scientists moved in. A great fillip to rocket research was received when Hitler was shown a film and was persuaded of the efficacy of rockets as weapons of war. A factory was set up in excavated tunnels at Mittelwerk in the Harz mountains. Around 6,000 "vengeance" weapons were built, some 3,000 of which were fired on targets in Britain and 2,000 of which were still in storage at the end of the Second World War.Peenemünde was taken by the Russians on 5 May 1945, but by then von Braun was lodging with many of his colleagues at an inn, Haus Ingeburg, near Oberjoch. They gave themselves up to the Americans, and von Braun presented a "prospectus" to the Americans, pointing out how useful the German rocket team could be. In "Operation Paperclip" some 100 of the team were moved to the United States, together with tons of drawings and a number of rocket missiles. Von Braun worked from 1946 at the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, and in 1950 moved to Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama. In 1953 he produced the Redstone missile, in effect a V2 adapted to carry a nuclear warhead a distance of 320 km (199 miles). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed in 1958 and recruited von Braun and his team. He was responsible for the design of the Redstone launch vehicles which launched the first US satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958, and the Mercury capsules of the US manned spaceflight programme which carried Alan Shepard briefly into space in 1961 and John Glenn into earth orbit in 1962. He was also responsible for the Saturn series of large, staged launch vehicles, which culminated in the Saturn V rocket which launched the Apollo missions taking US astronauts for the first human landing on the moon in 1969. Von Braun announced his resignation from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.[br]Bibliography1981, with F.L.Ordway, History of Rocketry and Space TravelFurther ReadingP.Marsh, 1985, The Space Business, Penguin. J.Trux, 1985, The Space Race, New English Library. T.Osman, 1983, Space History, Michael Joseph.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Braun, Wernher Manfred von
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