Wing Flappers

Rod_Filan · 18 April 2004, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AAC Cadet Leader@Apr 18 2004, 04:21 PM
[b] ??? More info please!!! Spell it out and underline it for me.

Early Airships ~ Jean-Pierre Lauwers Collection http://204.83.160.230/archive/b/archive4.htm

AAC Cadet Leader · 18 April 2004, 02:13 PM

MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS, Rod!!! That's like a trip to Disneyland. Gonna take me a week to see it all! FABULOUS!!! I see your autograph at the bottom. Be very proud!

Rod_Filan · 18 April 2004, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AAC Cadet Leader@Apr 18 2004, 04:33 PM
[b] ...and Rube Goldbergesque! BTW, did Rube Goldberg ever design any flying machines?

Not that I know of but he may have used an ornithopter as part of another invention !

You're correct in your comparison to a Rube Goldberg machine. Maximum effort to attain minimal results is certainly the key to the De la Hault Ornithopter.

I get a kick out of the postcard's caption. "...tests showed the possiblity of obtaining the best results..."

Translation: It didn't work and never will !

I wonder... considering these test were done indoors, that they didn't have the beast chained to the floor so that it didn't get away and cause havoc !

VBR
Rod

AAC Cadet Leader · 18 April 2004, 02:31 PM

Rod_Filan Posted on Apr 18 2004, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Maximum effort to attain minimal results

I like that.

Quote:

I wonder... considering these test were done indoors, that they didn't have the beast chained to the floor so that it didn't get away and cause havoc !

Rod_Filan · 18 April 2004, 09:43 PM

Jempie,

On 22 Mar you posted 3 ornithopter photos under WWI aircraft forum. Included was what you identified as 1910(?) Adhemar de la Hault ornithopter.

"A. de la Hault is the one second from right!
And not wondering !
The man into white skirt total left is nonelse than Henri Villard!
Question is now, who was the man behind the conception of this flapwing plane ...de la Hault or Villard?"

I read more on Villard at http://www.earlyaviators.com/evillard.htm where you have written a short biography. You state that before Ornis 2 in 1914, Villard "had been busy building some other helicopters in France, but they were failures". Evidently it appears in 1910 sometime before going to France he engineered what De la Hault had conceived, given De la Hault's 1908 experiment.

But somehow the large monoplane wings on this ornithopter are reminicent of the wings on Ornis 2. shown here ==> http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/villard-r.html . Could it be the machine in this picture looks more like a Villard helicopter sans rotor than a De la Hault ornithopter? However for now, I accept this to be De la Hault №2

VBR
Rod

jempie · 19 April 2004, 05:10 AM

Hi!

The above photo is indeed Adhemar de la Hault's "flapwing n°2"!
I should need to have acces to "Conquête de l'Air" from 1904 until 1914 to learn eventually ore on these constructions from de la Hault and Villard!
The latest "Contact" , memberships magazine from BAHA contains an article on Villard's exploits. His first "Helicopter" seems to have been a sort of parasol structure propeller....That was in France and it seems his helicopter was also to see at Brussels Januari 1902.
King Albert I , interested into his efforts offered him at Brussels space an support to do on rersearch. Meanwhile Villard was representant for the firm AVIA at Brussels and was technical adviser to the redaction of Conquête de l'Air as well! Means Villard and Adhemar de la Hault were very close! In more I know that Villard gave ocne an exposure, on request of university students, on "Birdsflight and Flapwing constructions"!
So if there was influence by Villard on the A. de la Hault constructions, I don't know, but it's somewhere nearly impossible he wasn't involved!
In more , the photos on Villard , also on that Russian helicopter website, well these are photos I forwarded and gave free for use!
The one is part of my own collection!
I got via BAHA a lot of photos,which went lost due to PC problems, but the number of changes in a short time brought on on his ORNIS projects, is so high that I even don't know myself anymore when we have to deal with Ornis I and II !

Fact is that on the "Flapwing n°2" photo I recognised indeed the person of "Villard" there totally left! So his presence on this photo doesn't surprise me!

I add here his "Ornis III" early August 1914, just before outbreak of WWI!
Villard as good French patriot joined his country to fight against the Germans as artillery officer and was KIA at Cahors 29th September 1916!

Told is that his helicopter "Ornis II" was demonstrated before the War Office of the UK on 28th June 1913 at Berchem-St-Aghate Inside the Hyppodrome! (That's that photo with him in cockpit! Lifted indeed with pilot on that moment from the ground but was another person and had even to left his coat off to realise it&#33

Than it went further at Ostend with new lighter structure finally, demonstration before King Albert on the beach of Royal Villa!

That's the photo added here now! Primlitive, but looks alike the modern helicopter with lift propeller and compensating (against spinning) tail rotor! Notice this is 1914!
Go once in search what year a similar helicopter was re-invented again!

Villard wa

jempie · 19 April 2004, 05:21 AM

Sorry , thick fingers, message was sent to early!
I continue here!

Villard was far ahead in time with his invention! Pity WWI came between!

Most constrcutions searched to solve the spinning problems by using two to four propellers! Also those constructed before WWI!

But this is helicopter history and not flapwing history!

On the Russian helicopter website I submitted indeed a few pre WWI photos...(Credited by Joël, but I use my sons e-mail address seen the PC is into his house placed&#33

Pity a number I forwarded weren't submitted!

I have for more a quite good stuffed documentation on Oechmichen (but's ythe 1930's years) and in general a quite good stuffed library on helicopter
history too! So Sikorsky and Cierva (Flying Pipe W.9, the prototype & ancester for the modern Mac Donnel todays helicopter) are present as well!

Jempie (and for those who doesn't know it's indeed Jean-Pierre Lauwers.)

AAC Cadet Leader · 19 April 2004, 06:48 AM

Jean-Pierre,
Merci beaucoups for continuing! You too, Rod! Great discussion, though I don't comprehend all of it, it is fun reading.

I'm confused by the placement of the Jenny-esque propeller at what appears to be the wingtip of the flying machine pictured above the helicopter picture. Please explain.

jempie · 19 April 2004, 08:28 AM

Hi
Jenney-esque propellor, is that that tail rotor you mean?

What you see at right under the tail rotor support tube is the "digue" of the Ostend beach! With into the middle a stair going upwards to it!
But just behind the tail rotor is a vertical plan as tail rudder!(Right above corner of photo the rest you see under the horizontal tail tube support is the "digue"! No wings or such at all! The helicopter had none&#33

The propellor was in fac a big normal propellor, may not be compared yet with the rotor-blades of a modern helicopter!
Sofar his machine wasn't developed yet!

In fact the big problem of early helicopters was that they didn't have sufficient lightweight motors of sufficient motorforce!

Reason why Oechmichen at the time used a gasballoon (known as "Hélicostat" to develop his helicopter! The gasballoon was in fact eliminating the deadweigth of his machine! This type ("Helicostat") is akind of airship type the "lighter-than-air/heavier-than-air" (LTA-HTA types) type which is often forgotten into the classifications...aslo indicated as "mixted types.Mainly you find mentioned only the

1,2,3)

1)non-rigids (souple) = today's blimps, Parseval f.e
2)semi-rigids (Lebaudy, Gross f.e)
3)rigids (as Zeppelins f.e.)

Forgotten is often:

4)mixted types or LTA/HTA types these were in rest or mounted, in general heavier than air, and used by times a wing dispositive or other systems as a horizontal placed lift propellor. In many cases such liftpropellor was also used to replace an altitude rudder dispositive!

The genreal problem pre-WWI was that all motorforce went into liftforce of the construction!
The motor used was following lectures on the Villard was a Anzani 80 HP (some todays authors even doubt a bit about if it was an Anzani or Gnome&#33

This motor was donated to Villard by King Albert I , 1913.
Was a 7 (=Gnome) or 10 cilinder Anzani. Anzani had indeed a 10 cilinder one!

But again, at this moment some people try to retrace a bit Villards history!
Which is not easy!

VBR

Jempie

P.S Added here what I accept was the original "Ornis 1" into exhibition at Brussels Januari 1913 Transport Exhibition...into our books wrongly annotated as to be the Villard one from 1902! The motor is this Anzani who was donated by King Albert I! How they can make such mistakes is incomprehensible! Has two (fixed) wings!

Rod_Filan · 19 April 2004, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AAC Cadet Leader@Apr 19 2004, 12:48 PM
[b] I'm confused by the placement of the Jenny-esque propeller at what appears to be the wingtip of the flying machine pictured above the helicopter picture. Please explain.

I think Jempie mis-read the "above the helicopter" as "the helicopter above". But thats ok... he probably answered a question I didnt even think of asking yet !

What you see on De la Hault no.2 Ms. Cadet, is the wing seen chordwise. If you look at the other wing at the same time and place them in symetrical positions, you'll see it. I thought right off the bat.. 'what's that huge propeller doing on the side of this machine!?" ...took a few seconds for it to all make sense.

VBR
Rod