Breguet's Pre-1914 Challenge #128

[aerohydro]

Oh, look, it's an airship.

Scoreboard at the start of Challenge #128

22.60 Rbailey
18.20 Varese2002
14.80 aerohydro
12.20 Aquilius
8.00 richard B
7.30 matte_kudasai
7.20 Rod_Filan
6.00 Cruze
6.00 Flamingo
6.00 YavorD
5.50 Airarticles
**************
(those above this section must wait 12 hours before answering,
those below - and everyone else - may answer immediately)
**************
3.30 berman
3.00 Lodzermensch
3.00 joegertler
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires
0.20 Willi Von Klugermann

Subjects of previous Challenges can be found at: 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.

[Rbailey]

Prof. Anthony’s wireless airship – a 1912 blimp used to demonstrate radio control. Identifiable by small size, shape and shiny appearance in its picture.

[Rod_Filan]

In New York City, Professor Mark O. Anthony and Leo Stevens gave a demonstration of the Wireless Airship. It was a small powered dirigible used to demonstrate remote control of aircraft by wireless telegraphy. Two-hundred Aeronautic Society and Automobile Club members came to see the demonstration and were also treated to a showing of photographs and short films of airships in action. (But was the Wireless Airship also demonstrated on film? - That isn't quite clear.)

From “An Epitome of the Work of the Aeronautic Society [of New York] from July, 1908, to December, 1909”, describing an Aeronautical Evening (an offshoot of the Automobile Club, apparently) in 1909:

Hudson Maxim, the famous inventor, gave his views on the future of the flying machine in war. The Hon. Col. Butler Ames, M.C., described, and for the first time showed photographs and moving pictures of, his new machine, and his experiments at the Navy Yard, Washington, and on the Potomac River. M. O. Anthony gave a demonstration of his remarkable invention for the control of airships by means of wireless telegraphy. The evening closed with a fine display of moving pictures of machines in flight, the first display of the kind ever made in this country. A unanimous vote was passed urging Congress to appropriate generous sums for the development of aeronautics for the Army.

Lesh brought his glider to the exhibition, and made a number of fine glides, towed by a horse and also by an automobile. It was his purpose in his last flight, in an endeavor to win the Brooklyn Eagle gold medal, to cut the tow-line when he had reached a sufficient height. He did so, but the crowd got in his way, and hampered him in landing. He fell and broke his right ankle.

Unfortunately, the fractures were badly set at the Fordham Hospital, and later it became necessary to place Lesh under the care of a specialist at Hahnemann Hospital. The plucky boy had a bad time for a long while. But he is now well again, and though slightly lames, Dr. Geo. W. Roberts gives every assurance that eventually he will be all right. On his reappearance at a meeting of the Society, Lesh was at once unanimously elected a Complimentary member, and he is now again taking an active part.

My investigation is still ongoing, however, I'm of the opinion that this airship (its gas bag, gondola, and mechanical apparatus) was likely constructed by Leo Stevens and therefore should probably be referred to as the Anthony-Stevens Wireless Airship.

As of yet I haven't determined why there is a contradiction between the years 1909 and 1912 which Ron has also found.
-
Cheers

[Rbailey]

I suspect the discrepency in dates is the result of someone making a typing error. 1912 appears on 2 or 3 sites, but they are all taken from one another and clearly not quoting the original. The 1909 reference quoted by Rod is the only reliable one unless Anthony's demonstration did not involve a real airship and this is a scaled-up development.

I have tracked the original photo to a glass negative in the George Grantham Bain Collection, but there is no date given for it.

[Varese2002]

Interesting is also the text on the BIG wooden crate in the background - 'MADE IN FRANCE'. As it is so near the dirigible it certainly holds pieces which were or had to be used in this machine. As the picture is cropped, there may be even more interesting things to see

Cheers

Kees

[Varese2002]

Another report on the 1909 session.



Source: SCIENCE NOTES. Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 208, 27 April 1909, Page 7

Anthony is not quoted here as a Professor.

Cheers

Kees

[Rbailey]

There is a more complete description of the 1909 model here: http://nobee.jefferson.lib.la.us/Vol...09_02_0182.pdf
It was 22 ft long and had in addition to the vertical propeller had a second horizontal one under the framework for vertical control. I can't see that in the picture.

Also, evidently he made another outdoor demonstration;
http://books.google.com/books?id=Dy8...ony%22&f=false

I think Kees is right about him not being a professor.

[aerohydro]

Well, that didn't take long to solve. Congratulations to Ron for being the first to post the right answer.

Here is the original, full, uncropped, image.

Below is the complete text of the newspaper article, as it appears in the L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orleans for Feb 26, 1909, which Ron had earlier supplied the link for.

The same article also appeared in the Winchester News (Winchester, Kentucky) for Feb 23, 1909 (here), and no doubt many other newspapers as well:

NEW WIRELESS STEP

*************

OPERATOR ON EARTH MOVES AERIAL CRAFT AT WILL

*************

Mark O Anthony, New York Electrical Engineer, Seated at Keyboard, Sends Balloon Through All Sorts of Evolutions

*************

New York - Demonstration of one of the greatest achievements thus far reported in aerial locomotion was given the other day when Mark 0 Anthony a New York electrical engineer sent a small dirigible balloon scudding about through the air by means of transmitted power making it perform all sorts of evolutions all having the air craft at all times under perfect control.

By actual performance he demonstrated for the first time that the long sought for secret Of propelling airships by wireless electicity has been discovered.

Sitting at a small electrical key board such as is used in sending wireless messages the inventor ticked off various combinations of dots and dashes each combination causing the balloon to perform some particular movement.

Sometimes the operator placed his instrument directly under the balloon and again would remove it 200 feet away. Distance had no effect on the control and the response of the mechanism, which was operated by propellers, was prompt and effective.

"With this small apparatus he said I could control the balloon at a distance of 12 or 15 miles and with a more powerful apparatus the control could be extended to almost any distance.

The exhibition was given in Leo Stevens' balloon house in Hoboken, a structure 600 or 700 feet in length and with sufficient head room to allow a satisfactory test of the "wireless dirigible."

The model consists of an ordinary cigar-shaped gas bag 22 feet in length and inflated with hydrogen gas. Beneath that is suspended the common type of framework used in all dirigibles except that all of the mechanism is operated by wireless electricity instead of by a gasoline motor controlled by an operator sitting beside it.

In the ordinary dirigible balloon the two mechanical devices which control it are a propeller which sends it forward and a rudder which governs its course. In Mr Anthony's invention other devices are added. Besides the propeller and a second propeller directly beneath the center of the frame which operates vertically and lifts or lowers the airship at the will of the operator. He also has added a mechanical device which at the call of a few dots and dashes releases a clutch which drops a small weight representing a charge of dynamite to be used in warfare.

During a two hours trial the inventor sat at his keyboard in one end of the building and caused the balloon to move hither and thither and up and down as the spectators dictated.

Mr Anthony, in explaining his invention said: "The dots and dashes have an effect on the mechanism through the medium of a selector and the selector controls the movement of the mechanism at the will of the operator.

"This selector operates the electrically controlled valves of the compressed air engines which give the desired motion forward or backward or cutting off the supply of energy, as the operator desires.

"The engine is so constructed that the amount of air consumed after passing through the reducing valve is small compared with any motor now on the market. By using compressed air motors I do away with gas or other motors now in common use, and get rid of the danger from heat and spark. In the model small batteries are used to operate the electric motors whereas In the larger machine compressed air tanks will be used in place of batteries for motive power. The secret of the apparatus is in the sending and receiving of the Hertzian wave."

Here is a brief account of the airship being tested in the open. This extract is from a 1909 edition of Edison Monthly, though I am not sure exactly which issue:

According to the New York Herald, Mark O Anthony, an electrical engineer, last week succeeded in sending a small dirigible balloon, controlled by wireless, out over the ocean from Sandy Hook [New Jersey], a distance of one mile and a quarter, directing its movements by manipulation of a keyboard on the beach.

The inventor refused to give any particulars of his experiment beyond stating that the balloon unreeled about 7,000 feet of cord, which was attached in order to haul it back in case anything happened to the mechanism.

Cheers,
Paul

[aerohydro]

Answer to the Challenge: the 1909 Anthony Wireless Airship

Scoreboard at the end of Challenge #128

23.60 Rbailey
18.20 Varese2002
14.80 aerohydro
12.20 Aquilius
8.00 richard B
7.30 matte_kudasai
7.20 Rod_Filan
6.00 Cruze
6.00 Flamingo
6.00 YavorD
5.50 Airarticles
**************
(those above this section must wait 12 hours before answering,
those below - and everyone else - may answer immediately)
**************
3.30 berman
3.00 Lodzermensch
3.00 joegertler
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires
0.20 Willi Von Klugermann

The next Challenge belongs to Ron.

[Varese2002]

The man, Mark Anthony pictured in 1909, in the background can be seen dimly his machine.



Cheers

Kees