The case of Gustav Whitehead as the first man to fly a powered plane is hopeless. His propellers had an efficiency of 237%! Impossible!
By applying the well known relation:
Efficiency_propellers = Thrust_propellers * Speed_plane / Power_engine
to the particular parameters of Gustav Whitehead's alleged No. 22 airplane:
- max_Thrust_propellers = 508 pounds
- Speed_plane = 70 miles/hour
- Power_engine = 40 HP
(read the article "The Whitehead Flying Machine" (attached) )
the efficiency of the propellers results as being 237%. Impossible! Case closed!
Demonstration:
508pounds * 70miles/hour / 40HP = 237%
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"American Inventor Magazine, 1 April 1902
The Whitehead Flying Machine
Has the End been Finally Attained, and is the Dirigible Balloon to Go?
Editor, American Inventor
Dear Sir: Replying to your recent letter, I take pleasure in sending you the following description of my flying machine No. 22, the latest that I have constructed:
This machine was built in four months with the aid of 14 skilled mechanics and cost about $1,700 to build. It is run by a 40 horse-power kerosene motor of my own design, especially constructed for strength, power and lightness, weighing but 120 pounds complete. It will run for a week at a time if required, without running hot, stopping, or in any possible manner troubling the operator. No electrical apparatus is required for ignition purposes. Ignition is accomplished by its own heat and compression; it runs about 800 revolutions per minute, has five cylinders and no fly-wheel is used. It requires a space 10 inches wide, 4 feet long and 10 inches high.
The flying machine proper is built like my machine No. 21. of which I send you photographs, only instead of using acetylene gas for driving purposes I use the kerosene motor described above. Machine No. 22 is made mostly of steel and aluminum. There is a body 10 feet long, 3-1/2 feet wide and 3-1/2 feet deep, shaped like a fish, and resting on four automobile wheels, 13 inches in diameter. While standing on the ground the two front wheels are connected to the kerosene motor and the rear wheels are used for steering. They can be easily moved by the aeronaut. The body is well stayed with steel tubing and braced with steel piano wire. It is covered with aluminum sheeting and made so it will float like a boat in the water. On either side are large wings or aeroplanes shaped like the wings of a flying fish or bat. The ribs are of steel tubing in No. 22 instead of bamboo as in No. 21 machine, and are covered with 450 square feet of the best silk obtainable. In front of the wings and across the body is a steel framework to which is connected the propellers for driving the machine through the air. The propellers are 6 feet in diameter and have a projecting blade-surface of 4 square feet each. They are made of wood and are covered with very thin aluminum sheeting. The propellers run about 600 revolutions per minute under full power and turn in opposite directions. When running at full speed they will exert a thrust of 508 pounds. I measured this thrust by attaching the machine to a post by means of a dynamometer and running the engines at full speed. There is a mast and a bowsprit braced something like a ship's rigging to hold all parts in their proper relations to each other. In the stern of the machine there is a 12-foot tail, something similar to a bird's tail, which, like the wings, can be folded up in half a minute and laid against the sides of the body. An automatic apparatus serves to keep the equilibrium in the air.
This is illustrated in the diagrams, in which similar letters refer to similar parts in both the top and side views. H is the body of the machine containing the motor (not shown), and the wheels, II, on which it rests on the ground and supporting the tail, K. F is the bowsprit on which is mounted the lever C, supporting the small aeroplane E. The lever C is connected by the rod G to the pendulum B, which has at its lower end the weight A. It is obvious that the weight A will tilt the aeroplane E if the machine drops her bow. The leverage gained from the end of the bowsprit to the center of the machine is so great that the least change in the position of the aeroplane is instantly effective. By means of the handle D, such changes are under the immediate control of the aeronaut. I have not shown the wings in these diagrams.
In order to start flying, the motor is set in motion, and then connected to the front wheels which drive the machine forward at fearful speed. When ready to go up, a spring is released which stretches the wings and the propellers are started by means of a lever which stops the ground wheels and turns the power into the propellers. It takes about 20 yards run with the extra weight of a man (about 180 pounds) before the machine leaves the ground.
This new machine has been tried twice, on January 17, 1902. It was intended to fly only short distances, but the machine behaved so well that at the first trial it covered nearly two miles over the water of Long Island Sound, and settled in the water without mishap to either machine or operator. It was then towed back to the starting place. On the second trial it started from the same place and sailed with myself on board across Long Island Sound. The machine kept on steadily in crossing the wind at a height of about 200 feet, when it came into my mind to try steering around in a circle. As soon as I turned the rudder and drove one propeller faster than the other the machine turned a bend and flew north with the wind at a frightful speed, but turned steadily around until I saw the starting place in the distance. I continued to turn but when near the land again, I slowed up the propellers and sank gently down on an even keel into the water, she readily floating like a boat. My men then pulled her out of the water, and as the day was at a close and the weather changing for the worse. I decided to take her home until Spring.
The length of flight on the first trial was about two miles, and on the second about seven miles. The last trial was a circling flight, and as I successfully returned to my starting place with a machine hitherto untried and heavier than the air, I consider the trip quite a success. To my knowledge it is the first of its kind. This matter has so far never been published.
I have no photographs taken yet of No. 22, but send you some of No. 21, as these machines are exactly alike, except the details mentioned. No. 21 has made four trips, the longest one and a half miles, on August 14. 1901. The wings of both machines measure 30 feet from tip to tip, and the length of the entire machine is 32 feet. It will run on the ground 50 miles an hour, and in air travel at about 70 miles. I believe that if wanted it would fly 100 miles an hour. The power carried is considerably more than necessary.
Believing with Maxim that the future of the air machine lies in an apparatus made without the gas bag, I have taken up the aeroplane, and will stick to it until I have succeeded completely or expire in the attempt of so doing.
As soon as I get my machine out this Spring I will let you know. To describe the feeling of flying is almost impossible, for. in fact, a man is more frightened than anything else.
Trusting this will interest your readers, I remain, Very truly yours,
Gustave Whitehead
Bridgeport, Conn.
The Editor, hardly able to credit the account above given that a man has actually succeeded in flying: in a machine heavier than air, wrote again to Mr. Whitehead for confirmation. Mr. Whitehead's reply follows.
Editor, American Inventor
Dear Sir: Yours of the 20th received. Yes, it was a full-sized flying machine, and I, myself, flew seven miles and returned to my starting point.
In both the flights described in my previous letter, I flew in the machine myself. This, of course, is new to the world at large, but I do not care much in being advertised except by a good paper like yours. Such accounts may help others along who are working in the same line. As soon as I can I shall try again. This coming spring I will have photographs made of machine No. 22 in the air and let you have pictures taken during its flight. If you can come up and get them yourself, so much the better. I attempted this before, but in the first trial the weather was bad, some little rain and a very cloudy sky, and the snapshots that were taken did not come out right. I cannot take any time exposures of the machine when in flight on account of its high speed.
I enclose a small sketch showing the course the machine made in her longest flight. January 17. 1902.
Trusting this will be satisfactory, I remain, yours truly.
GUSTAVE WHITEHEAD
Bridgeport, Conn.
Newspaper readers will remember several accounts of Mr. Whitehead's performances last summer. Probably most people put them down as fakes, but it seems as though the long-sought answer to the most difficult problem Nature ever put to man is gradually coming in sight. The Editor and the readers of these columns await with interest the promised photographs of the machine in the air. The similarity of this machine to Langley's experimental flying machine is well shown in the accompanying illustration, reprinted from a previous issue. Mr. Langley, it will be remembered, was the first to demonstrate the possibility of mechanical flight. Ed."
Source: Whitehead News Articles
Original article:
"The Whitehead Flying Machine", American Inventor Magazine, 1 April 1902
First page)
http://www.wright-brothers.org/Histo...e-No-22-p1.jpg
Second page)
http://www.wright-brothers.org/Histo...e-No-22-p2.jpg