Percy Pilcher - 1st Airplane inventor?
Percy Sinclair Pilcher (16 January 1867 – 2 October 1899) was a British inventor and pioneer aviator who was his country's foremost experimenter in unpowered flight near the end of the nineteenth century.
After corresponding with Otto Lilienthal, Pilcher had considerable success with developing hang gliders. In 1895, he made repeated flights in the Bat, and in 1896–1897 many flights in the Hawk culminated in a world distance record.
By 1899, Pilcher had produced a motor-driven triplane, which he planned to test at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire on September 30, 1899 to a group of onlookers and potential sponsors, including the eminent Member of Parliament John Henniker Heaton, in a field near Stanford Hall. However, days before, the engine crankshaft had broken and, so as not to disappoint his guests, he decided to fly the Hawk instead. The weather was stormy and rainy, but by 4 pm Pilcher decided the weather was good enough to fly, against advice. However the canvas on the wings of the Hawk had become saturated by rain; unbeknown to Pilcher, this caused the fabric to contract putting excessive strain on the bamboo frame: Whilst in mid-air, the tail snapped and Pilcher plunged 10 metres (30 ft) to the ground: he died two days later from his injuries, having never regained consciousness, with his triplane having never been publicly flown.
However that's not the end of the story. Over 100 years later in 2003, a research effort carried out at the School of Aeronautics at Cranfield University, commissioned by the BBC2 television series Horizon, has shown that Pilcher's design was more or less workable, and had he been able to develop his engine, it is possible he would have succeeded in being the first to fly a heavier-than-air powered aircraft with some degree of control. Cranfield built a full-sized working replica of Pilcher's aircraft, but, based on wind tunnel tests with a scale model, they made several alterations to Pilcher's original designs, which they speculated Pilcher would have made, including filling in cut-away sections of the wings to increase the wing area, and therefore lift, and adding a swinging seat to aid control of the aircraft through shifting body weight; a refinement developed by Octave Chanute, which they believed Pilcher would have been aware of. They also added the Wright brothers' innovation of wing-warping as a safety backup for roll control. Pilcher's original design did not include aerodynamic controls such as ailerons or elevators. After a very short initial test flight piloted by the aircraft designer Bill Brookes, the craft achieved a sustained flight of 1 minute and 25 seconds, compared to 59 seconds for the Wright Brothers' best flight at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. This was achieved under dead calm conditions as an additional safety measure; the Wrights in 1903 flew in a 20 mph+ wind to achieve sufficient airspeed.
Pilcher could so easily have been the first person to fly a powered plane, some 4 years before the Wright brothers. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, west London, but a memorial exists where he crashed which can be seen from the road near to Stanford Hall, Leicestershire.
After corresponding with Otto Lilienthal, Pilcher had considerable success with developing hang gliders. In 1895, he made repeated flights in the Bat, and in 1896–1897 many flights in the Hawk culminated in a world distance record.
By 1899, Pilcher had produced a motor-driven triplane, which he planned to test at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire on September 30, 1899 to a group of onlookers and potential sponsors, including the eminent Member of Parliament John Henniker Heaton, in a field near Stanford Hall. However, days before, the engine crankshaft had broken and, so as not to disappoint his guests, he decided to fly the Hawk instead. The weather was stormy and rainy, but by 4 pm Pilcher decided the weather was good enough to fly, against advice. However the canvas on the wings of the Hawk had become saturated by rain; unbeknown to Pilcher, this caused the fabric to contract putting excessive strain on the bamboo frame: Whilst in mid-air, the tail snapped and Pilcher plunged 10 metres (30 ft) to the ground: he died two days later from his injuries, having never regained consciousness, with his triplane having never been publicly flown.
However that's not the end of the story. Over 100 years later in 2003, a research effort carried out at the School of Aeronautics at Cranfield University, commissioned by the BBC2 television series Horizon, has shown that Pilcher's design was more or less workable, and had he been able to develop his engine, it is possible he would have succeeded in being the first to fly a heavier-than-air powered aircraft with some degree of control. Cranfield built a full-sized working replica of Pilcher's aircraft, but, based on wind tunnel tests with a scale model, they made several alterations to Pilcher's original designs, which they speculated Pilcher would have made, including filling in cut-away sections of the wings to increase the wing area, and therefore lift, and adding a swinging seat to aid control of the aircraft through shifting body weight; a refinement developed by Octave Chanute, which they believed Pilcher would have been aware of. They also added the Wright brothers' innovation of wing-warping as a safety backup for roll control. Pilcher's original design did not include aerodynamic controls such as ailerons or elevators. After a very short initial test flight piloted by the aircraft designer Bill Brookes, the craft achieved a sustained flight of 1 minute and 25 seconds, compared to 59 seconds for the Wright Brothers' best flight at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. This was achieved under dead calm conditions as an additional safety measure; the Wrights in 1903 flew in a 20 mph+ wind to achieve sufficient airspeed.
Pilcher could so easily have been the first person to fly a powered plane, some 4 years before the Wright brothers. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, west London, but a memorial exists where he crashed which can be seen from the road near to Stanford Hall, Leicestershire.
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