- This is a real rotary engine, where the pistons and cylinders rotate about the crankshaft, and are attached to the propeller
- The pilot had to keep a constant down angle on the elevator to keep it flying level; was the C.G. right?
It's the gyroscopic procession of the majority of engine's mass spinning, in that crazy rotary (not radial) engine!
Here is the video in question for anyone curious:
https://speedreaders.info/32045-the-vandersarl-bleriot-a-cen...
The brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal were watching the storks take flight in the meadows of Mecklenburg in the 1850s. And it made them think, “We could do that, too, if we only had wings like that”.
Of course, Otto died in a crash of one of his motorless flying machines in 1891, I believe. But the Wright brothers saw the eulogy in the paper… and the rest is history.
(or Leonardo da Vinci, for that matter)
Released 1965
> Set in 1910, the film follows a fictitious air race from London to Paris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Magnificent_Men_in_Their...
Trailer: https://youtu.be/LPlRxXmQ8xM
They also have a working Blériot XI — the world’s oldest flying aircraft:
https://www.shuttleworth.org/discover/collection/aircraft/bl...
If the weather is good they fly these for the public every summer. It is a wonderful show.
The pavement was vast in all directions and educational buildings had been placed on or alongside it, all parking was on existing tarmac.
Anyway, in Mechanical Engineering our senior project was a gyrocopter.
It was pretty much like somebody had a broken one just sitting around doing nothing, a student brought it in like it was "show & tell" and the decision was made to launch. It didn't come in at the beginning of the year.
I did graduate a bit early and never did get to see much of the progress.
Are there any pictures of this project in your possession?
We knew we were privileged in many ways while realistically being experimental test subjects in all other courses ourselves, with hindsight even more so than was obvious at the time.
We gathered around it for a couple weeks and soaked in the awesome challenge, then the curriculum pivoted to studying all about this type of craft because nobody wanted to make a wrong move. Who else had runways to work with? We found out it had been assembled from a kit and might not have had very much flight time if any before getting slightly damaged.
It was accepted as a multi-year project and the only real work done when I was still there was to straighten out the wheels. Experts were going to be arranged so the restoration would be done like the kit was supposed to be and they were looking for an experienced test pilot.
Never did find out if it got off the ground, but I still learned a lot just having it where we could check it out in such detail.
It ain't a perfect comparison, both have problems, but it is far easier to get a license to drive a truck hauling 20+ tons than to get a license to fly a 500 pound plane, and motorcycle licenses is basically a signature and a couple bucks away.
First, people are more likely to crash during takeoffs and landings, not in the middle of a flight. Second, it's also not just about the damage caused to others, and even if you crash in the middle of nowhere quite a few people will be busy dealing with it - in that case, remoteness is not a good thing but actually more costly. They won't just leave you and the airplane lying at the crash site until nature reclaims it all.
Furthermore, it is not just the flying itself. If that is what you wanted, the crazy early times of flight would have been for you, when everybody could just do whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted. Much of the learning for the license is the rules and procedures. Air space if very busy! I have small class D airports where there is so much traffic sometimes that I can hardly get a word in to announce myself. This will have the potential for stress and errors long after you got used to the flying itself.
I can't even begin the shortcuts someone's thinking has to take to think flying and driving should be treated the same.
It is even easier to fly a powered paraglider.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42
And it flies pretty good. Not cheap though, 40 to 50K.