How a garden in Birmingham became the unlikely setting for the birth of powered flight…
Frederick Lanchester — An untold history of Aeronautics & Aerodynamics
Never give up! — the uphill struggle of creative genius holds lessons to be learned for all.
Britain has a habit of not recognising or supporting its creative genius. Too many times we have seen scientists, artists, musicians, writers, designers, inventors, engineers and great computing creators struggling to get the establishment, the scientific committees and the press to recognise their brilliance.
All too often, if they haven’t given up or died penniless, they either take their work to another country where they are more likely to gain investment and supported or worse, they have their contributions lost in time, only for someone else to take credit and become house-hold names in their place..
Frederick Who?
Frederick Lanchester (1868–1946) was an English engineer and serial inventor. He was, by any definition a polymath — a creative genius also ahead of his time and often struggling to get the ‘establishment’ to catch up or take notice.
Apart from inventing or having a patent for pretty much everything that makes a modern day cars (disc breaks, power steering, 4 wheel drive, suspension systems, worm drive, turbo charging, the first British four wheeled petrol motor car oh, and the patent from 1923 for a petrol-electric hybrid car that could be a Toyota Prius tech spec from a few years ago! and we appear to have the terms Top Gear and Dashboard courtesy of Fred.
He also worked on pioneering inventions in colour photography, the first outboard British motor boat (he developed by accident), electric sound amplification and powered flight, for which he publishing the theories of Aerodonetics and Aerodynamics that would inform the basic principles of these areas of research, development and industry we know today. Indeed just one glance at his design for the powered flight aircraft with contra-rotating propellers in 1897 compared to the other designs for airplanes, will demonstrate the true nature of his vision and just how ahead of his times he really was and why he has been described as Britain’s Leonardo Da Vinci (more of that later).
So how did he come up with these ideas?
Whilst crossing the Atlantic on a voyage to the United States, Lanchester studied the flight of herring gulls, seeing how they were able to use motionless wings to catch up-currents of air.
He measured various birds to see how the centre of gravity compared with the centre of support and, as a result of his deliberations, he eventually formulated his circulation theory of flight; the basis of aerodynamics and the foundation of modern aerofoil theory.
In1892 — Lanchester began working seriously on Aeronautics theory of flight and powered flight (eleven years before the first successful powered flight). In 1894 he tested his theory on a number of models in the garden of his home in Birmingham, something that should be celebrated and promoted by our civic leaders as a world first to the rest of the planet, but probably won’t. Home Of Flight anyone ?
In the same year, 1894, he presented his paper to Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical, Society, on the theory of flight. This and subsequent papers and patents were not just met with indifference but positively discouraged. Lanchester would later recall this period and his disappointment at having had no support or interest and having carried out all work at his own expense.
“If I were to say what I think to be the salient feature of my career, I think it would be to point to the fact that my work has been almostwholly individual. My scientific and technical work hasnever been backed by funds from external sources to any material extent, or been assisted by the holding of a position such as would give me command of any material resources. All research work that I have done waspaid for out of my own pocket.
“So far as aeronautical science is concerned,I cannot say that I experienced anything but discouragement; inthe early days my theoretical work (backed by a certain amount of experimental verification), mainly concerning the vortex theory of sustentation and the screw propeller, was refused by the two leading scientific societies in this country, and I was seriously warned that my profession as an engineer would suffer if I dabbled in a subjectthat was merely a dream of madmen!”
In 1897 he presented further papers entitled Theory of Stability (Patent 3608), 1897 and “The soaring of birds and the possibilities of mechanical flight” to the Physical Society, but these were also rejected! clearly he was too advanced for them and this time.
Giving up was not in Fred’s nature — he persisted, working alongside his major pioneering developments in automotive design and self-funded, pursued further developments in flight.
He realised that powered flight required an engine with a much greater power-to-weight ratio than any existing engine. He proposed to design and build such an engine, but, again, was advised that no one would take him seriously. Again, discouraged by the attitude to his aeronautical theory, he focused on automobile development for the next ten year, but continued to developed his theories and experiments alongside this, developing a theory of flight based on the twisting flow of air or ‘vortex’ caused by the friction of the air moving over the slender shape of the wings. Today this principle is exploited to reduce drag and increase efficiency through the use of winglets.
In 1906 he published the first part of a two-volume work, Aerial Flight, dealing with the problems of powered flight (Lanchester 1906). In it, he developed a model for the vortices that occur behind wings during flight, which included the first full description of lift and drag.
Guess what…?
His book was not well received in England, but created interest in Germany where the scientist Ludwig Prandtl mathematically confirmed the correctness of Lanchester’s vortex theory. In his second volume, Lanchester turned his attention to aircraft stability, Aerodonetics (Lanchester 1908), developing his phugoid theory which contained a description of oscillations and stalls. During this work he outlined the basic layout used in most aircraft since then. Wider recognition of Lanchester’s contribution to aeronautical science was not recognised until the end of his life.
In 1909 H. H. Asquith’s Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was established, and Lanchester was appointed a member. Lanchester predicted correctly that aircraft would play an increasingly important part in warfare, unlike the military command which envisioned warfare as continuing much the same way it had in the past. The same year, 1909, Lanchester patented his contra-rotating propellers that had appeared in his designs as far back as 1897.
He continued research, publications and patents over the next few years, always ahead and always pioneering. These included “Flying Machine from an engineering standpoint, 1914. (James Forrest lecture of the Institution of Civil Engineers). In 1915 he presented his paper “The Theory of Sustentation and Expenditure of Power in Flight. before the International Engineering Congress, San Francisco, 1915.
As the rest of the world took notice of developments in flight and later powered flight and celebrated the achievements of The Wright Brothers and Ludwig Prandtl etc, they were forced to recognize also the contribution of Lanchester’s work. His work was celebrated in the award of the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for honouring achievements in aeronautics, New York 1932 and his publications more widely recognized amongst his peers. But, as a household name, his status and recognition have never reached the levels he deserves.
1897 Flying Machine — Brought to life
in 2018 a simulation of Lanchester’s 1897 flying machine was among several designs showcased by Coventry University at the Farnborough International Airshow. As well as Fred’s design, a Red Bull air race winner and a flying car were demonstrated at the show. School children and students also got a chance to fly the virtual vehicles on the university’s flight simulator.
As part of his MSc in aerospace engineering, student Osita Ugwueze created a flight simulation model of a manned flying machine that was patented Frederick Lanchester in 1897, but never built. Osita used advanced computer software to prove that Lanchester’s machine would have flown. His work also suggested it would have been more aerodynamically stable than the Wright Brothers’ Flyer that became the world’s first plane to fly six years later in 1903.
1896..
1897 Lanchester’s design for powered flying machine
1903
Lanchester develop the theory of flight based on the twisting flow of air or ‘vortex’ caused by the friction of the air moving over the slender shape of the wings.
Timeline
· 1892 — Lanchester began working seriously on Auronautics theory of flight and powered flight (eleven years before the first successful powered flight)
· 1894 Paper to Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical, Society, on the theory of flight
· 1894, Lilienthal built an artificial conical hill near his home in Lichterfelde, called Fliegeberg (lit. “Fly Hill”). It allowed him to launch his gliders into the wind no matter which direction it was coming from. The hill was 15 metres (49 ft) high. There was a regular crowd of people that were interested in seeing his gliding experiments.
· 1896 three important aeronautical events. In May, Smithsonian Institute SecretarySamuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-poweredfixed-wing model aircraft
· 1896 On 9 August, Otto Lilienthal’s glider stalled and he was unable to regain control. Falling from about 15 m (50 ft), he broke his neck and died the next day, 10 August 1896.
· 1897 Lanchester published his paper and patent Theory of Stability (Patent 3608)
· Wright Brother used their Bicycle business to fund their growing interest in flight. In the early or mid-1890s they saw newspaper or magazine articles and probably photographs of the dramatic glides by Otto Lilienthal in Germany.
· 1899 In May Wilbur Wright wrote a letterto the Smithsonian Institution requesting information and publications about aeronautics. Drawing on the work of Sir George Cayley, Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci, and Langley, they began their mechanical aeronautical experimentation that year.
· The Wrights based the design of their kite and full-size gliders on work done in the 1890s by other aviation pioneers. They adopted the basic design of the Chanute-Herring biplane hang glider (“double-decker” as the Wrights called it), which flew well in the 1896 experiments near Chicago, and used aeronautical data on lift that Otto Lilienthal had published.
· 1900 The brothers flew the glider for only a few days in the early autumn of 1900 at Kitty Hawk. In the first tests, probably on October 3, Wilbur was aboard while the glider flew as a kite not far above the ground with men below holding tether ropes.
· 1903 the brothers built the powered Wright Flyer, using their preferred material for construction, spruce, a strong and lightweight wood, and Pride of the West muslin for surface coverings. They also designed and carved their own wooden propellers, and had a purpose-built gasoline engine fabricated in their bicycle shop. They thought propeller design would be a simple matter and intended to adapt data from shipbuilding. However, their library research disclosed no established formulae for either marine or air propellers, and they found themselves with no sure starting point. They discussed and argued the question, sometimes heatedly, until they concluded that an aeronautical propeller is essentially a wing rotating in the vertical plane. On that basis, they used data from more wind tunnel tests to design their propellers. The finished blades were just over eight feet long, made of three laminations of glued spruce. The Wrights decided on twin “pusher” propellers (counter-rotating to cancel torque), which would act on a greater quantity of air than a single relatively slow propeller and not disturb airflow over the leading edge of the wings.
· Wilbur made a March 1903 entry in his notebook indicating the prototype propeller was 66% efficient. Modern wind tunnel tests on reproduction 1903 propellers show they were more than 75% efficient under the conditions of the first flights, “a remarkable feat”, and actually had a peak efficiency of 82%.
· 1907 Lanchester publishes the combination of his work from 1894 onwards in “Aerial Flight”, a two-volume treatise with the subtitles, Aerodynamics
· 1908 Fred followed up with a paper on Aerodonetics
· 1914 Fred developed his ground breaking theories on “Aircraft in Warfare he would later adapt warfare strategy into business theories which have been widely adopted and published in Japan.
· 1914 “Flying Machine from an engineering standpoint” (James Forrest lecture of the Institution of Civil Engineers.)
1915 The Theory of Sustentation and Expenditure of Power inFlight. Paper before the International EngineeringCongress, San Francisco, 1915. (Revised and corrected as anappendix to the Reprint edition of the James ForrestLecture.)He published many more papers, books and patents.
In Summary
Lanchester was the foremost person to develop the now famous theory of flight and Vortex theory, so brilliantly followed up by Prandtl and others. He first put forward this theory in a paper as far back as 19th June, 1894 before the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society. In a second paper in 1897, in his two books published in 1907 and 1908, and in his paper read before the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1916, he further developed this doctrine. In a lecture delivered in 1915, Lanchester said:
“The author’s theory of sustentation in flight is based on the more general theory of vortex motion. The author believes he can claim priority as far as the discovery of the vortex or cyclic system surrounding the aerofoil is concerned, this having been the basis of a paper read before the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1894, and a further paper submitted by him to the Physical Society of London in 1897.”
The theory in question, with the results of a considerable number of other investigations, eventually received full publication in the year 1907 in the treatise ‘Aerial Flight’.” That is Lanchester ‘s great achievement, the Vortex theory, and upon it his fame chiefly rests.
Having moved to Birmingham, established the Lanchester Motor Company and patented over 400 patents, Lanchester lived in Moseley, Birmingham during his later years, where he died in 1948. The worlds largest collection of his life work is held at Coventry University Archives and serves as a resource for students, researchers and international visitors as well as a year-long programme of outreach.
Anthony Hughes — Head of Archives, Special Collections and Heritage Programmes at Coventry University
