1.

What is the early developments of ornithopter

 In 1485, Leonardo da Vinci began to study the flight of birds.
 He sketched a device in which the aviator lies down on a plank
and works two large, membranous wings using hand levers, foot
pedals, and a system of pulleys.
 In 1841, an ironsmith kalfa (journeyman), attempted flying with a
device described as an ornithopter ("flapping wings like those of a
bird").
 climbed to the rooftop of the Dumrukhana (import tax head
office) and took off, landing in a heap of snow, and surviving.
 The first ornithopters capable of flight were constructed in
France. Jobert in 1871 used a rubber band to power a small model
bird.
 Alphonse Pénaud, Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, and Victor Tatin,
also made rubber-powered ornithopters during the 1870s.
 Tatin's ornithopter was perhaps the first to use active torsion of
the wings, and apparently it served as the basis for a commercial
toy offered by Pichancourt c. 1889. Gustave Trouvé was the first
to use internal combustion, and his 1890 model flew a distance of
80 meters in a demonstration for the French Academy of
Sciences. The wings were flapped by gunpowder charges
activating a Bourdon tube.
 From 1884 on, Lawrence Hargrave built scores of ornithopters
powered by rubber bands, springs, steam, or compressed air.[5]
He introduced the use of small flapping wings providing the thrust
for a larger fixed wing; this innovation eliminated the need for
gear reduction, thereby simplifying the construction.
 E.P. Frost's 1902 ornithopter ,E.P. Frost made ornithopters
starting in the 1870s
 first models were powered by steam engines, then in the 1900s,
an internal-combustion craft large enough for a person was built,
though it did not fly.
 In the 1930s, Alexander Lippisch and the National Socialist Flyers
Corps of Nazi Germany constructed and successfully flew a series
of internal combustion-powered ornithopters, using Hargrave's
concept of small flapping wings, but with aerodynamic
improvements resulting from the methodical study.
2. How did balloon flights come into existence
• Credit for the invention of ballooning goes to a pair of 18th -century
brothers, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier of Annonay, a
small town just south of Lyon, France.
• The Italian-born English scientist Tiberius Cavallo had recently
demonstrated that Archimedes’ principle is applicable to airborne
objects by successfully floating hydrogen-filled soap bubbles.
• When he attempted to duplicate this with animal bladders, though,
they proved too heavy to ascend.
• Fortunately, the provincial Montgolfiers were not constrained by
laboratory techniques and created their hot-air balloon on a cruder and
much larger scale.
• Because the area (and therefore the weight) of a balloon goes up by
the square of its diameter and the volume (and therefore the lift)
increases by the cube of its diameter, they succeeded handily.
• On June 4, 1783, they made a public demonstration in Annonay with a
10.5-metre (35-foot) diameter unmanned cloth-and-paper balloon,
using the heat from a straw fire.

3) Contributions of George Cayley towards

aircrafts
 he is recognised by many as “The Father of Aeronautics”.
 As early as 1799, he had grasped the basic issue of heavier than air flight,
that lift should balance weight and thrust must overcome drag, which
should be minimised.
 He identified four forces on the aircraft: lift, weight, thrust and drag.
 Recent research, from 2007, suggests that sketches from his schoolboy
days might indicate he was already aware of the principles of a lift-
generating plane by 1792.
 His conclusions were based on observations and calculations of the
forces required to keep those true flying machines, birds, aloft.
 From these investigations, he was able to set out a design for an
aeroplane that had all the elements that are recognisable in modern
planes, including fixed wings, and lift, propulsion and control systems
4) contents of Sir George Cayley in the 1852 paper
published
 One of Cayley's most important papers was published in Mechanics '
Magazine on September 25, 1 &52.
 By this time he was 79 years old!
 The article was titled "Sir George Cayley's Governable Parachutes."
 It gave a full description of a large human-carrying glider that
incorporated almost all the features of the modern airplane.
 This design is shown in paper, which is a facsimile of the illustration.
 This airplane had a main wing at an angle of incidence for lift, with a
dihedral for lateral stability
 an adjustable cruciform tail for longitudinal and directional stability
 a pilot-operated elevator and rudder
 a fuselage in the form of a car, with a pilot's seat and three-wheel
undercarriage
 and a tubular beam
 And box beam construction.
 These combined features were not to be seen again untilthe Wright
brothers' designs at the beginning of the 20th century

5) the developments in the interregnum between 1853

and 1891
 During this period, the first powered airplanes actually hopped off the
ground, but only for hops.
 In 1857-1858 the French naval officer and engineer Felix Du Temple flew
the first successful powered model airplane in history
 it was a monoplane with swept-forward wings and was powered by
clockwork!
 Then, in 1874, Du Temple achieved the world's first powered takeoff by
a piloted, full-size airplane.
 Again the airplane had swept-forward wings, but this time it was
powered by some type of hot-air engine (the precise type is unknown).
  The machine, piloted by a young sailor, was launched down an inclined
plane at Brest, France;
 it left the ground for a moment but did not come close to anything
resembling sustained flight.
 In the same vein, the second powered airplane with a pilot left the
ground near St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 1884. Designed by Alexander
F. Mozhais.ki, this machine was a steam-powered monoplane
 Mozhais.ki's design was a direct descendant of Henson's aerial steam
carriage;
 it was even powered by an English steam engine. With I. N. Golubev as
pilot, this airplane was launched down a ski ramp and flew for a few
seconds.
 with Du Temple's airplane, no sustained flight was achieved.
 At various times the Russians have credited Mozhais.ki with the first
powered flight in history, but of course it did not satisfy the necessary
criteria to be called such.
 Du Temple and Mozhais.ki achieved the first and second assisted
powered takeoffs, respectively, in history, but neither experienced
sustained flight

4)the contribution of otto Lilienthal- the glider

man towards aeronautics

 Otto and his brother Gustav, Together, they dreamed of

flying. They were also inspired by an animal fable.
 Their early results were far from successful. They planned
to fly by jumping from a hill and flapping their arms like
birds.
 they didn’t want to be seen by their school friends, so they
conducted their experiments in the still of the night.
 Their second attempt was based on a similar concept.
This time, they added a great many feathers to the wings.
 Having learned that it’s not a good idea to jump from a
height with an unproven flying machine, they carried out
their early experiments in the attic of their family home.
 Once again, the experiments were a failure. But they
didn’t give up.
 Over the next few years, they built a couple of models.
 The first prototype was spring powered, and could fly
across 2 rooms by flapping its wings.
 He was convinced that planes should be powered by a
flapping motion of the wings. He saw the flight
mechanics of birds as the ideal model.
 Nature had provided a simple, effective and economical
design for air propulsion.
 He made better progress in the area of stability.
 He introduced a hinged tailplane which compensated for
the tendency to dive.
 And his biplane designs improved general stability
considerably.
 His craft was steered by shifting the pilot’s body weight
to change the attitude of the wings.

5)the contribution of Percy Pilcher

towards aeronautics
 Percy Sinclair Pilcher was born in 1866 in Scotland
 Test flights were carried out in Kelvingrove, Glasgow. Then Pilcher
made several flights at Cardross ,becoming the first person in the UK
to show that flights could be made repeatedly and successfully in a
heavier than air flying machine.
 Pilcher’s work brought him into contact with the German expert in
gliders, Otto Lilienthal, whom he met in the same year.
 Their exchanges inspired Pilcher to develop some new glider
designs, The Beetle and The Gull, which were also built in 1895,
 Pilcher used Maxim’s hangar at Upper Austin Lodge near Eynsford in
Kent as the base for a number of his own experimental flights.
 Using a line and tackle system operated by three boys to launch his
gliders into the air from a local hill, he achieved gliding distances of
up to 200 metres.
 In 1897 a world record breaking distance of 250 metres was
achieved by Pilcher in his Hawk glider in the grounds of Stanford
Hall, Leicestershire.
 Pilcher was continuingly looking at new ways to improve his
designs, with a view now to developing powered flight.
 Pilcher managed to complete his tri-plane and was intending to
demonstrate it in September 1899 at Stanford Hall in front of a
crowd of onlookers who would probably have included potential
sponsors.
 Unfortunately, the plane was not ready due to issues with the engine.
 In the few short years he lived to try out his ideas, Pilcher had
achieved a great deal.
 A replica of Pilcher’s plane managed to carry out a flight of 1 minute
and 25 seconds in calm conditions, longer than the Wrights’ 59
seconds at Kitty Hawk in 1903.