Breguet's pre-1914 ID Challenge #103

[aerohydro]

Scoreboard at the end of ID Challenge #102:

18.60 Rbailey
13.20 Varese2002
10.70 aerohydro
9.20 Aquilius
6.70 richard B
6.30 matte_kudasai
6.00 Cruze
6.00 YavorD
5.50 Airarticles
5.00 Flamingo
**************
(those above this section have to wait 12 hours before answering,
those below may answer immediately)
**************
3.70 Rod_Filan
3.00 joegertler
2.00 berman
2.00 Lodzermensch
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires

Earlier Challenges are to be found here:Breguet's Pre-1914 Aircraft Challenge

The rules of engagement:

1. The thread title must be "Bréguet's Pre-1914 ID Challenge #......".
2. The score board, link and rules must be copied to the beginning of each thread, so that we know where we are. The score board and the correct answer to the challenge must also be placed at end of each thread.
3. The flying object must have been dreamt up before 1914 (no limit backwards in time ....).
4. There are no limits to the flying object for the pre-1914 series. There is no ruling that it must be flown, or completely built.
5. Machines which exist only as 'paper', that is absolutely no material has been cut to construct it, are excluded from this ID Challenge
6. The picture / drawing must show as much of the flying object as possible, but views showing the machine 'incomplete' are possible (with discretion).
7. Challenges which depict a machine already earlier presented are disqualified.
8. If there is any doubt as to the eligibility of a flying object for the challenge details should be PM'd to Breguet BEFORE the object is submitted.
9. Once someone has got 5 correct answers under their belt they belong to the ROYALTY. Once they belong to the ROYALTY they must wait 12hrs after the posting of the new challenge before they can post an answer.
10. To be eligible for correct ID an answer must include at least one characteristic of the aircraft that helped in its identification.
11. The first person to ID the challenge correctly gets to post the next challenge. If this can not be done for any reason Breguet himself will post the next challenge.
12. If a ROYALTY gives the correct answer too early, the challenge is over, he gets no point but has to post the next one. In lieu of the fact that the "novices" have in effect been "cheated" of their "exclusive" time that next post should be a relatively easy one. Anyone repeating the correct answer at the right time gets neither a point nor the right to post the next challenge.
13. The final arbitrator in relation to questions about the rules will be Breguet.

[aerohydro]

Time for a clue:

• This machine was written up about in one of the earlier Tom Crouch books.

Cheers,
Paul

[Varese2002]

Just to brake the ghostly silence. When rereading the Tom Crouch A dream of wings book I rediscovered that Charles Proteus Steinmetz (the 'wizard of Schenectady') built a man-carrying kite and two true gliders, all three of them unsuccesfull.
Well, I think, wrong man, wrong machine and wrong book of Crouch, but at least it breaks the silence. The monoplane glider on the picture does not look very good, no tail visible. Probably not a good flyer.

Kees

[aerohydro]

Hello All

Well, this is an interesting situation ... Kees posts a response, effectively excluding the Steinmetz glider as being the answer to the ID Challenge.

Only problem is that he is wrong to say he is wrong!

The flying machine is indeed one of the gliders built by Charles Proteus Steinmetz and others in 1894. Steinmetz is not well known today but he accomplished a great deal in his life. Details can be found at his Wikipedia entry, where it's also revealed that he had dwarfism, hunchback, and hip dysplasia.

While working for General Electric at Schenectady, New York, Steinmetz had organized a band of fellow flying machine enthusiasts into the "Mohawk Aerial Navigation Company" and over the summer of 1894 they built and tested three different gliders. None were particularly successful. I suspect the photo is of the third machine, which was made of steel tubing, and had a 24 feet wingspan, an 8 ft chord, and a wing camber of 1 in 10. The man seen testing it is A H Armstrong, who had been selected by the company as their "Lord High Victim in Chief"

Here is a catalog entry for the glider photo, note that the date is incorrectly listed as being 1906. More about the Mohawk Aerial Navigation Company can be found in A Dream of Wings by Tom Crouch and On Silent Wings by Don Dwiggins.

So ... depite Kees being 'wrong', does he get a point?

Let's find out!

Cheers,
Paul

[aerohydro]

Answer: The 1894 "Mohawk Aerial Navigation Company" glider.

Scoreboard at the end of ID Challenge #103:

18.60 Rbailey
14.20 Varese2002
10.70 aerohydro
9.20 Aquilius
6.70 richard B
6.30 matte_kudasai
6.00 Cruze
6.00 YavorD
5.50 Airarticles
5.00 Flamingo
**************
(those above this section have to wait 12 hours before answering,
those below may answer immediately)
**************
3.70 Rod_Filan
3.00 joegertler
2.00 berman
2.00 Lodzermensch
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires

[Rod_Filan]

Paul,

[...] Charles Proteus Steinmetz (the 'wizard of Schenectady') built a man-carrying kite and two true gliders, all three of them unsuccesfull.

Kees gave the solution before offhandedly expressing self doubt in the subsequent remark opining on the feasibility of the challenge glider's success based on its construction. Thus technically he is the first to give the correct answer imo.

Interesting pickle you put yourself into Kees.
-
Cheers
Rod

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Rod_Filan

Paul,

Interesting pickle you put yourself into Kees.
-
Cheers
Rod

I could not confirm on the basis of the book by Crouch (A dream of wings) that the machine on the picture was one of the gliders / kites produced by Steinmetz. So this led me to the posting and making it quite clear that this was not an identification on hard facts. After all we are not 100% sure that the machine on the picture is the third machine of Steinmetz either Will rest it at that as this is probably the best that can be done.

Obviously I will have to host another one ....

Kees