{"id":502,"date":"2007-02-07T22:28:01","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T12:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=502"},"modified":"2007-02-10T13:48:11","modified_gmt":"2007-02-10T03:48:11","slug":"clement-aders-avion-pioneer-flying-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":"Clement Ader’s ‘Avion’ pioneer flying machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another exhibit in the Musee des Artes et Metiers <\/a>is that of a long forgotten French Aviation pioneer, Clement Ader (click on ‘NoFlashMuseum’ then Transports’ then ‘1850-1950’ and finally the last small image on the right.<\/p>\n

Again, I had no idea before going there that this pioneer aircraft had been preserved for posterity – one of the great ‘almost made it’s among the early aviators. Like the Wright brothers, he was a bicycle designer.<\/p>\n

Ader was born in 1841 at Muret in Haute-Garonne. He was multi-talented and was awarded numerous patents during his lifetime, including a ralway system and telephone. But he had a lifelong fascination with flying – inspired by birds and bats, using the latter as a model for his aircraft design. Ader built kites and small-scale gliders and measured the forces needed to keep them flying, using dynamometers. He was the first engineer to know the value of lift and thrust needed for flying.<\/p>\n

\"Clement
\nClement Ader’s Avion III<\/strong>
\nHe built his first machine between 1882 and 1889, known as the Eole I which reportedly made a low-level hop on 9 October 1890 at an altitude of about 30cm for about 50 metres. Ader was credited with introducing the French word for aircraft – avion<\/em> – into the French language.<\/p>\n

His second machine, Eole II was damaged during trials in 1891. Avion III was built with the help of the Defence Ministry and was completed in 1897. It had a wingspan of 16 metres and had a tricycle undercarriage. It weighed a mere 258kg unladen, and less than 400kg with pilot. It was powered by two lightweight 20hp steam engines designed by Ader, which independently drove two contra-rotating four-bladed propellers. The two motors shared a single flash steam boiler and condenser. The wings were made from bamboo covered with lightweight fabric.<\/p>\n

\"Clement
\nAder’s steam engine for Avion III<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Clement
\nFlash Steam Boiler for Avion III<\/strong>
\nThis plane made one flight attempt at the French Army’s Satory proving ground on 14 October 1897 – without success.<\/p>\n

\"Clement<\/p>\n

But later in life Ader claimed success for both the Eole and the Avion III. Irrespective of his success or failure – he was far-thinking in terms of his innovative design – the enclosed body, the tricycle undercarriage and the power-to-weight ratio commensurate with the scale of the wings.<\/p>\n

His big failure was in not making any provision for control once airborne. But his was a big step on the way towards successful heavier than air flight.<\/p>\n

\"Clement
\nAvion III<\/strong><\/p>\n

This plane was certainly the inspiration for a number of steampunk fanciful depictions of the future of flight – including this automaton \ud83d\ude42
\n\"automaton\"<\/p>\n

\"Clement
\nAvion III<\/strong>
\nThere is a good summary of his achievement at this US Air Force site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Close, as they say, but no cigar. An elegant design though \ud83d\ude42
\nCheers
\nJerry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another exhibit in the Musee des Artes et Metiers is that of a long forgotten French Aviation pioneer, Clement Ader (click on ‘NoFlashMuseum’ then Transports’ then ‘1850-1950’ and finally the last small image on the right. Again, I had no idea before going there that this pioneer aircraft had been preserved for posterity – one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,13,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-journal","category-steam","category-technology","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}