File:George L O Davidson with flying model c.1901.jpg

English: Identifier: scientific-american-1901-02-02

Title: Scientific American Volume 84 Number 05 (February 1901) Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Subjects: scientific elevated feet tion tube machine american plunger scientific american electrical horse power feet wide mount washington foreign countries shawmut avenue main valve glass bottle pleasant street fastening device Publisher:

View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book

Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image: FLAN VIEW OF FLYING MACHINE. A NEW FLYINGMACHINE. An ingenious flyingmachine has recentlybeen designed by aScotchman, Mr. G. L.O. Davidson, of Inch-tnarlo, Scotland. Mr. Davidson hasbased his machine uponthe principle of theflight of Ihe bird. Inflying, a bird does notpropel itself throughthe air, but glides for-ward by opposing theresistance of its wingsurface to the air. Itwill be recollected thatboth Lilienthal and Pil-cher adopted this the-ory in their respectivemachines, and were em-inently successful in

Text Appearing After Image: idson that the successful flying machine must be heavierthan the air, and that it must not be raised by meansof the balloon, but by a mechanical agency in whichthe vertical raising power should be greater than thedownward pull of gravity. To propel a machine up-ward against gravity, only a small fraction of the op-erators power is available to overcome the attractionof gravity, and the weight of the apparatus to generatesufficient power for this purpose is always more thanit can lift. In his machine the lifting power is greaterthan gravity, so that the apparatus can easily liftitself, the combination of the two forces supplying thenecessary forward motion to the machine. In design, the Davidson machine resembles a hugebird with its wings.fully extended. The body of thebird constitutes the car, in which are placed the steamturbines for generating the necessary power to actu-ate the lifting appliances, placed at the extremitiesof each wing. These lifters, as they are called, re-semble r

Note About Images

Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.