Aeronautics
559 CE to Now
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Showing 10 events out of 46 total
Yuan Huangtou of Ye, the son of the deposed Yuan Lang, the briefly reigning Emperor of Northern Wei, has been permitted to inherit his father’s title of Prince of Anding.
Northern Wei's branch successor state Eastern Wei having ended in 550 and been replaced by Northern Qi, its first emperor, Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi, carries out a major slaughter of Northern Wei's imperial Yuan clan in 559.
Several prisoners of Emperor Wenxuan, including Yuan Huangtou, are forced to launch themselves from a tower attached to a kite, as an experiment.
Yuan Huangtou is the sole survivor, successfully gliding over the city walls.
One Yuan Huangtou is imprisoned and starves to death, but it is not known for sure whether that Yuan Huangtou was Yuan Lang's son.
Roger Bacon, a major proponent of experimental science, has from 1247 to 1257 devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cultivation of those new branches of learning to which he had been introduced at Oxford—languages, optics, and alchemy—and to further studies in astronomy and mathematics.
The first European to describe in detail the process of making gunpowder, he fails to speculate further, though he knoes that, if confined, it will have great power and might be useful in war. (Its use in guns will arise early in the following century.)
Bacon has described spectacles (which also will soon come into use); elucidated the principles of reflection, refraction, and spherical aberration; and proposed flying machines and mechanically propelled ships and carriages.
He has used a camera obscura (which projects an image through a pinhole) to observe eclipses of the Sun.
He becomes a Franciscan friar in 1257; his outspokenness and unorthodox opinions are to involve him in frequent difficulties with the superiors of his order.
Roger Bacon speculates about such things as gunpowder, flying machines, telescopes, and mechanically driven carriages.
Bacon is often considered the first European to describe a mixture containing the essential ingredients of gunpowder.
Based on two passages from Bacon's Opus Majus and Opus Tertium, extensively analyzed by J. R. Partington, several scholars cited by Joseph Needham concluded that Bacon had most likely witnessed at least one demonstration of Chinese firecrackers, possibly obtained with the intermediation of other Franciscans, like his friend William of Rubruck, who had visited the Mongols.
With the death of Pope Clement died in 1268, Bacon had lost his protector.
Suspected of promoting "dangerous novelties," he is apparently imprisoned or placed under house arrest for two years, probably between 1277 and 1279, by order of the minister-general of the Franciscans, as punishment for his excessive credulity in alchemy and for his harsh regard for the other innovators of his time.
Bacon some time after 1278 returns to the Franciscan House at Oxford, where he continues his studies.
French explorers, such as Bougainville and Lapérouse, take part in the voyages of scientific exploration through maritime expeditions around the globe.
The Enlightenment philosophy, in which reason is advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority, undermines the power of and support for the monarchy and helps pave the way for the French Revolution.
Bartolomeu de Gusmão: The Visionary of Early Aeronautics (1709)
Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724) was a Brazilian-born priest, scientist, and inventor who pursued early concepts of flight, presenting an airship prototype to King John V of Portugal in 1709. Though his designs remained theoretical, he is considered a pioneer of aeronautics, earning the nickname “The Flying Priest”.
Early Life and Education
- Born in Bahia, Brazil, Gusmão entered the Society of Jesus as a novice at around fifteen years old, but left the order in 1701.
- He moved to Portugal, where he studied at the University of Coimbra, receiving a Doctorate in Canon Law.
- Although trained as a cleric, his interests focused on philology, mathematics, and mechanics, and he became known for his remarkable memory and linguistic abilities.
- He gained the patronage of the Marquês d'Abrantes, which helped bring him to the Portuguese royal court.
Gusmão’s Airship Proposal (1709)
- In 1709, Gusmão submitted a petition to King John V, seeking royal support for his invention of an airship.
- His design was inspired by the works of Francesco Lana de Terzi, S.J., who had theorized about lighter-than-air flight.
- The airship concept included:
- A large sail stretched over a boat-like structure, similar to a covered transport wagon.
- Bellows that would blow air into the sail when there was no wind.
- Magnetic propulsion using metal-encased magnets in two hollow balls (a speculative and impractical idea).
Public Demonstration Before the Portuguese Court (August 8, 1709)
- A full test flight, scheduled for June 24, 1709, never took place.
- However, on August 8, 1709, Gusmão demonstrated the principles of his invention before the Portuguese court at the Casa da Índia in Lisbon.
- He used combustion to propel a ball to the ceiling, showcasing the potential of hot air as a lifting mechanism.
Recognition and Later Years
✔ Royal Patronage – King John V rewarded Gusmão by:
- Appointing him to a professorship at Coimbra.
- Granting him a position as a canon.
✔ Influence on Future Aeronautics – While his airship design never materialized, Gusmão’s ideas on hot air propulsion foreshadowed the Montgolfier brothers’ first successful balloon flights in 1783.
Conclusion: A Pioneer of Early Flight Concepts
Although Bartolomeu de Gusmão’s airship never flew, his public demonstrations and theoretical designs marked one of the earliest recorded attempts at human flight. His visionary ideas, combined with his scientific curiosity and royal patronage, cemented his place as a key figure in the early history of aeronautics.
The brothers Montgolfier, pioneers of human flight, were born into a family of paper manufacturers in Annonay, in Ardèche, France.
Their parents were Pierre Montgolfier (1700–1793) and his wife, Anne Duret (1701–1760), who had sixteen children.
Pierre established his eldest son, Raymond Montgolfier, later Raymond de Montgolfier (1730–1772), as his successor.
Joseph, the twelfth child, possessed a typical inventor's temperament—a maverick and dreamer, and impractical in terms of business and personal affairs.
Étienne had a much more even and businesslike temperament.
As the fifteenth child, and particularly troublesome to his elder siblings, he had been sent to Paris to train as an architect.
However, after the sudden and unexpected death of Raymond in 1772, he had been recalled to Annonay to run the family business.
In the subsequent ten years, Étienne has applied his talent for technical innovation to the family business; paper making is a high-tech industry in the eighteeenth century.
He has succeeded in incorporating the latest Dutch innovations of the day into the family mills.
His work leads to recognition by the government of France as well as the awarding of a government grant to establish the Montgolfier factory as a model for other French paper makers.
Of the two brothers, it is Joseph who had first contemplated building machines.
Charles Gillispie puts it as early as 1777 when Joseph observed laundry drying over a fire incidentally form pockets that billowed upwards. (Charles Gillispie (1983). The Montgolfier Brothers, and the Invention of Aviation. Princeton University Press)
Joseph makes his first definitive experiments in November 1782 while living in the city of Avignon.
He will report, some years later, that he was watching a fire one evening while contemplating one of the great military issues of the day—an assault on the fortress of Gibraltar, which had proved impregnable from both sea and land.
Joseph had mused on the possibility of an air assault using troops lifted by the same force that was lifting the embers from the fire.
He believed that contained within the smoke was a special gas, which he called Montgolfier Gas, with a special property he called levity.
As a result of these musings, Joseph sets about building a box-like chamber 1×1×1.3 m (3 ft by 3 ft (0.91 m) by 4 ft) out of very thin wood and covering the sides and top with lightweight taffeta cloth.
He crumples and lights some paper under the bottom of the box.
The contraption quickly lifts off its stand and collides with the ceiling.
Joseph then recruits his brother to balloon building by writing the prophetic words, "Get in a supply of taffeta and of cordage, quickly, and you will see one of the most astonishing sights in the world."
The two brothers then set about building a similar device, scaled up by three (so twenty-seven times greater in volume).
The lifting force is so great that they loss control of their craft on its very first test flight on 14 December 1782.
The device floats nearly two kilometers (about one point two miles).
It is destroyed after landing by the "indiscretion" of passersby.
The Montgolfier brothers decide to make a public demonstration of a balloon in order to establish their claim to its invention.
They construct a globe-shaped balloon of sackcloth with three thin layers of paper inside.
The envelope can contain nearly 790 m³ (28,000 cubic feet) of air and weighs 225 kg (500 lb).
It is constructed of four pieces (the dome and three lateral bands) and held together by 1,800 buttons.
A reinforcing fish net of cord covers the outside of the envelope.
On June 4, 1783, they fly this craft as their first public demonstration at Annonay in front of a group of dignitaries from the États particuliers.
Its flight covers two kilometers (one point two miles), lasts ten minutes, and has an estimated altitude of 1,600-2,000 meters (5,200-6,600 feet).
Word of their success quickly reaches Paris.
Étienne goes to the capital to make further demonstrations and to solidify the brothers' claim to the invention of flight.
Joseph, given his unkempt appearance and shyness, remains with the family.
The British scientist Henry Cavendish had discovered hydrogen in 1766 by adding sulfuric acid to iron, tin, or zinc shavings.
The development of gas balloons proceeds almost in parallel with the work of the Montgolfiers.
This work is led by French physicist Jacques Charles and les Frères Robert (Anne-Jean Robert, and Nicolas-Louis Robert).
On August 27, 1783, their hydrogen balloon is launched from the Champ de Mars in Paris.
Six thousand people pay for a seat.
The Robert brothers are skilled engineers with a workshop at the Place des Victoires in Paris, who have worked with Jacques Charles to build the first usable hydrogen balloon in 1783
Charles had conceived the idea that hydrogen would be a suitable lifting agent for balloons because, as a chemist, he has studied the work of his contemporaries Henry Cavendish, Joseph Black and Tiberius Cavallo.
Jacques Charles has designed the hydrogen balloon and the Robert brothers have invented the methodology for constructing the lightweight, airtight gas bag.
They dissolved rubber in a solution of turpentine and varnished the sheets of silk that were stitched together to make the main envelope.
They use alternate strips of red and white silk, but the discoloration of the varnishing/rubberizing process leaves a red and yellow result.
Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launch their balloon from the Champ-de-Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower); Benjamin Franklin is among the crowd of onlookers.
The balloon is comparatively small, a thirty-five cubic-meter sphere of rubberized silk, and only capable of lifting about nine kilograms.
It is filled with hydrogen that had been made by pouring nearly a quarter of a ton of sulfuric acid onto half a ton of scrap iron.
The hydrogen gas is fed into the envelope through lead pipes; but as it is not passed through cold water, great difficulty is experienced in filling the balloon completely (the gas is hot when produced, but as it cools in the balloon, it contracts).
Daily progress bulletins had been issued on the inflation; and the crowd is so great that on the 26th the balloon had been moved secretly by night to the Champ-de-Mars, a distance of four kilometers.
The balloon flies northwards for forty-five minutes, pursued by chasers on horseback, and lands twenty-one kilometers away in the village of Gonesse where the reportedly terrified local peasants attack it with pitchforks or knives and destroy it.
The project has been funded by a subscription organized by Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond.