October 15, 1917 - Resolution of the command of the battleship "Dawn of Freedom" with the approval of the decisions of the Regional Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region and the requirement to convene the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. We, the crew of the battleship Zarya Svoboda, gathered on general meeting October 15 and

Chapter from the new book "Aviation". Story. Developments. Data

There are not so many people left who remember the words "We were born to make a fairy tale come true." It seemed to us that by raising new planes into the sky, launching spaceships, creating science cities, we were creating something fabulous. Telling about fictional events and heroes, fairy tales often set goals for humanity, contributing to development and movement forward. Watching the flight of birds, scientists, science fiction writers, storytellers thought about whether a person could rise into the air with the help of wings or some other device.

Have you ever dreamed of flying? Spreading their arms wide, they hovered above the ground - over houses, roads, forests, fields? Magical, unforgettable feeling! It was also familiar to our ancestors. Envying the birds, man dreamed of wings behind his back, or at least of acquiring flying objects. Like a flying carpet, a mortar with a broom or a flying ship. A person is arranged in such a way that he strives to translate the most incredible fantasies into real deeds, into reality.

Around 400 BC. e. Archytas of Tarentum, an ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman and strategist, may have developed the first flying machine, which is a bird model, and, according to sources, flew about 200 meters. This apparatus, which the inventor called the "Dove", was probably hung on a cable during the flight.

The flying flashlight (a prototype of balloons with a shell filled with hot air) has been known in China since ancient times. Its invention is attributed to General Zhuge Liang (AD 180-234), who sources say used them to instill fear in enemy troops.

Ancient chronicles are full of references to desperate daredevils who tried to imitate birds. Mankind's dream of flight may have first been realized in China, where the flight of a man tied (as punishment) to kites was described in the 6th century. The legends about Daedalus and his wings made of feathers and wax, about Icarus or Pushpak Vimana are known to everyone in the Ramayana. Flight was associated with the idea of ​​imitating birds.

A man who dreamed of the role of a conqueror of the air element chose the path of making bird-like wings. Thus the idea of ​​gliding was born. Images of the first glider date back to the beginning of our era. During archaeological excavations in the desert in Peru, a drawing of an object of unusual shape was discovered, called the "Paracas candelabra". Aviators have no doubt that this is a drawing of an aircraft resembling a glider. A landing area with "landing strips" and an image resembling a "wind rose" were found nearby.

The first documented flight dates back to the 11th century. In 1020, the English Benedictine monk Aylmer of Malmesbury, nicknamed the "flying monk", put on his wings and jumped off the monastery bell tower. To some extent, he succeeded in gliding flight, because the daredevil escaped with only broken hands.

The first controlled flights on a hang glider were made: in the 9th century - Abbas ibn Farnas in Al-Andalus in the 9th century; in the XI century - the English monk Oliver; in the 16th century - the Spanish monk Bonaventure. There were daredevils in Russia. The fate of all was sad. If a person survived after the flight, he was either chopped off his head or burned at the stake.

The idea to create an aircraft with flapping wings was generally expressed by the English scientist Roger Bacon (1214–1292) in the middle of the 13th century. In his work “On Secret Things in Art and Nature,” he wrote: “Machines can be built, sitting in which, a person, rotating a device that sets artificial wings in motion, would make them hit the air like birds.”

Two centuries later, the idea of ​​a winged aircraft caught the attention of the Italian scientist Leonardo da Vinci. After a long search, unlike Bacon, he developed several types of ornithopter projects - with a pilot in a lying position (1485-1487), an ornithopter-boat (about 1487), with a vertical pilot (1495-1497), etc. in their development, the scientist put forward a number of important design ideas: a fuselage in the form of a boat, a rotary tail, retractable landing gear.

The ideas of Leonardo da Vinci in the field of theory and practice of mechanical flight remained buried in his manuscripts for many centuries and gained fame only at the end of the 19th century.

In 1669, the archer Ivan Serpov made "dove-like wings, but much larger in size." In the city of Ryazhsk, he "wanted to fly, but only rose a yard by seven (i.e., about five meters), rolled over in the air and fell to the ground."

Despite numerous failures, attempts to fly with the help of ornithopters-muscles continued for a long time. In the middle of the 17th century, the English mechanic Robert Hooke, working on the problem of flight, expressed the idea that more powerful “artificial muscles” were needed to perform flight.

Regardless of Hooke, the futility of the idea of ​​flying with the help of flapping wings was substantiated at the end of the 17th century by the Italian scientist D. Borelli. Pointing out the significant difference in the relative mass and strength of the muscles that a person and a bird can use to fly, he concluded that a person could not fly using only his own strength.

The conclusions of scientists proved the impossibility of flying with the help of artificial wings, driven by man, but attempts to create ornithopters-muscles continued for many more years. During this period of time, the idea was born to use the energy of steam on aircraft (D. Wilkins, 1648).

At the end of the 18th century, scientists and inventors went in two ways to create aircraft:

1. The static principle of flight was used, based on the property of light gases to be displaced upward by heavier ones. The foundations of aerostatics were laid, which gave rise to aeronautics;

2. Attempts were made to reproduce the flight of birds and build aircraft based on the dynamic principle. They sent researchers to another direction - to the field of aerodynamics. Scientists came up with the idea to use for flight the lifting force arising from the rapid movement of a plate inclined relative to the air flow. This led to the creation of aviation. The word "aviation" comes from the Latin avis"bird".

In Russia in the second half of the 19th century, attempts to solve the problem of flight by imitating birds did not stop. Mikhnevich, Kraevsky, Spitsyn, Baranovsky and others worked on the creation of ornithopters.

The inventors, realizing that the muscular strength of a person is clearly not enough for a flapping flight, sought to use heat engines (V. D. Spitsyn, Bertenson, M. I. Ivanin) and even a small balloon (Ya. I. Kraevsky) on ornithopters.

Tethered balloons filled with hot air were used on a significant scale in a number of wars in the first half of the 19th century. Their use was most famous during the American Civil War, when balloons were used to monitor the progress of the battle at Petersburg.

Gold figurines found in South America, outwardly resemble aircraft. What served as a prototype for the creation of these figures is unknown. This ancient land has repeatedly surprised us with inexplicable artifacts, which are small objects found in Colombia in the 19th century and dating back to the middle of the first millennium AD. Today in the world there are several dozen such items that were found not only in Colombia, but also in Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru. They are slightly different from each other, but the principle design of the aircraft with horizontal and vertical fin fin unites all these artifacts.

Aviation experts have confirmed that the artifacts may be aircraft models. And in 1996, the German aircraft modellers Algund Enbom and Peter Belting created almost exact, keeping all proportions and shapes, enlarged copies of the Columbian Golden Airplane and another golden figure, which, in their opinion, most resembled an airplane. To launch into the air, the models were equipped with motors and radio control systems. Two models were able to take off and perform aerobatics, planned with the engines turned off.

After seeing the flights, scientists, aircraft designers, pilots and engineers had no doubts that the "golden airplanes of the Incas" were copies of flying machines. Do these artifacts suggest some other history of our ancestors or spaceships aliens from outer space.

George Cayley (1773–1857) – English scientist and inventor One of the first theorists and researchers in the field of aircraft heavier than air, published a description of the principles of glider and aircraft flight. His ideas and projects were far ahead of their time, most of them were not implemented during the lifetime of the scientist. Cayley's work was little known until the 1930s.

In 1804, Cayley made for experiments a model glider with a small aspect ratio wing with an area of ​​about 993.5 square meters. see According to Cayley, the model flew 18–27 meters. In 1808, another glider model was made by the scientist. A feature of the model was a wing of significant elongation and a curved wing profile.

The model was tested in free flight, as well as on a leash (like a kite). In 1809-1810, George Cayley's On Aerial Navigation, in three parts, was published in Nicolson's Journal of Natural Philosophy, the world's first published scientific work, containing the fundamental principles of the theory of glider and aircraft flight. George Cayley in 1799 drew a sketch of the aircraft he conceived.

Many researchers attribute to George Cayley the birth of the idea of ​​an aircraft with a fixed wing and a separate propulsion unit, that is, an airplane. However, others point out that this concept, like other constructive ideas contained in Cayley's project, was put forward earlier, although it was Cayley's work that initiated the scientific study of the concept of an aircraft.

In 1852, Cayley published an article in Mechanics' Magazine presenting a glider design ("governable parachute" - "controlled parachute"). The article indicated the expediency of using a fixed horizontal surface located behind the wing (in modern terms, a stabilizer) set at an angle of attack less than that of the wing to ensure longitudinal static stability. In this case, the center of gravity was recommended to be located slightly ahead of the center of pressure of the wing.

At the end of the 19th century, the process of developing airspace reached a new level: dozens of aircraft tests were carried out, and many of them turned out to be successful.

In the 60s of the XIX century, near the French port of Brest, an apparatus with a fuselage in the form of a boat and wings like an albatross was tested. Motors on devices of this type performed an auxiliary role. Their task was to help with the flight from one air stream to another. Like conventional gliders, motor gliders took off against the wind from a hill and gradually glided to the ground. The propeller may or may not have been. The designers came up with the idea of ​​motorized gliders. Unfortunately, most of these projects cannot be called successful.

In 1893, Otto Lilienthal built a monoplane with a single-cylinder carbon dioxide engine suspended from the pilot's chest. The motor was used only temporarily to create momentum for the flapping wing. The propeller was not provided. The main problem the inventor faced was the engine. It was heavy (20 kg), had a power of 2 liters. With. and was not reliable. Subsequently, engineer P. Schauer designed a new carbon dioxide engine for Lilienthal, which had two cylinders. In 1896, a motor glider flapped its wings on the ground, but failed to take off.

After reports of O. Lilienthal's flights in Germany, Octave Chanute organized glider experiments in the USA. As a supporter of heavier-than-air aircraft, he supported many pioneering aviators and was instrumental in the birth of American aviation. One of Shaniut's associates was Vasily Pavlovich Butuzov, a native of Russia.

Butuzov built the first glider in 1889. The description of the tests he compiled has been preserved. It says that the experience took place in the vicinity of the Giant Cave (Mammout Cave) in Kentucky. After taking off from a 30-meter high cliff, Butuzov, in his words, "floated or glide in various directions with a small angle of descent, and when the wind blew up, he lifted me to a height of 25-30 feet, and this made it possible to glide or soar for a distance two to three thousand feet."

In 1896, Butuzov and Shanut entered into an agreement, according to which the second was obliged to allocate $ 500 for the construction of the airframe and pay the costs associated with testing the device and patenting its design. In July 1896, Butuzov sent a description of the design of the airframe to the US Patent Office and began to manufacture a flying machine. In August, a glider named "Albatross" was built. September 15, 1896 "Albatross" with Butuzov on board took off into the air to a height of about 1 meter. According to Chanute, the experience showed good controllability of the aircraft.

A new, lighter version of the Albatross was built by Butuzov in October 1897. On the new glider, Butuzov, according to him, performed a number of successful flights. The range of one of them was more than 100 meters. During one of the flights on the coast of Lake Michigan, due to a crack in the structure, the tail plane broke off, and the glider crashed down. Butuzov hit the ground, his lower body was paralyzed, and he was bedridden for two years.

What is the place of Butuzov's activity in the history of aviation? If we accept the words of V.P. Butuzov about a long soaring flight in a glider in 1889 as a historical fact, then he should be considered the world's first glider. However, the unsuccessful testing of the Albatross in 1896 and the accident while flying a modification of this aircraft in 1897 suggest that the story of a flight in the vicinity of the Giant Cave in Kentucky is unlikely.

The mixed aerodynamic-balance control method proposed by Butuzov was not used in aviation. Nevertheless, the name of V.P. Butuzov deserves to be remembered. He was one of several dozen "obsessed" people, whose efforts created the basis for the development of aviation in the 19th century.

A more successful project of a motorized glider was created by P. Pilcher (England). It was based on the Hawk model, to which a gasoline engine with a pusher propeller was added. It was assumed that after starting from a hill, the engine should have been turned on, which would allow the device to fly horizontally for some time.

It was already closer to the idea of ​​​​creating an aircraft. Pilcher dreamed of installing an engine on his triplane. But by the end of the summer of 1899, when the engine was ready, the tragic death of the designer followed.

Simultaneously with Pilcher, the Americans Chanute and Herring made experiments with the motor. Their motor glider was a triplane with a cruciform tail and twin undercarriage. The engine was located under the wing and was supplied with two screws: pushing and pulling. The weight of the apparatus together with the engine was 40 kg. The run was carried out as standard against the wind.

The glider was supposed to be controlled by changing the position of the body of the pilot sitting on the suspension seat. This glider flew only 22 meters. The failure convinced Herring that a more powerful motor was needed. And this meant that it was necessary to increase the weight of the aircraft and change its control system. The American reached a dead end and suspended his design activities.

In parallel with the progress in the field of aviation, the development of aeronautics went on. Aeronautics (or aeronautics) is the creation of aircraft lighter than air. These include aerostats (balloons) and airships. In 1731, a strange event took place in Ryazan. Here is how his contemporaries spoke about him: the clerk Nerekhtets Furvim "made the ball big, inflated it with filthy and smelly smoke, made a loop from it, sat in it ... and flew."

Furvim's actions are very similar to the procedure for launching the first balloons. The flight took place according to the following scenario: the balloon rose "above the birch" and collided with the bell tower. The daredevil managed to cling to the rope and saved his life. If everything was as described in this source, then there is reason to believe that the Russians were more than 50 years ahead of the French and launched a manned balloon. Moreover, the flight was quite successful and was interrupted only for external reasons.

In 1783, L. Euler, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, developed formulas for calculating the lift force of balloons. In November 1783, on the name day of Empress Catherine the Great, a small balloon with a diameter of only 1.5 feet was launched at the court in St. Petersburg. In 1784, the Russian envoy Ivan Baryatinsky reported on balloon flights in Europe to Catherine II. Fearing fires from running braziers and hot air, she forbade their use. Alexander I lifted the ban on aeronautics in Russia. The Frenchman Garnerin in 1803 received the privilege to climb hot-air balloon before the public in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1804, a balloon flight by the Frenchman Robertson and Ya. D. Zakharov took place in St. Petersburg in order to study the atmosphere. In 1812, a balloon was built in the Vorontsovo estate near Moscow to carry out military operations against Napoleon's troops. In 1870, the Russian Aeronautics Society was established.

In 1875, the famous Russian chemist D. I. Mendeleev, at a meeting of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, proposed a project for a stratospheric balloon for high-altitude flights. The stratostat was supposed to have a pressurized gondola. In August 1887, at the age of 53, D. I. Mendeleev on a military balloon made a flight from the city of Klin for 3 hours and 36 minutes at an altitude of 3350 meters to observe a solar eclipse. The balloon landed near Kalyazin, flying a distance of about 120 kilometers. For this feat, the French Academy of Sciences awarded him a gold medal, on which the motto of the Montgolfier brothers was engraved: “This is how they go to the stars!”.

The brothers Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier (France) are considered the founders of aeronautics. This does not mean that they were the first to create a balloon. Information about such devices was encountered before, but the French were the first to register their project, sending a report about it to the French Academy of Sciences. Their first model, a silk bag filled with warm air, was tested indoors in a furnished room in Avignon. The second balloon was already tested in the open air in Annon. The reaction of the townspeople to these experiments was aggressive: the brothers were accused of conspiring with evil spirits. In order to reassure the townsfolk, it was decided to make a public demonstration of the balloon.

On June 5, 1783, an event occurred that became the starting point for aeronautics: an 11-meter apparatus made of linen and paper rose into the sky. The ball was filled with gas obtained by burning pieces of paper, wood and wet straw under the neck of the shell. Wet straw was not used by chance: a balloon filled with humidified air has a smaller volume at the same temperature and lifting force. Interestingly, the brothers did not know this and acted intuitively.

The historic flight was very successful: the balloon rose to a height of 1830 meters, stayed in the air for 10 minutes and landed safely near the launch site.

On August 27, 1783, the physicist Jacques Charles and the mechanics, the Robert brothers, organized in Paris the flight of a balloon filled with a light gas - hydrogen. The shell of the ball was made of silk impregnated with raw rubber - rubber. In December of the same year, the first flight of people took place on a balloon designed by J. Charles. The flight lasted 2 hours, a distance of 40 km was covered. Balloons filled with hydrogen are called charliers or closed balloons.

Animals participated in the first launches: duck, ram and rooster. After the test, a scandal erupted in the press - the rooster had a broken wing. The question was acute: will a person survive in the air. The verdict of the public was as follows: "The bones of the animal do not stand up, and the person will not endure it all the more." The scandal did its job, and the Montgolfier brothers did not become passengers of their balloon. This story could seriously slow down progress in the field of aeronautics. But the French royal couple, Louis XVIII and Marie Antoinette, advocated the development of aerostatics and even promised freedom to two criminals for their consent to take to the skies on a hot air balloon. There were daredevils ready to test the invention of the brothers.

On October 21, 1783, the Marquis A. d'Arlande and Baron Pilatre de Rozier made the first ever controlled flight in a balloon. The experience could have ended in tragedy. From the fire, on which the air was heated, a basket began to smolder. Everything worked out: having burned out in several places, the balloon stayed in the air for 25 minutes, flew 9 kilometers and landed in the vicinity of Paris. The ball had a diameter of 15 m and a weight of 675 kg.

Balloon designs have changed. A significant contribution to the improvement of thermal balls was made by the artist and inventor Felix Tournachon. The 30-meter apparatus “Le Geant” made by him lifted a gondola with 12 passengers into the air.

Tournachon invented a gas burner to control the ball. By heating the air with it, it was possible to increase the duration of the flight, and the periodic switching on and off of the burner made it possible to maintain a constant flight altitude for a long time. Balls of this design were called "rosiers" in honor of Baron de Rozier.

Aeronautics became popular in France in the second half of the 18th century. Hot air balloons and rosiers are being created and successfully tested. These aircraft belong to the category of thermal balloons, as they use hot air. However, the development of aeronautics also followed the second path: the creation of hydrogen balloons. Shortly after the hot air balloons were tested, their closest competitors, the hydrogen balloons, took to the air.

The impetus for the development of this direction in aeronautics was given by an invention made by the Englishman Henry Cavendish. In 1766, he learned to isolate hydrogen from water, and then studied its basic properties. A year later, Scottish professor Joseph Black found that hydrogen-filled bull bladders should float in the air.

The creator of hydrogen balloons was Professor Jean-Alexandre Cesar Charles, since it was his work that the Paris Academy of Sciences undertook to finance. Charles was destined to turn from the successor of the Montgolfiers to their closest rival.

Charles applied information about the amazing properties of open gas in practice. Using the invention of Montgolfier, he created his own balloon, driving force which was hydrogen, and the shell consisted of silk soaked in a rubber solution.

For greater controllability of the apparatus, Charles applied several innovations. To lower the balloon, a valve was used to reduce the amount of hydrogen in the balloon. Ballast (sandbags or shot) was dropped to climb. During landing, the crew threw the anchor out of the gondola and, thereby, stopped the flight.

The first demonstration flight took place on August 27, 1783. Everything was arranged very pompously: a cannon signal announced the start, and a note was placed in a specially sewn pocket with the date of takeoff and a request to return the balloon to Paris. 15 minutes after the start, the balloon burst and fell in the suburbs of the French capital.

The following launches of "challers" were more successful. On December 1, 1783, the Robert brothers from Paris made a successful flight in a hydrogen balloon. And in the fall of 1784, the Italian ambassador Vicenzo Lunardi made a real trip over Great Britain. He started in London, after some time descended over one of the villages in Hertfordshire, dropped his ballast, landed the cat and, thanks to this, flew a few more miles.

On June 26, 1794, at the Battle of Fleurus, the French used the world's first reconnaissance balloon. The commander of the first balloon company formed two months earlier, Captain Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutel, and Brigadier General Antonin Morlot were at an altitude of 200 meters in the gondola of a hydrogen balloon-"chaliere" for five hours, observing the movements of enemy troops. They transmitted the information they received by throwing notes with loads on the ground. These notes were immediately delivered to the commander of the French army, General Jourdan, who, thanks to this, had an operational and detailed information about the actions of the enemy, hidden from the eyes of ground observers.

After Fleurus, a second aeronautic company was formed in France, seconded to General Pichegru's Army of the Rhine. Air reconnaissance units took part in the sieges of Charleroi, Würzburg, Mainz, Reichstadt, Stuttgart and Augsburg, as well as in the expedition in Egypt. The benefits of balloons were undeniable. French military aeronauts of the late 18th century were called aerostiers.

Flying in hydrogen balloons was a very dangerous business. Hydrogen is a combustible gas and, when mixed with air, creates an explosive mixture. The slightest spark is enough to cause an explosion. That is how the first aeronaut, Baron Pilatre de Rozier, died. Over time, most aeronauts began to favor hot air balloons: "It's better to lose performance, but reduce the risk of an already dangerous flight." The dispute between the "hot air balloons" and "challiers" was decided by time.

In Russia, the mathematician academician Leonhard Euler, who worked on the theory of the kite, showed interest in the balloon. On September 1, 1783, Euler calculated in detail the lift force of a balloon.

Interest in aeronautics and the simplicity of building balloons contributed to the start of practical work in the field of aeronautics in Russia. The first experiments were limited to launching unmanned balloons.

In 1784, in Moscow, the Frenchman Menil organized the rise of a balloon without a passenger. The ball was large (more than 12 m in diameter) and reached a height of about 3 km.

Manned balloon flights in Russia were carried out in 1803 by the French aeronaut J. Garnerin. On September 20, 1803, General S. L. Lvov took off with him in a balloon, who became the first Russian person to participate in air travel.

In June 1804, the Russian Academy of Sciences organized the first balloon flight for scientific purposes. During the flight of this balloon, controlled by the Belgian aeronaut Robertson, Academician Ya. D. Zakharov performed a number of scientific experiments. During the 3.5 hours of the flight, Zakharov took air samples at different heights, measured pressure and temperature, using a special visual glass, established the visibility of individual objects on the ground, and conducted experiments with sound signals.

The first solo flight in a balloon made in Russia was performed by staff doctor I. Kashinsky in Moscow in the autumn of 1805.

As for the real "hot air balloons", they entered Russia relatively late: in 1807, the staff doctor I. Kashinsky flew over Moscow in a thermal balloon. In August 1828, the first Russian aeronaut Ilyinskaya flew up in a balloon.

Another achievement of the Russians is associated with the name of D. I. Mendeleev. Carried away by aeronautics, he began by carefully studying Western experience. In Paris, at the World Exhibition, he met with many famous designers and even took to the skies in A. Giffard's tethered balloon.

Upon his return, Mendeleev began research activities. As a result, the book "On the resistance of liquids and on aeronautics" appeared, and a method was developed for obtaining a rubber solution for the shell of a balloon.

In 1887, Mendeleev received an interesting proposal from the Russian Technical Society: to observe a total solar eclipse from a balloon gondola. It was assumed that his partner A. Kovanko would go on a flight with him. But fate decreed otherwise. At the last moment it began to rain, and the shell of the balloon got wet, which significantly reduced its lift. Under these conditions, Mendeleev decided to fly alone.

Subsequently, he will describe his thoughts before the start: “... about us, professors and scientists in general, they usually think everywhere ... that we, as Shchedrin’s generals, always need a man in order to do the job, otherwise everything will be out of our hands falling down..."

On August 7, 1887, at 6:35 a.m., the balloon with Mendeleev on board took off from the ground. The height turned out to be not very high (3800 meters), so it was not possible to overcome the cloudiness boundary, and observations of the solar corona turned out to be somewhat blurry. But at 9:20 the balloon landed safely on the ground.

The historical significance of Mendeleev's flight is that it was one of the first attempts to use an aeronautical apparatus for scientific purposes.

In the 40s of the 19th century, the flights of Russian aeronauts V. Berg and A. Lede were especially popular in Russia. Lede died in August 1847, making another flight in a balloon. He became the first victim of Russian aeronautics.

In the first years after the invention of the balloon, this aircraft began to be used to solve military problems. In 1794–1795 the revolutionary French army used tethered balloons as a means of adjusting artillery fire and reconnaissance. In 1849, during the siege of Venice, the Austrian army used unmanned balloons to bombard the city.

In the second half of the 19th century, steps were also taken in Russia towards the use of tethered balloons for military purposes. In 1869, the Military Scientific Committee formed a special commission chaired by General E. I. Totleben, which began to coordinate the work of scientists and military specialists in the field of aeronautics. As a result of the activities of the commission, the first samples of military aeronautical materiel were created, and military aeronauts appeared.

In June 1870, the first specially built military balloon was raised in St. Petersburg. This balloon was a ball with a diameter of 12.5 m, sewn from silk fabric and covered on the inside with a layer of rubber.

In the late 70s of the XIX century, aeronautical training units appeared in many armies of Europe and America. In France, in 1878, an aeronautical school was established in Meudon. England had a school of military aeronauts at Woolwich and several aeronautic companies. In Germany, a company of aeronauts was created. In 1885, a separate military unit was also created in St. Petersburg under the name "Cadr of military aeronauts."

The 18th and 19th centuries can be described as the era of aeronautics. Having appeared in France, balloons and airships are becoming popular in most developed European countries. Despite many failures and tragedies, aeronautics progressed rapidly.

The first hot air balloons - "hot air balloons" were replaced by more volatile "challiers", and in the 19th century they were replaced by airships, driving which a person could really feel like a conqueror of the Fifth Ocean.

With the invention of the hot air balloon, it seemed that mankind's age-old dream of flight had finally come true. However, the intoxication of success soon passed. Balloons are completely subject to the will of the wind. Its direction changed, and instead of Paris, the ball could be brought, say, to London. Such "accuracy" could not suit aeronauts. Designers began to think about creating controlled balloons.

The next step was an attempt to install a propeller on the apparatus, driven by the muscular strength of a person. One of the first to express this idea in 1784 was the lieutenant of the armed forces of France, Jean-Baptiste Marie Mellier.

The giant airship he conceived was supposed to be equipped with three large three-bladed propellers, driven by a crew of 80 people. The project was unrealistic and remained only in dreams.

It became obvious that in order to ensure a controlled flight of an aircraft lighter than air, it is necessary:

Equip the balloon with an engine with a sufficiently low specific gravity;

Install a propeller on the balloon;

Reduce air resistance in the direction of flight;

Provide the balloon with controls.

The solution to some of these problems was found from the experience of shipbuilding, which suggested that in order to fulfill the last two conditions, it was necessary to give the aircraft an elongated shape and install rudders in the form of sails or rigid planes. The experience of maritime affairs also facilitated the choice of a propeller for a controlled balloon, the prototypes of which could be oars and a propeller. The most difficult task was to create an engine with a sufficiently low specific gravity for its use in a balloon.

The first draft of a controlled balloon was created in 1784 by the French engineer J. Meunier. He proposed to use propellers for the movement of the balloon, and the steering wheel for control. They also proposed to give the balloon a shape elongated in the direction of flight to reduce aerodynamic drag. Controlled balloon project Russian government was proposed by the German inventor F. Leppich in 1812. According to this project, Leppich promised to build a semi-rigid large airship with a volume of 8000 m 3 for 40 passengers, which was supposed to be fish-shaped and move in the air with the help of two movable wings attached to the sides of the apparatus. The balloon was proposed to be used to fight Napoleon's army.

In 1812–1813 Leppich led the construction of his balloon in Russia, made several ascents on it. However, the device could not fly against the wind, and work on the creation of a controlled balloon was unsuccessful.

In January 1814, the Russian inventor A. Snegirev submitted to the Academy of Sciences a treatise “Experiments on the transformation of balloons”, in which he proposed his own scheme for a controlled balloon - wings were installed above the shell at a certain angle, and when ascending or descending, the balloon could move horizontally. For vertical control, Snegirev proposed to compress the gas envelope with a special device, changing its volume (and, consequently, the lift force of the balloon).

Devices of this type were called "airships" (from the French word dirigeable "controlled") or "zeppelins" (after Ferdinand Zeppelin). Sometimes the terms "aircraft" or "aircraft" are also applied to them. The first attempt to power an airship was made by the self-taught French mechanic Henri Giffard (1825–1882).

He managed to build a steam unit with a capacity of 3 liters. With. and weighing only 45 kg. For that time, these were record results. Another know-how of Giffard: the shell of his airship was shaped like a pointed cigar. Giffard was a brilliant inventor, but fortune turned away from him all the time. On September 24, 1852, his first ship took off easily, but remained in place (headwind prevented).

Its second structure at altitude began to suddenly release gas, forcing the crew to an emergency descent. As soon as it touched the ground, the "cigar" slipped out of the grid and disappeared behind the clouds. And after all this, misfortune continued to haunt Giffard. He became blind, and in 1882 he was found dead in his own apartment. It seems that the balloonist, having lost the opportunity to do what he loves, committed suicide.

In Russia, the idea of ​​using a steam engine on a balloon was first put forward in 1851 by the inventor N. Arkhangelsky. Russian engineer D. Chernosvitov in July 1857 in the journal "Sea Collection" published a draft of a controlled balloon with a steam engine and a screw propeller.

Successful experience in the use of combat missiles in Russia, significant thrust and simplicity of the design of the powder rocket engine prompted inventors to develop jet aircraft. Captain I. Tretessky in 1849 developed a project for a jet airship, in which the jet effect was achieved due to the outflow of gases through a special nozzle at a pressure of at least 6 atmospheres. Depending on the source of movement, Tretessky subdivided his aircraft into parolets, gas planes, and air planes. He proposed to divide the envelope of the balloon into a number of isolated compartments.

Tretessky's project was based on mathematical calculations, contained a large number of diagrams and drawings, so the main merit of the inventor is that for the first time in Russia he attempted a scientific solution to the issue of applying the principle of jet propulsion to aeronautics.

N. M. Sokovnin and K. I. Konstantinov also worked on the jet airship. Naval officer Sokovnin developed and presented in 1866 in War Department project of an airship with a rigid hull, in the compartments of which soft gas cylinders. This design was carried out 33 years later by Zeppelin in his airships. Sokovnin saw the difficulties arising from the use of hydrogen, and proposed filling the shell with non-explosive ammonia. To change the flight altitude, an elevator was provided, this was also a novelty - it appeared abroad in 1902 on the airship Julia. Prior to this, the change in the inclination of the longitudinal axis of the airship was carried out by moving the cargo in the gondola.

Konstantinov, studying the use of powder rockets in aeronautics, based on experiments carried out using a rocket ballistic pendulum, came to the conclusion that it was impossible to use rockets to move balloons.

With the development of technology, flight safety has increased. A demonstration of the complete controllability of airships was the circular flight of Giffard's compatriots - Charles Renan and Antoine Krebs, which took place on August 9, 1884.

Their airship "La France" had a rigid hull and a 1.5 liter electric motor. With. The balloon covered a distance of 8 km at a speed of 23.5 km/h and landed at the launch site.

When a gasoline engine was created, it immediately found application in aeronautics. In 1888, Karl Welfert (Germany) installed it on a makeshift balloon. However, to put a motor, from the exhaust pipe of which sparks flew on a shell filled with hydrogen, was suicide. In 1897, the gas exploded, and Welfert and his mechanic Knabe died.

In 1892, the founder of astronautics, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, developed a project for a large airship (210 meters in length), designed to carry 200 passengers and several tons of cargo. It was assumed that not only its frame, but the shell itself would be made of sheet metal. It was fundamental new idea, however, unfortunately, Tsiolkovsky only stated it, and a large-scale work to determine the optimal specifications was not done by them.

Of course, Tsiolkovsky was one of those "blissful madmen", and this alone is his merit. Even if there were no real discoveries that he made, his hypotheses and fantasies would be enough. Such people do not have to invent anything concrete that brings practical benefits. It is enough that with their whole life they bring the future closer, develop humanity and create the ground for future great achievements and scientific discoveries.

In 1893, the Austrian engineer Hermann Schwartz moved to Russia. In the Aeronautical Park near St. Petersburg, he launched the construction of a 47-meter all-metal airship. All work was financed by the tsarist government. However, the money soon ran out, and the engineer had to return to his homeland.

The Schwartz project was implemented in Germany, and a few years later the baton in the creation of all-metal airships was picked up by the already known to us Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Nevertheless, we can be proud: the idea of ​​giant airships, so promising in the 20th century, was born in Russia.

The heyday of the airship industry began with the advent of reliable light and sufficiently powerful internal combustion engines and fell at the beginning of the 20th century. The development of airships went in three constructive directions: soft, semi-rigid, rigid.

In soft airships, the hull is a shell made of fabric with low gas permeability. The constancy of the shape of the shell is achieved by the excess pressure of the gas that fills it and creates lift, as well as ballonets, which are soft air containers located inside the case. With the help of a valve system that allows either to pump air into the balloonets or bleed it into the atmosphere, a constant overpressure is maintained inside the case. If this were not the case, then the gas inside the shell under the influence of external factors - changes in atmospheric pressure during the ascent or descent of the airship, ambient temperature - would change its volume. A decrease in the volume of gas leads to the fact that the body loses its shape. It usually ends in disaster.

Rigid structural elements - stabilizer, keel, gondola - are attached to the shell with the help of "paws" sewn or glued to it and connecting slings. Like every engineering design, soft airships have their own advantages and disadvantages. The latter are quite serious: damage to the shell or failure of the fan that pumps air into the ballonets lead to disasters. The main advantage is the greater weight return.

The soft scheme limits the size of the airship, which, however, makes assembly, disassembly and transport operations relatively easy. Soft airships were built by many aeronauts. The most successful was the design of the German major August von Parseval. His airship took off on May 26, 1906.

Since then, soft airships have sometimes been referred to as "parsevals". The dependence of the hull shape on atmospheric factors in soft airships was reduced by introducing a rigid keel truss into the design, which, passing from bow to stern along the bottom of the hull, significantly increases its rigidity in the longitudinal direction.

This is how semi-rigid airships appeared. In airships of this scheme, a shell with low gas permeability also serves as a hull. They also need ballonets. The presence of the farm allows you to attach elements of the airship to it and place part of the equipment inside it.

Semi-rigid airships are larger in size. The semi-rigid scheme was developed by the French engineer Juyo, the manager of the sugar factories of the Lebody brothers. The construction of the airship was financed by the owners of the factories. Therefore, such a scheme of airships is not quite rightly called "swan". The first flight of the airship took place on November 13, 1902.

In airships of a rigid scheme, the hull is made up of transverse (frames) and longitudinal (stringers) load-bearing elements, covered on the outside with fabric, which is intended only to give the airship a proper aerodynamic shape. Therefore, no gas permeability requirements are imposed on it. Ballonets are not needed in this scheme, since the invariance of the shape is ensured by the power frame. The carrier gas is placed in separate containers inside the housing. Service passages are also installed there.

The only disadvantage of such a scheme is that the metal structure of the frame reduces the weight of the payload. It was the rigid scheme that made the airship a real ship capable of sailing in the ocean of air like sea liners.

The creator of such airships was the outstanding German engineer and organizer of their production, General Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. His first airship took to the air on July 2, 1900. Since then, the name "zeppelin" has stuck to the airships of a rigid scheme. It is interesting to note that Zeppelin himself, well aware of the advantages of a rigid scheme, paid tribute to airships and other designs. He said that “one type of ship does not exclude another. It is only important that they be developed as well as possible, and that defects be corrected in the interests of all mankind and culture. The further development of the airship industry confirmed the validity of his words.

Count Zeppelin built a huge hangar on Lake Constant, in which the construction of giant airships began. The first of these, LZ-1, saw the light of day on July 2, 1900. It had a Daimler engine with a capacity of 16 hp. With. and a length of 128 meters. "LZ-1" was in the air for 20 minutes with five passengers on board.

The device did not obey the control well and required improvement. Only the third model of the Zeppelin "LZ-3" proved to be of high quality. In 1909, it was acquired by the military. And this is no coincidence, the 20th century began - the era of world wars, in which airships will play an important role.

The new achievement of engineering thought did not serve the flourishing of culture, but military purposes. The French airship "Petri" of a semi-rigid scheme already in 1907 took part in military exercises. Beginning in 1909, "zeppelins" became indispensable participants in the maneuvers of the German army. For the first time in combat, airships were used by the Italians in 1911-1912. during the war with Turkey. With their help, reconnaissance operations were carried out and bombing strikes were carried out. The extensive construction of airships in Germany, France, and Italy forced the Russian military department to also start working in this area.

In February 1907, the first airship research and design center in Russia was established.

“A person will fly, relying not on the strength of his muscles, but on the strength of his mind,” says the aphorism of N. E. Zhukovsky. Indeed, in the period leading up to the historic flight of the Wright brothers, hundreds of aircraft tests were undertaken. Most often they ended tragically, sometimes it was a semi-success.

But it was not possible to unravel the great mystery of flight until the aircraft industry was put on a scientific basis.

D. Cayley is considered the founder of the scientific stage in aircraft construction. His experiments with a rotary machine were the first aerodynamic experiments. Based on them, the Englishman made important conclusions about the lift force of the wing. His work "On Air Navigation" was the first theoretical work on the flight of aircraft with a fixed wing.

The first half of the 19th century was the time of detailed study of the aircraft design. To its optimal forms went intuitively, by trial and error. Perhaps every aviator has contributed to this process. Let's give some examples.

W. Henson was the first to propose the use of a screw propeller and an elongated wing. Felix du Temple de la Croix suggested an aluminum fuselage, R. Hart - about aerodynamic brakes. Otto Lilienthal is not only a great practitioner, but also a theorist of air flight. He outlined his experience and reflections in the book “The Flight of Birds as the Basis of the Art of Flying”.

The works of Lilienthal resonated throughout the world. In 1892, inspired by his insights, N. Zhukovsky wrote an article "On the Soaring of Birds", in which he scientifically substantiated the possibility of controlled flight on a "winged" aircraft and performing all kinds of maneuvers, up to the "dead loop". And in 1895 there was a significant meeting between the German designer and his Russian follower. Lilienthal showed Zhukovsky his gliders and presented one of them as a gift.

The official history of aviation dates back to December 17, 1903. On this day, near the town of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, the first successful flights of the Wright brothers' airplane, which its creators called the "Flyer", took place. However, it was neither the first aircraft designed, nor the first built, nor even the first aircraft to take off from the ground. In fact, the history of aviation began much earlier, and there are enough mysteries in it.

Leonardo da Vinci tried to go from dreaming about flying to creating a real aircraft. However, both he and other inventors of the distant past pinned their hopes on imitation of the bird. For the first time, the idea of ​​​​an apparatus with a fixed wing driven by propellers was proposed in 1689 by the Dutch scientist Christian Heygens (Huygens), but only in the form of a drawing of a primitive and incapable of flying model.

The development of aeronautics pushed into the shadows the idea of ​​flying on an apparatus heavier than air. The person who gave her new life, was the British scientist Sir George Cayley. In 1799, he developed a project for a "flying boat".

As steam engines improved, inventors again turned to the idea of ​​building an aircraft with a heat engine. The first such project was developed in 1835 by the German mechanic Mattis. It was, in fact, a giant diamond-shaped kite.

The mover was supposed to be a blade waving back and forth (when swinging forward, valves opened in it, turning it into a kind of tennis net), set in motion by a steam engine. The matter did not come to practical implementation, apparently, Mattis did not manage to find money.

Englishman William Henson showed commercial acumen, founding the world's first airline, the Aerial Steam Transit Company, in 1843. His plane, the Ariel, was a real airliner with a wingspan of 150 feet. Henson believed that with a takeoff weight of 1350 kilograms, an engine power of 25–30 horsepower would be enough for him. As a result, it was not possible to achieve flight even from a 1:10 model. In 1848, having spent money from shareholders on experiments with models, the company closed.

Henson's companion, John Stringfellow, was more successful. Also in 1848, he created the first flying model of an airplane powered by a steam engine; it was a monoplane with two pusher propellers. Model weighing only 3 kg, but with a wingspan of 3 meters, though badly, but flew. The Frenchman Alphonse Penot, together with his co-author Paul Gauchot, in 1876 developed a stable “tailless” amphibian with a metal sheathing, a single control knob for altitude and flight direction, a glazed cockpit and even a primitive autopilot. Unfortunately, this project was completely misunderstood by his contemporaries, and Peno committed suicide at the age of 30.

A boom in jet aircraft projects followed between 1865 and 1868: Maffiotti (Spain), de Louvrier (France), Teleshov (Russia), Butler and Edwards (UK). The original idea was a rocket engine, powered by the combustion of explosive gas (hydrogen and oxygen), produced directly on board by the electrolysis of water. The most promising were pulsating jet engines proposed (independently) in 1867 by de Louvrier and Teleshov. The engine of such a scheme found its practical application only almost 80 years later, on German Fi 103 (V-1) rockets and kamikaze projectiles.

At the turn of 1880–1890, projects for aircraft with an electric motor appeared. Here, the practical implementation was hindered by the large weight of galvanic batteries. This gave rise to the curious idea of ​​the Russian inventor Shishkov - a kind of "air trolleybus", an aircraft flying over a wire stretched on poles and receiving power from it using a movable current collector.

The first actually built aircraft saw the light in 1874, although the project was patented as early as 1857. Its creator was Felix du Temple de la Croix, a French naval officer. Seabird watching was a major influence on his ideas. Instead of the simple and reliable rectangular wing proposed by Henson, du Temple designed a flexible wing of complex shape, which would certainly fold in the air. However, the idea of ​​a large aspect ratio of the wing was correct.

Du Temple was the first to use aluminum for the construction of aircraft wings. The aircraft also had to have, in his opinion, a retractable landing gear. Some of the Frenchman's ideas were way ahead of their time: a swept-back wing, variable (by turning the engine in a vertical plane) thrust vector...

For 10 years, du Temple was engaged in fine-tuning and ground testing of the device, until rust and wear made the aircraft unusable. Having no money for further work, the inventor, through the press, offered the fruits of many years of work to anyone who had the means to continue his work.

The call went unanswered. Du Temple died in 1890 at the age of 67, never having seen the triumph of his dream.

The creator of the next aircraft was also a naval officer, but from Russia: Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaisky.

The assessment of the place of Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaisky in the history of aircraft construction is one of the most acute and controversial problems in the history of science. A number of authors consider Mozhaisky the inventor of the first aircraft, others leave all the glory of the "fathers of aviation" to the Wright brothers.

From 1855 he observed the flight of birds. Mozhaisky came to the conclusion that air resistance could be used to create lift. “For the possibility of soaring in the air, there is some relationship between gravity, speed and the size of the area or plane, and it is certain that the greater the speed of movement, the greater the weight that the same area can carry.”

This is the formulation of one of the most important laws of aerodynamics, and it was given by Mozhaisky 11 years before the publication of similar works by Lilienthal.

During his stay in Japan, Mozhaisky observed the flights of kites, which were launched by local residents. The first ideas for the project of his own aircraft were born in his head.

In the late 1860s, Mozhaisky began to implement the planned project. He conducted a series of tests with large kites pulled by a team of horses. Based on the results of these tests, the dimensions of the future aircraft were chosen.

By 1876, Mozhaisky's work had progressed so far that he made several flights on a kite glider of his own design, towed by three horses.

Mozhaisky made his first model - "fly". She had all the main components of a modern aircraft: the fuselage, wings, tail, plumage and power plant.

Three screws were driven by a wound spring. "Flyer" was able to make stable flights at speeds up to 5 m / s and withstand an additional load of about 1 kg. So the first step has been taken. Ahead of the designer were waiting for long ordeals in the ministries and humiliating petitions for the allocation of funds for the construction of a full-size apparatus.

Mozhaisky was lucky: it was 1877, and Russia was preparing for war, and according to the inventor's plan, the aircraft was to be used for bombing and reconnaissance purposes.

Successful public experiments conducted in St. Petersburg provided Mozhaisky with a favorable response to a request for funds to continue research. Having studied the project of Mozhaisky, a special commission on aeronautics, which included D. I. Mendeleev, proposed to allocate three thousand rubles to Mozhaisky.

After a year of experimentation, Mozhaisky proposed to build a full-size aircraft. It was supposed to have two internal combustion engines of the Brighton system with a total capacity of 30 horsepower, an estimated flight speed of up to 40 km / h, a takeoff weight of about 820 kg, a wingspan of 23 meters and a fuselage length of 15 meters.

The commission, chaired by Professor of Mechanics of the Engineering Academy, Lieutenant General G. E. Pauker, considered the project technically insufficiently convincing and expensive.

The amount requested by Mozhaisky was denied. Mozhaisky started building the aircraft with his own money. Fortunately, the financial problems were resolved: at the request of the then Minister of the Navy, Sergei Sergeevich Lesovsky, Mozhaisky received part of the required amount.

In 1881, Mozhaisky brought two steam engines from Great Britain for his aircraft.

Back in 1880, he applied for a patent (“privilege”) for his “aircraft projectile”, and in November 1881 the Department of Trade and Manufactories issued Mozhaisky the first Russian patent for an aircraft.

In 1882, having made a lot of debts and even sold personal belongings, the designer finished assembling the aircraft. According to contemporaries, the finished apparatus of Mozhaisky was a boat with wooden ribs. Rectangular wings were attached to the sides of the boat, slightly curved upwards. The boat, wings and tail of the aircraft were covered with a thin silk fabric impregnated with varnish. The bindings of the wings were wooden (pine).

He got the military department to allocate him a site for the construction and testing of an aircraft on a military field near the Duderhof station near Krasnoye Selo near St. Petersburg. Detailed descriptions of the tests of the Mozhaisky aircraft have not been preserved. According to one version, the aircraft was fully assembled in 1882, according to another - in 1883. Even in the second case, Mozhaisky's aircraft is the first Russian full-scale aircraft to reach the stage of flight tests. This is not enough for a global priority.

The device stood on a chassis with wheels. Both of his cars were located at the front of the boat. The aircraft had three propellers with four blades and two rudders (horizontal and vertical). The estimated flight speed did not exceed 40 km / h. For the takeoff of the aircraft, Mozhaisky built a special runway in the form of an inclined wooden flooring.

The tests of Mozhaisky's offspring were carried out in conditions of great secrecy. On July 20, 1882, representatives of the military department and the Russian Technical Society gathered on the military field in Krasnoye Selo. Mozhaisky himself was not allowed to fly, since at that time he was already 57 years old.

There is a version that on July 20, 1882, Mozhaisky's plane, under the control of mechanic I. N. Golubev, took off after a run from a special inclined platform. Flew in a straight line over the field at a speed of 45 km / h about a hundred fathoms. There is no weighty confirmation of the reality of the “hundred fathoms flight”. The plane started off and ran along the sloping deck, picking up speed. It broke away from the launch pad and hung in the air for a moment, but then leaned on its side and crashed to the ground, breaking its wing.

The description of an attempt to take off the Mozhaisky plane, followed by a roll and a broken wing, is found in many sources, and it seems to be true.

But, firstly, most likely, this happened much later, in 1884-1885. And most importantly, there is no convincing evidence that the plane managed to get off the ground. But even if we accept this version, then the flight that ended in an accident cannot be considered successful.

Very little information about the tests has been preserved. Memorandum of the Chief engineering management The Ministry of War of 1884 states that Mozhaisky's plane "ran up the inclined rails, but could not take off."

Mozhaisky was very critical of the test results. In his opinion, the main design flaw was the insufficient power of the engines. He ordered a new motor and immediately set about creating a new, more advanced and better controlled apparatus. Unfortunately, Mozhaisky did not have a chance to complete the work. In 1890 he died at the age of 65.

The fact that the event that took place on June 20, 1882 in Krasnoye Selo is the brightest page in Russian history is undeniable. The question of Mozhaisky's contribution to the development of world science is more problematic. If we admit that his "projectile" made a full-fledged air flight, then, of course, Russia should be considered the birthplace of aviation. Meanwhile, eyewitnesses of the tests reported that, in the worst case, the Mozhaisky apparatus could not get off the ground at all, and in the best case, it flew several meters and stuck into the ground. In this regard, the achievements of the Wright brothers are more preferable.

Mozhaisky's contribution to the development of aviation is already significant. He was the first to establish the relationship between lift and drag at various angles of attack. Mozhaisky was the first to develop a fuselage type of aircraft (Western designers began to make such aircraft only in 1909). Mozhaisky expressed the idea of ​​using a fuselage-boat for landing on water (this idea was put into practice in 1913 by D. P. Grigorovich, the creator of the first boat hydroplane).

In the late 1970s, Soviet engineers from TsAGI built and tested a model of the Mozhaisky aircraft in a wind tunnel. And these experiments unequivocally proved that the power of the aircraft was more than three times less than what was required for horizontal flight.

In recent years, A.F. Mozhaisky has ceased to be opposed to the Wright brothers. Despite this, his role in the development of Russian aviation is beyond doubt. It is thanks to such enthusiasts that Russia has risen into the sky.

Where engineers and scientists with many years of research and calculations failed, success was achieved by a person who did not conduct any scientific research and built, as a result, almost the most strange apparatus that ever left the ground.

Frenchman Clement Ader simply decided to copy bat. The hopelessness of the flywheels was already obvious. Ader's apparatus was set in motion by a screw, which was rotated by a steam engine. The four blades of the propeller, made of thin sheets of bamboo, were shaped like curved bird feathers. Like his predecessors, Ader used an engine of his own design - and it was successful: the specific gravity was only 3 kilograms per horsepower. Engine power was 20 horsepower. The boiler was heated with alcohol. The plane itself, named "Eol" (Eole), was very light.

Contrary to the opinion about the impossibility of the existence of aircraft with a steam engine, "Eol" even surpassed the first "gasoline" airplanes in terms of power to weight ratio.

His first "Avion", as Ader called his cars (later this word entered into French in the meaning of "aircraft"), the designer built from 1882 to 1890, spending half a million francs of personal funds on this. The aircraft handling was unique.

On October 9, 1890, a historic event happened: for the first time, a manned vehicle heavier than air, driven only by its own engine, after a horizontal take-off took off from the ground and flew 50 meters at a height of half a meter.

The flight lasted 5 seconds, the designer himself piloted the car. The role of the pilot was reduced to starting and stopping the engine, but he could not control the flight. This is precisely the answer to the question why the palm is given not to Ader, but to the Wrights.

Unlike Ader, the American-born Briton Maxim put the matter on a strictly scientific basis, substantiated the profitability of a curved wing profile and developed propellers with a high efficiency for those years (0.6). Finally, in 1891, Maxim began the construction of an aircraft, which he completed in 1894. The work cost £20,000 and was funded by the London Arms Company.

The British designer has created a real giant. It was a biplane with a wingspan of almost 32 meters, a total horizontal surface area (including two huge elevators in front of and behind the upper wing) of 372 square meters and a takeoff weight of more than 3.5 tons. In terms of its dimensions, the aircraft surpassed even the future "Ilya Muromets" Sikorsky.

A tunnel was built for testing: the airplane rode along the lower rails, and it had to rest against the upper rails with special upper wheels in case of separation from the ground. That is exactly what happened. The plane took off and rolled along the upper rails after a 180-meter takeoff run. According to Maxim's measurements, the lifting force was about 50,000 newtons, that is, it would be enough not even for 3.5, but for 5 tons. Further, under the pressure of these one and a half tons, the upper wheels and rails began to break. The steam was cut off and the plane crashed to the ground.

The damage was repairable, but the experiments were terminated. Obviously, during the short "corridor" flight, Maxim was convinced that the machine was unstable and uncontrollable. It was necessary to change the entire structure, but there was no money for this.

The first internal combustion engine aircraft were built by the Hungarian Nemethy in 1899 and the Russian Fedorov in 1896-1903, but they are classified as curiosities. A more serious apparatus was built in Austria-Hungary in 1899 by the Russian emigrant Kress. It was a float amphibious aircraft of the original scheme: it had three wings, located one after the other, with a slight vertical offset. For the first time on a real aircraft, all control surfaces could be deflected with one stick, and at the same time.

By the middle of 1899, everything was ready, with the exception of the main engine. According to Kress's calculations, he was required to have a specific gravity of no more than 5 kilograms per horsepower, but there were no designers capable of manufacturing such a motor. In 1900–1901 Kress conducted ground, or rather, surface tests on a lake near Vienna with less advanced engines, knowing that he would not be able to take off. During the next maneuvers, the device capsized and sank. The designer, who personally operated the machine, was not injured, but after the accident, the enthusiasm of the sponsors faded, and the new airplane was never completed.

Another candidate for the role of the creator of the first successful aircraft with an internal combustion engine was another immigrant, this time from Germany to the United States, Gustave Albin Whitehead, nee. Gustav Albin Weisskopf, an aviation pioneer who designed and built the engine and ultralight aircraft that some aviation historians believe he flew more than two years before the Wright brothers. In 1895 he emigrated to the USA.

Much of Whitehead's aviation activity dates from 1895–1911. However, at this time he did not receive recognition. In 1901, the Bridgeport Sunday Herald reported a supposedly successful half-mile flight by Whitehead in the vicinity of Bridgeport.

In 1902, he allegedly made even more impressive flights in his Whitehead 22 aircraft. Whitehead made two flights on January 17, 1902 in an improved model with a 40 hp engine. With. and aluminum construction instead of bamboo.

In two published letters to American Inventor, he reported: “The flights were over Long Island Sound, flying distances of 2 miles (3 km) and seven miles (11 km) at an altitude of up to 200 feet (61 m). The flights ended with a safe landing in the water (the fuselage of the apparatus was a boat). Whitehead also reported that he tested the yaw system by changing the speed of the propellers and the "rudder" during the second flight, and they worked so well that he was able to make a big circle and return to the coast, where his assistants were waiting for him.

Whitehead in 1911 independently studied vertical flight, created a 60-blade helicopter. He was able to lift himself off the ground without a pilot. However, Whitehead realized that he needed a much more powerful engine to make the experimental helicopter a serious project. Soon a significant part of his property was confiscated. From 1915 Whitehead worked as a laborer in a factory, where he repaired engines to support his family.

In order to test the feasibility of Whitehead's flight in 1901 and confirm its priority, American aviation enthusiasts began building Whitehead's aircraft in 1985. Whitehead's dangerous acetylene engines were replaced with modern light engines. December 29, 1986 Andy Kosh made 20 flights on it, of which the farthest was about 100 meters. On February 18, 1998, the German version of the aircraft flew about 500 meters.

American actor Cliff Robertson, an experienced aviator, studied the issue of Whitehead's flight primacy. In the 1980s, Robertson set out to test the legend of Gustav Whitehead, a German immigrant who may have built and flown an airplane in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1901, two years before the Wright brothers. Robertson built a replica of Whitehead's craft and piloted it himself, landing it on the runway at Bridgeport. He took off from the trailer carrying him and made a short flight, which confirmed the possibility of Whitehead's flight. "We will never dispute the undoubted role of the Wright brothers," said Robertson, "but if this poor German immigrant really built an airplane and flew one day, then let's give him the credit he deserves."

In 1935, Popular Aviation magazine published the article "Did Whitehead Make the First Powered Flight Before the Wright Brothers?", which was co-authored by Stella Randolph and aviation historian Harvey Phillips. Randolph developed the article into a book: The Forgotten Flights of Gustave Whitehead (1937). The article and book brought Whitehead's name back from obscurity and sparked a subsequent controversy that continued for years among aviation enthusiasts and historians about whether Whitehead's work was fact or legend.

The controversy about the primacy practically subsided until the 1960s, when William O'Dyer found several photographs of Whitehead's apparatus in the attic of a house in Connecticut. Thereafter he devoted himself to researching Whitehead's work and became a strong proponent of Whitehead's priority.

On April 18, 2015, The New York Times reported that Connecticut (USA) legislators questioned the priority of the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright in making the world's first airplane flight in 1903. The resolution adopted by them states that the first flight was carried out on August 14, 1901, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe city of Bridgeport and Fairfield, an emigrant from Germany, Gustav Whitehead, who rose on his plane to a height of 16 meters and flew more than one and a half kilometers on it.

In support of this version, the article says, Connecticut teacher Andy Kosh built and successfully tested in 1986 at the airport. Sikorsky in Stratford, the model of G. Whitehead's aircraft.

Aviation researchers Louis Chmil and Nick Engler acknowledged the possibility of Whitehead's flight before the Wright brothers, but argued that his achievement was of little significance.

While Whitehead's supporters insist that he was the first to fly, none of them claim that his work had any influence on early aviation or the development of science. Even if anyone ever took a photograph of apparatus No. 21 in flight on August 14, 1901, it would be nothing more than a footnote, a curious anomaly in the history of aviation.

Whitehead's work attracted the attention of various aviation circles, manufacturers and researchers at the time. For example, Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who built a flying machine called the Airfield, secretly sent an assistant to find out the dimensions and technical details of Whitehead's plane.

In October 1904, John J. Dvorak, a professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, announced publicly that Whitehead had progressed further in the development of the aircraft than other people who were doing similar work.

According to an article by William O'Dyer in Flight Journal, when the Wright brothers were looking for a light engine to fly at Kitty Hawk, Octave Chanute urged Wilbur to study one of those made by Gustav Whitehead. Orville Wright denied that they ever met Whitehead at his shop, stating that they only stopped in Bridgeport on a train ride to Boston.

According to reports provided in the 1930s by two Whitehead workers, the Wright brothers visited Whitehead's shop on Pin Street twice in 1902 and earlier. One quoted Whitehead as saying, "Now that I've told them all my secrets, I bet they'll never fund my plane."

Even Stanley Beach stated that Whitehead "deserves a place in early aviation in connection with his advanced extremely light engines and aircraft. The five-cylinder kerosene engine with which he claims to have flown over Long Island Sound on January 17, 1902, was, I believe, the first aircraft diesel."

History shows that Gustav Whitehead walked his own path to flight, sharing his knowledge along the way. The Wright brothers apparently had the same passion for flying, but they pushed hard for patents to get a commercial result.

New Zealand farmer Richard Pierce would have had much more to dispute the Wrights' priority. This self-taught engineer made a number of inventions and created in 1902 an original two-cylinder engine that developed 15 horsepower with a mass of only 57 kg. In the same year, Pierce equipped an airplane he designed with this engine.

Unlike the Wrights, Pierce did not care about the evidence base of his experiments. There is not a single photograph of his airplane in the air. But, unlike Whitehead, Pierce's flights are confirmed by a sufficient number of witnesses. True, there are discrepancies in the descriptions and dating. Some believe that it first took off on March 31, 1902, but it is more likely that the first flight occurred exactly one year later. All flights ended in accidents; usually the plane just clung to the hedges, and only once the engine overheated caused an emergency landing. So why did even Pierce himself recognize the priority of the Wrights, who took to the air only in December of that year? The reason is the same - uncontrollability.

The last competitor of the Wrights, their compatriot Samuel Pierpont Langley, was at one time much more famous than two obscure bike mechanics. This prominent scientist-astronomer did a lot for the development of aerodynamics. He first coined the term "aerodrome".

In 1887–1906 Langley was engaged in aerodynamic research and the design of aircraft. Langley began experimenting with rubber-powered aircraft and gliders in 1887. He built a "spinning arm" (a functional analogue of a wind tunnel) and built large flying machines with small steam engines.

His first success came on May 6, 1896, when his unmanned "Model No. 5" flew nearly a kilometer after being catapulted from a boat on the Potomac River. Despite the fact that this flight was uncontrollable (and this important point for the development of aviation), aviation historians believe that this was the world's first confident flight of a heavier-than-air powered vehicle. On November 11 of the same year, his "Model No. 6" flew over 1.5 kilometers. These flights were stable and there was enough lift to fly such a craft.

In 1898, based on the success of his experiments, Langley received a US military grant of $50,000 and $20,000 from the Smithsonian Institution to develop a manned aircraft, which he called "Airfield" (from two Greek words meaning "air runner"). Langley recruited Charles M. Manley (1876–1927) as an engineer and test pilot. When Langley learned from his friend Octave Chanute of the successful flights of the Wright brothers' 1902 glider, he made an attempt to meet with them, but they politely turned him down.

The aircraft, called "Aerodrome A", was basically ready by the beginning of 1901, but the engine was completed much later. Langley managed to achieve a power of 50 liters. With. with a mass of 94 kg. Not only in absolute, but also in specific power, it was better than that of the Wrights. This result remained unsurpassed for several more years. The take-off weight of "Aerodrome A" was only 340 kg with the pilot. Takeoff was to be made from a barge.

Glenn Curtiss made several modifications to the Aerodrom and flew them successfully in 1914. Thus, the Smithsonian Institution has reason to claim that Langley's Aerodrome was the first craft to prove "capable of flight." On the one hand, it was part of his fight against the Wright brothers' patent, and on the other hand, it was an attempt by the Smithsonian Institution to leave the priority of creating the first aircraft for Langley. However, the courts upheld the patent.

The best inventors of the whole world worked on the creation of the aircraft. The number one issue was the creation of a light and powerful engine. Little thought was given to how to operate a winged machine. The main thing is to fly. Failure to manage ended sadly. Otto Lienthal died in 1896.

The American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright also really wanted their winged car to take off. But at the same time, they understood: before you sit in the pilot's seat, you need to learn how to fly. But how to do it? By that time, no one had invented a flying plane yet. The Wright brothers found a way out of this situation. To master the skills of piloting, they made a glider capable of flying several hundred meters at low altitude. Glider flights taught aeronauts to keep the balance of the aircraft in the air.

In addition, Wilbur and Orville used their ability to ride a bicycle when considering the control of the future aircraft. With its help, they found that in the air the plane will be easier to turn if it is tilted in the direction of the turn. After all, this is exactly what cyclists do, laying a steep turn. Observations of the flight of birds, in particular buzzards, led them to the conviction that the controllability of the glider should be achieved not by moving the weight of the pilot, as was done before, but by using aerodynamic forces on the moving wing. Only after understanding how to fly an aircraft, the Wright brothers began designing the engine. In the end, they managed to make a light and powerful enough gasoline engine.

It is unlikely that the Wright brothers became what they are in the history of aviation, if not for the experiments of Lilienthal and Zhukovsky in the field of aerodynamics of the wing.

The Americans designed a special wind tunnel, with the help of which they studied all kinds of profiles and wing shapes in search of the most optimal one. Then the Wrights moved on to testing their theoretical conclusions on gliders of their own design, and only after that they began to create aircraft. This method has been rewarded. On December 14, 1903, the Flyer, the first airplane of the Wright brothers, took off for 3.5 seconds.

Three days later, the youngest of the Wrights, Wilbur, was able to stay in the air for a full 59 seconds and overcome 260 meters. It is interesting that, pleased with such a fantastic result, the brothers decided to make them public. The press did not appreciate the information received: “Only 59 seconds. If there were 59 minutes, then it would be worth talking about it.

But the restless Americans themselves were not going to rest on their laurels. A year later, the Flyer II was successfully tested, and a little later, its improved modification, the Flyer III, was successfully tested. The latter made a flight lasting 39 minutes. 23 seconds and covered a distance of 38.9 km. In the next two years, they continued to improve the design of the airplane and made more than 200 flights. On May 22, 1906, the brothers received a patent for their invention.

In 1909, the brothers created the Wright Company, which produced aircraft and trained pilots. On May 30, 1912, Wilbur died of typhoid fever in Dayton. Orville Wright died on January 30, 1948 in Dayton. After his death, the first powered airplane, the Flyer I, entered the Smithsonian Institution in Washington as an exhibit.

The flight of the Wright brothers marked the birth of air transport - new, mysterious and unknown. The emergence of the ability to move through the air has become a symbol of the XX century. Many years have passed since then. During this time, the plane has turned from a dangerous entertainment into a reliable and fast mode of transport that has repeatedly reduced the distance between cities, countries and continents.

In the field of aircraft construction, the achievements of Russian designers are impressive. Russia stands at the origins of the creation of jet aircraft. Despite the fact that work in this direction was started by Spanish and French inventors, the artillery officer N. A. Teleshov took up the development of aircraft with jet engines. On a monoplane of his own design, he planned to install a pulsating liquid-fuel jet engine. The main difference between the unit was that the mixing of fuel vapors with air had to occur even before entering the combustion chamber. The Teleshov project did not receive proper support and interest in the creation of aircraft of this type fell for some time.

Work continued in the 1880s. The Russians S. S. Nezhdanovsky, A. Winkler, F. R. Geshvend took up issues of increasing the efficiency of jet engines through the use of more energy-intensive fuel. In the projects of Nezhdanovsky, it was supposed to use engines running on compressed gas, water vapor, a mixture of nitroglycerin with alcohol or glycerin with air.

According to Winkler, a jet engine should be powered by a burning mixture of gaseous oxygen and hydrogen obtained by electrolysis.

Geshvend developed a biplane project - "tailless". This design, called "Parolet", had elliptical wings and a cone-shaped nose. According to the inventor, the Parolet was supposed to take to the air after a long run along the railroad and reach speeds of up to 280 km/h.

The ideas of Russian designers to create high-speed aircraft were met with distrust. This is understandable, because the aircraft of that time were designed for much lower speeds. Therefore, the projects of airplanes with jet engines seemed fantastic to contemporaries and were forgotten. The time for jet aviation has not yet come. Nevertheless, Teleshov, Geshvend and others occupy a worthy place in the history of science.

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, gliding found itself in a crisis, and designers faced the task of inventing a fundamentally new aircraft. The way out of the impasse was found by the Wright brothers, who discovered the aerodynamic method of control.

But this will be another page in the history of man's conquest of air space. And her name is aircraft engineering. The fame of the creator of the first aircraft to take off from the ground belongs to the British John Stringfellow.

By the end of the 19th century, it became clear that, due to their size and weight, steam engines could not be successfully used in aircraft construction. The most important milestone in the history of aircraft construction was the invention in 1876 by the German engineer N. A. Otto of the internal combustion engine. His main idea was that before ignition, the working mixture must be compressed, and the explosion should be carried out in the extreme upper position of the piston. The engine was called a four-stroke.

A few years later, the German engineer Gottlieb Daimler invented a gasoline engine. A carburetor was used in it, in which gasoline evaporated, the vapors mixed with air and entered the engine cylinder. In the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the inventions of Otto and Daimler, the most important obstacle to the creation of aircraft heavier than air was overcome.

The flight of the Wright brothers, the construction of internal combustion engines by the inventors Otto and Daimler opened the way for the development of aircraft construction. The coming twentieth century was destined to become the century of AVIATION.

France gradually became the leader in the aircraft industry. In 1905–1910 in France, Santos-Dumont, Ferber, Blériot, and the Voisin brothers were engaged in the creation of aircraft. They copied the scheme of the Wright brothers, gradually modifying and improving it. Blériot created a monoplane of an original design. In England, White built the aircraft, in the US - Curtiss.

The period from 1903 to 1910 was the final in the creation of the image of aviation, since over the years there were:

1) the basics of the theory of flight and the principles of aircraft layout were understood and practically studied (Lilienthal, Shanut, Mozhaisky, Zhukovsky, the Wright brothers);

2) the foundations of aerodynamics were laid - the science of the forces and moments acting on an aircraft in flight (Lilienthal, Langley, Zhukovsky, Eiffel, Prandtl);

3) created aerodynamic configurations of aircraft with the necessary set of properties;

4) the dimensions of the aircraft and the power-to-weight ratio were chosen, which ensured sufficiently long motor flights.

The greatest technical success was accompanied by the designer Professor G. Junkers, whose company managed to create and launch in 1915 the first all-metal monoplane aircraft "J-1" - the prototype of all existing aircraft. At about the same time, on the opposite side of the earth, in the city of Seattle, on the Pacific coast of the United States, a wealthy lumberjack William Boeing founded a company for the production of light mail seaplanes, which today is the Boeing Company - the world's largest manufacturer of main liners used by all air carriers. peace.

As for Russia, its aircraft design ideas also did not stay idle. In 1913, the world's first four-engine aircraft "Russian Knight" flew. At the beginning of 1917, there were 20 aircraft and engine factories that produced original and licensed aircraft.

The next period in the development of aviation turned out to be associated with the combat use of aircraft. For the first time, the aircraft were tested as combat aircraft in 1911 in Tripolitania (Libya) during the war between Italy and Turkey and in 1912 in the Balkans during the war between Greece and Bulgaria. Only one of the warring parties (Italy and Bulgaria) had planes. They were used for communication and reconnaissance.

Unlike man-made flying birds, the idea of ​​​​creating helicopters appeared, apparently, after observing the flight of dragonflies. A helicopter, also called a rotorcraft or a helicopter, is an aircraft in which the lifting force is created by rotating propellers. Despite the significantly lower speed compared to aircraft, devices of this type have a number of advantages: they are able to instantly, without a takeoff run, take to the air, hover in one place for a long time, and then continue flying in any direction. Rotorcraft flights were carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, while the very concept of a helicopter has a much earlier origin. According to some reports, more than two and a half thousand years ago, the Chinese invented a flying pinwheel in the form of a stick, to the upper end of which a propeller was attached. The stick was spun in the palms and released. This funny toy was, apparently, the great-grandfather of modern helicopters. But the first documentary evidence that people considered the possibility of vertical flight using rotating planes dates back to the 15th century.

In the manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci there is a drawing of a machine with a screw. This is undoubtedly the prototype of a helicopter. He intended to equip his apparatus, called by the Italian "helicopter", with a rotor made of starched (for strength) linen. The rotor was supposed to be driven by the pilot, who, wrapping a rope around the mast and pulling behind it, set the propeller in rotation, as the Chinese did when launching their toys. There is no data on the rise of Leonardo's helicopter into the air. Knowing, however, the character of the great Florentine, his versatile interests and habit of taking on everything new without finishing what he started, we can assume that the first helicopter was never launched, and, perhaps, remained only on paper.

The world's first documented practical development of an aircraft heavier than air was carried out by the great Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov. In 1754 he built a model helicopter. He was not aware of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, since the latter were first published only at the end of the 19th century.

Lomonosov theoretically substantiated and practically implemented the first model of an aircraft heavier than air. He made the first practical attempt in history to use the Archimedean screw for flight. The screw at that time was not yet known even as a propeller for sea ​​vessels. The discovery shows that Lomonosov correctly understood the laws of air resistance and found a force capable of supporting and propelling the apparatus in flight. Obviously, in an effort to destroy the reactive moment, Lomonosov provided in his helicopter two propellers rotating in opposite directions.

However, the inventor of the helicopter is officially considered the Frenchman Paukton, who, 14 years later than Lomonosov, designed a small helicopter in 1768. French scientists, physicist-mechanic J. Bienvenue and naturalist B. Lonoy, built a small model of a helicopter equipped with an energy source in the form of an ordinary bow from an elastic whalebone, which flew. They reported their invention to the French Academy of Sciences on April 28, 1784. An apparatus of a design similar to Lomonosov's helicopter was built in Europe half a century later by Jacob Degen in 1816.

The English inventor W. G. Philipps made an attempt to increase the lifting force of the propellers. In 1849, he developed an aircraft that used the jet principle of propeller rotation. To do this, pressurized steam escaped from the ends of the blades, which rotated the rotor. The following year, designer George Cayley, already familiar to us, came up with the idea of ​​​​how to make the helicopter more manageable.

George Cayley published two articles on aviation issues in which he expressed the idea of ​​​​a polyplane aircraft, and also published a project for a tiltrotor with four disk-shaped bearing surfaces. He came up with an "air carriage" equipped with propellers for vertical flight and four round wings to move along the ground. And yet, Cayley's design cannot be considered a rotorcraft in the full sense of the word, it was a cross between a glider and a helicopter.

The first mention in Russia after the helicopter of M. V. Lomonosov of the construction of a helicopter model (1861) is contained in the preface of the description of the aircraft project given by M. Saulyak. In 1863, the projects of helicopters were published by the journalist A.V. Evald and the mining engineer P. Alekseev.

In 1869, A. N. Lodygin, known for his inventions in the field of electrical engineering, proposed a project for a vertical take-off apparatus with an electric motor. The aircraft, called Lodygin "electrolet", was intended to solve such military tasks as aerial reconnaissance and even bombing.

In the second half of the 19th century, the outstanding meteorologist M.A. Rykachev also dealt with the problem of creating a helicopter. Like Lomonosov, Rykachev sought to solve the problem of studying the upper layers of the atmosphere with the help of aircraft. Having personally made several ascents in a balloon, the scientist was convinced of the imperfection of balloons for the planned research and turned to the development of aircraft heavier than air.

In 1870, the French researcher A. Peno created a model of a helicopter with propellers rotating in opposite directions (as mentioned above, this idea was first proposed by M.V. Lomonosov in 1754). This made it possible to solve the problem of balancing the reactive moment acting on the model. At the same time, experiments with helicopters were carried out in France: Renoir (1872), Melikoff (1877), Dandro (1878–1879) and others; in Italy: E. Forlanini (1877), in the USA: L. Crowell (1862), D. Wootton (1866), D. Wad (1876) and others.

Work related to rotorcraft was carried out in Russia by D. K. Chernov, S. K. Dzhevetsky, I. O. Yarkovsky, S. S. Nezhdanovsky, N. E. Zhukovsky. The main problem facing the inventors at that time was the development of the engine. Projects have been proposed in which it was proposed to supply compressed air through pipes from the ground for a tethered helicopter (L. D. Andre). A. N. Lodygin, S. A. Notkin, O. I. Miroshnichenko and others suggested using an electric motor as power plant helicopter.

The problem in the development of screw vehicles turned out to be the creation of a theory of rotors. S. K. Dzhevetsky in 1892 laid the foundations for the theory of the “blade element”, which for many years was the main guide for helicopter designers in choosing the parameters of rotors.

In the 19th century, many designers worked on projects for rotorcraft. But they cannot be called the true inventors of the helicopter. Their creations are just models that have not been tested. They were not patented and, most importantly, they were not piloted. The question of equipping helicopters with engines was not popular. The development of this area of ​​aviation lagged behind the progress in gliding and aeronautics in general.

Despite some delay in the development of helicopters in the 19th century, the first rotorcraft appeared almost at the same time as the first aircraft. The progress was driven by the development and use of motors.

In 1905, M. Leger's apparatus was the first to be launched. Its two counter-rotating propellers were driven by an electric motor. Leger's successes were undeniable: the car was able to take to the air for a while.

The year of birth of the helicopter is 1907. On September 16, 1907, the French machine of the Breguet-Richet company for the first time was able to get off the ground and lift a person above it. The Giroplane, as the creators called their aircraft, was powered by a single 50 horsepower gasoline engine connected to four
screws.

Really the first free flight in a helicopter was carried out by Paul Carnot. This historic event took place on November 13, 1907 in France near Lisieux. P. Carnot took to the air on a twin-screw aircraft equipped with an Antoinette engine with a power of 24 liters. With. The car was in the air for only 20 seconds at a height of 0.3 to 1.5 meters (different data are given in the literature). But even this height seemed huge. A significant drawback of the first rotorcraft was their uncontrollability. The search for the optimal design continued. The Italian J. A. Crocco suggested the creation of a helicopter with a cyclic pitch propeller. This idea was brought to life a few years later, in 1912, by the Danish inventor Jacob Ellehammer.

A significant contribution to the helicopter industry was made by the Russian inventor Boris Yuryev. In 1911, while still a student and student of Professor N. E. Zhukovsky, Yuryev published a diagram of a single-rotor helicopter. The main advantage of his scheme is the method of controlling the rotor blades. The “swashplate” invented by him is one of the most remarkable devices in the history of helicopter construction. The principle of operation of this mechanism is very simple. Each propeller blade describes a circle during rotation. If the main rotor blades are made movable relative to their longitudinal axes in such a way that they can change the angle of inclination to the plane of rotation, then the movement of the helicopter can be very easily controlled.

It was a great discovery, which had a huge impact on the subsequent development of the helicopter industry. Today, all modern rotorcraft are equipped with "swashplates". However, Yuryev could not patent his invention, since he did not have money for this. Therefore, the first single-rotor helicopter in Russia according to Yuryev's scheme was built very late, in 1948.

22-year-old student B. Yuriev developed in in general terms the whole scheme of a single-rotor helicopter. This scheme is now used by 90 percent of helicopter builders. It was a giant breakthrough in the field of design. It is safe to say that a modern-type helicopter was born in Russia.

Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, the helicopter industry progressed rapidly: in 1905, the project of the first helicopter with a motor appeared, and two years later, the first helicopter with a person on board had already soared into the sky. In subsequent years, the development of the idea of ​​a helicopter will keep pace with the aircraft industry. It is important to emphasize that during this period the main types of modern rotorcraft were developed in general terms: single-rotor and multi-rotor helicopters.

In the first decade of the 20th century, air flight enthusiasts came to understand that their life's work could promise not only glory and danger, but also significant commercial benefits. The founders of the first aircraft manufacturing enterprise were the inventors of the airplane Orville and Wilbur Wright. Their family firm "Wright Company" had branches in other countries and brought big income. Subsequently, this enterprise was subjected to frequent changes. In 1916, Orville Wright sold his stock and the firm merged with Glen L. Martin's to form the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation. A year later, he left the association, and the company was renamed Wright Aeronautical Corporation.

In 1903, the Wright brothers built the first airplane with a gasoline engine with a power of 9 kW and a weight of 77 kg - the Flyer-1.

On December 17, 1903, a man took to the air for the first time on an apparatus heavier than air with an engine. The first manned flight was made, and the Wright brothers became the first aviators.

The main aircraft produced by the Wright brothers were:

Model A - the first standard biplane with a 30 hp gasoline engine. With.;

Model B - similar design with a 35 hp engine. With. with a wheeled and ski chassis and an elevator mounted not in front, but behind.

The first French aviation firm, Les Freres Voisin, was founded in 1906 by Charles and Gabriel Voisin. E. Ardicon and Louis Blériot built their first gliders at this enterprise. In the future, the main direction of the company's activity was the improvement of Voisin-type aircraft. "Voisin" receives a number of lucrative orders for the manufacture of aircraft, including from the famous Henri Farman. The Voisin firm became the leading French company of those years. Its aircraft formed the basis of the French bomber and reconnaissance aviation on the eve and during the First World War.

Henri Farman and Louis Blériot, who had collaborated for some time with Les Freres Voisin, soon left Voisin and became the founders of their own aircraft companies. Wright, Voisin, Farman, Blériot were, first of all, enthusiasts of air flights, and only then - businessmen. They all started out as poor lone designers who created their models by hand. And only success made them wealthy people who were able to invest in business.

The plane on which Blériot crossed the English Channel was his eleventh creation. Unlike the Wrights, who spent years perfecting the same basic design, Blériot tried a wide variety of designs. His biplanes were unsuccessful, only the "Blériot XI", designed by Raymond Saulnier, went into production. The aircraft first took to the air on January 23, 1909. In 1911, the Blériot XI, flown by Earl Ovington, became the first mail plane in the United States. On September 21, 1913, Adolphe Pegu, Blériot's factory tester, made a "dead loop" on Blériot XI.

The crude design of the Blériot-Saulnier monoplane was unstable in the air and dangerous during landings, which eventually led to a ban on its operation in the armies of France and Great Britain in 1912. However, it was on the basis of the Blériot XI design that the Fokker Eindecker, the first and successful example of a specially designed fighter, was launched in 1915.

But at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, a new type of people appeared in the aircraft industry - wealthy industrialists, whose plans were to create "aviation empires". These include the wealthy French silk merchant Armand Deperdussen. In 1910, he founded the SPAD Aircraft Company. Responsible for the development of the company was appointed Louis Bechereau. A young engineer André Erbemont was involved in the work. They brought immortal glory to SPAD. Béchereau designed a series of strong and lightweight monoplanes.

The company's first success came in September 1912 when Deperdussen's airplane won the Chicago air race. The following year became even more productive: a number of prestigious trophies were won, including the Schneider Trophy race in Monaco. And on September 29, 1913, the SPAD aircraft entered its name in the history of aviation, setting an absolute world speed record in the first attempts to turn 203.85 km / h. However, fortune turned out to be changeable. Soon Deperdussen's company suffered a financial collapse. Its new owner was "pilot number 1" - Louis Blériot. He cunningly changed its full name so that the abbreviation "SPAD" remained unchanged. In this capacity, the firm prospered for many years, and its aircraft constituted a significant part of the aircraft in service with the French army.

Another French company, Societe Anonyme des Etablissements Nieuport, was founded by Edouard de Nieuport in 1910. The first aircraft produced by this campaign was based on Blériot's airplanes, but had a more streamlined fuselage. With this apparatus, Nieuport set a world speed record.

In 1911, the company released a new modernized aircraft, designed by Nieuport himself - "Nieuport 2N". He could reach speeds of 109 km / h and in the competition held under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense of France, he became one of the winners. This victory served as a stimulus for the development of the company: it received an order for the production of 10 airplanes.

A glorious page in the history of Nieuport aircraft is connected with Russia. In 1913, in Kyiv, it was on the devices of this company that P. N. Nesterov performed the “dead loop”. During the war years, the Nieuport became one of the best cars. These aircraft served in British, French, Italian and Russian squadrons.

In 1914, Blériot and his company Blériot Aéronautique bought the assets of the aviation company SPAD, which produced more than 10,000 aircraft during the First World War.

Before the First World War, several large and world-famous aircraft manufacturing firms were created. It was in their hands that most of the aircraft production of that time was concentrated. Their products have spread all over the world. As a result, by 1914, most of the countries that entered the war were armed with reliable, but similar in flight performance and design aircraft.

Russian pilots and aircraft designers were in no way inferior to their foreign counterparts. Less than seven years have passed since the historic flight of the Flyer, and in Russia several factories have already launched the production of their own aircraft. It was in Russia that the aircraft designer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was able to create the first passenger aircraft.

The aircraft was named "Ilya Muromets". It was a biplane with a top wing span of 30 meters. When loaded, it weighed up to 7 tons, but at the same time it reached speeds of up to 130 km / h.

He made his historic flight with sixteen passengers and one dog on board in February 1914. And already in the summer, the passenger plane entered military service and became the first bomber. Russia entered the war. None of the warring countries had such an aircraft. In total, during the war years, the Russian army received 60 Muromets, which made 400 sorties. And only one of them was shot down, and even then after it was attacked by 20 enemy aircraft at once.

Interest in the use of hydroaviation arose in 1910. This was understandable - land planes began to set distance records, but water was still an insurmountable obstacle for them. On March 28, 1910, the Frenchman Henri Fabre made the world's first seaplane flight from the surface of the water, but the idea of ​​amphibious aircraft was not developed in the 1910s. The aircraft had too much weight, and the float-wheel landing gear created significant aerodynamic drag. Such low-speed seaplanes were of no interest to the developing military aviation. As practice has shown, the amphibious aircraft was also in demand by commercial aviation.

In just a few decades, seaplanes have gone from being an unstable aircraft on the water to being a reliable transatlantic carrier. The optimal combination of seaworthiness and flight qualities of seaplanes has become the main task of designers, which has been solved with varying success all this time. Experiments with the material, the number of floats and the general design of the aircraft led to a simple solution: aircraft on the water were obtained from ordinary biplanes by attaching floats to the wheel landing gear. The scheme turned out to be successful and provided a large carrying capacity. At the next stage, the floating hydroplane replaces the "flying boat" - a solution for troubled waters. The works of G. Curtiss, F. Donnet in this direction became classics and served as a model for the creation of many flying boats in 1912–1914.

By the end of the First World War, the Junkers Ju-II experimental hydroplane and the Dornier “flying boat” were created. In their design, metal and a monoplane scheme were first used.

During the First World War, the only transport artery between America and Europe was the sea passage across the Atlantic. This path for transport ships was quite long and risky, since German submarines and combat surface ships lay in wait for them in the ocean. The successes achieved by that time in the field of aircraft construction made it possible to create a "flying boat" of long range and carrying capacity. The most ardent supporter of this idea was Admiral Taylor of the US Navy Ordnance Department. The admiral managed to interest the US government, and in December 1917 he received money to build a series of large "flying boats" capable of flying across the Atlantic Ocean.

The design and construction of transport "flying boats" was entrusted to the firm "Curtiss". Its owner, the famous seaplane designer Glenn Curtiss, enjoyed great prestige with the military. Back in 1910, demonstration takeoffs and landings of his first seaplanes were held. And in 1914, Curtiss was already building a twin-engine flying boat, the H-12 Big America, for flights across the Atlantic.

Curtiss' new transatlantic "flying boat" was built in a very short time. The first prototype, designated "NC-1" ("Navy Curtiss 1"), flew in October 1918. The airship became one of the largest American aircraft of its time. The 16.8 meter long fuselage was crowned by a strong biplane wing box with a maximum span of 38.4 meters. The take-off weight of the device exceeded 10,000 kg. To lift it into the air, three 400-horsepower Liberty 12 engines with pusher propellers were used.

Traditionally, wars stimulate the development of weapons. In this regard, hydroaviation experienced a special fate. During the First World War, 2,500 seaplanes were built. In 1914, seaplanes took on a wide range of military tasks: reconnaissance, combating enemy naval aviation, destroying enemy ships and submarines. Naval aircraft were improved, armed and differentiated according to their purpose. Fighters, reconnaissance aircraft, multipurpose aircraft, and torpedo bombers appeared. The decks of ships began to be used as a permanent base.

After the end of the war, in hydroaviation, as well as in aircraft construction, production began to curtail. A new war seemed impossible, and, according to the strategists of that time, there was no one to protect the coast and the sea.

The impetus for the development of "flying boats" was civil aviation. The seaplane had two significant advantages over conventional passenger aircraft. First, he could land on the water and take off from the water. Accordingly, this factor could play an important role in the development of airlines in Asia, Africa, South America, Oceania and in geographical research. Secondly, seaplane flights over the sea were safer than conventional aircraft. Considering that forced landings due to engine problems in the 1920s were a fairly common occurrence, this advantage of a seaplane became especially significant.

The advancement of "flying boats" was facilitated by a number of outstanding flights. In May 1919, three American four-engine "flying boats" "Curtiss NC-4" launched the first transatlantic flight in the history of aviation from Newfoundland (Canada) to Plymouth (England). The crew of one aircraft under the command of A. Reid managed to fly to England. The 6,315 km route was covered in 12 days, with intermediate stops in Portugal, including the Azores, and Spain.

In 1924, American single-engine seaplanes of the Douglas company carried out the first round-the-world flight in the history of aviation along the route of the continental United States - the Aleutian Islands - Japan - China - the Middle East - Europe - Greenland - the United States with a length of 42,398 km. Due to numerous flight accidents, the air travel took more than six months, the planes landed 66 times. Four aircraft took off - "Seattle", "Boston", "New Orleans" and "Chicago", of which two completed the flight - "Chicago" and "New Orleans".

C. Dornier was a pioneer in the use of metal structures in hydroplane construction. Back in the First World War, he built several heavy "flying boats" of the "Rs" series. His first "boats" were biplanes. Since 1917, Dornier began to use a monoplane scheme. The design experience of the war years was developed in the 20s. During this period, Dornier designed and built 16 models of "flying boats" for various purposes.

One of the most famous "boats" of C. Dornier was the twin-engine aircraft "Val", created in 1922. It had an original design. The fuselage was a duralumin boat with a wide flat bottom. The crew of the aircraft consisted of three people, in the passenger version, "Val" could take 9 passengers on board. Max speed flight was 180 km / h, range - over 1000 km. In total, about 300 aircraft were built. Due to the fact that Germany was forbidden to have large-capacity aircraft, the aircraft was built at the Dornier factories in Switzerland and Italy. It was used in the USSR, Spain, the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, Japan, Yugoslavia as a passenger and transport aircraft. The plane set 20 world records.

In 1926, Western countries lifted restrictions on the size and carrying capacity of aircraft under construction in Germany. Dornier designed the "Super Val" - an enlarged version of the "Val" with two engine nacelles above the wing, each with two Bristol Jupiter engines. Two separate cabins could accommodate 21 passengers. Super Val was mass-produced in Germany by order of Lufthansa.

The most famous seaplane of K. Dornier was the Dornier Do X. Built in 1929, the 12-engine "flying boat" was the largest aircraft in the world. It had a wingspan of 48 meters, a total engine power of 7200 hp. s., take-off weight - 52 tons. The passenger capacity of the "Do X" was 66 people, and in one of the demonstration flights, which took place on October 31, 1929, the aircraft lifted 169 people. This record stood for 20 years. The role of C. Dornier in the development of "flying boats" turned out to be similar to the role of G. Junkers in the development of aircraft.

Another German aircraft designer, Rohrbach, tested the Ro-2 seaplane in the port of Copenhagen. 10 of these aircraft were subsequently ordered by Japan for their Navy. In 1926, Rohrbach began designing three-engine commercial "flying boats". The first was a 10-seat Rohrbach Roland with BMW-IV engines, acquired by Lufthansa in the amount of 9 copies. It was followed by the "boat" "Romar", capable of carrying 12-16 passengers in two closed cabins. Three of these aircraft were bought by Lufthansa for flights over the Baltic, one was purchased by the French Navy. The "boat" was equipped with new German BMW-VI engines.

Despite his best efforts, Rohrbach failed to secure large orders. In 1931 the firm was closed.

The American "flying boat" "Consolidated Commodore" - a twin-engine monoplane with a wing raised on racks above the fuselage, was designed as a long-range naval reconnaissance aircraft. About 50 of these aircraft were built.

In the UK, a well-known manufacturer of "flying boats" was the company "Short". Oswald Short patented the idea of ​​a metal hull for "flying boats" in 1921. He was not only an initiator of the use of metal in the construction of "flying boats", but also an advocate for the use of metal working skins.

Short built the first "flying boat" with a metal working skin in 1924 on the basis of the Short F.5 twin-engine "boat" during the war. After applying a zinc coating to the skin, the ideas of O. Short were put into practice.

Along with "flying boats", amphibious aircraft became widespread. The ability to take off and land both from land and from water made this type of aircraft attractive for use in areas where there were no special landing sites. In this regard, the amphibian can be called an "air all-terrain vehicle."

Commercial aviation has changed the requirements for amphibians. There was a renewed interest in these aircraft. One of the first post-war amphibious aircraft was the two-seat Loing OA-1C, which was built in the USA in 1924. A powerful 12-cylinder Packard engine and an unusual way of connecting the fuselage to the float without a gap between them, which made it possible to reduce drag, provided the aircraft with the same characteristics as the famous DH-4 with wheeled chassis. With the wheels stowed in niches in the central float, the OA-1C could reach speeds of up to 196 km/h. The float protruding forward protected the motor and propeller from splashes. The aircraft had a long life: one of the modifications was made during the Second World War. The Loing OA-1C has been used by the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and as a commercial aircraft.

The development of amphibious aircraft in the United States is associated with the name of I. I. Sikorsky. He was the first to produce specialized passenger aircraft of this type "S-38", which appeared in 1928. The aircraft was a twin-engine polutoraplan with an 8-seat passenger cabin. This aircraft brought fame and commercial success to Sikorsky and the Pan American passenger airline, which was the first to use aircraft. Reliability, a variety of base conditions and a large power reserve made it possible to use the S-38 in the most difficult conditions. The plane took off from unprepared sites and water areas in Central and South America, Hawaii, and Africa. He easily maneuvered on the water, could autonomously taxi out of the water onto a gently sloping shore.

The aircraft set several speed and altitude records for this class of amphibians. In total, more than 100 copies of the S-38 were built.

The development of the S-38 was the FBA-19 amphibious boat with a more powerful Hispano-Suiza engine with a power of 350 hp. With. (1924). The amphibian was used as a military reconnaissance aircraft, as well as for commercial purposes.

By order of Pan American, in 1930, I. I. Sikorsky, on the basis of the S-38 aircraft, designed a 4-engine S-40 with Pratt-Whitney Hornet engines with a power of 575 hp each. With. At the time, it was the largest amphibious aircraft in the world. It could carry 28 passengers over a distance of 800 km at a speed of 185 km/h.

Successful amphibians were also built by the English company Supermarine. In 1921, by order of the Navy, the company developed a large carrier-based amphibious aircraft "Seagull" with a boat-shaped fuselage. The plane was supposed to take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier and was intended for long-range naval reconnaissance. The crew consisted of three people - the pilot in the front cockpit, gunner and observer - in the rear, behind the wing.

Another Supermarine amphibious aircraft was the Sea Lion flying boat. According to its purpose, it qualified as a fighter. Its prototype was the Supermarine Sea Lion racing aircraft, which won first place in the seaplane competition for the Schneider Prize in Naples in 1922. With a power plant capacity of 450 liters. With. the aircraft was twice as light as the Seagull and could reach speeds of up to 250 km/h.

French seaplanes of the first post-war years can be represented by single-engine "flying boats" of the FBA company. This company stood at the origins of the development of seaplanes, its first "flying boat" was created even before the start of the First World War. In 1923, FBA engineers built a very successful FBA-17 model with a 150 hp Hispano-Suiza engine. With. Until 1930, 229 biplane seaplanes were produced for the French Navy.

Hydroaviation in Russia began to emerge in 1911. At first, seaplanes were purchased abroad, but soon Russian engineers V. A. Lebedev and D. P. Grigorovich created several models of “flying boats”. In 1912–1914 the first aviation units were formed as part of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets. The “flying boat” designed by Grigorovich “M-5” surpassed foreign models of similar types in terms of its flight performance.

In the Russian Navy, the first aircraft-carrying ship "Orlitsa" was based on Grigorovich's "M-9" seaplanes, which had machine guns and were capable of carrying bombs. On July 4, 1916, four aircraft took off from the deck of the Orlitsa and conducted an air battle over the Baltic Sea with four German aircraft, which ended in victory for the Russian naval pilots. This day - July 4, 1916 - the day of the first victory in an air battle over the sea by naval pilots on Russian seaplanes based on the first Russian aircraft carrier, is considered the birthday of naval aviation.

From a design point of view, multi-engine marine aircraft became a new phenomenon at this time. The float version of the Ilya Muromets aircraft had an increased range and carrying capacity, better seaworthiness and was the ancestor of a whole family of passenger seaplanes of the 1920s-1930s.

The first successful seaplanes in the USSR appeared in the early 1930s. These were the MBR-2 short-range reconnaissance aircraft designed by G. M. Beriev and the Sh-2 multi-purpose amphibious aircraft by V. B. Shavrov. Both aircraft were single-engine all-wood "flying boats", but the "MBR-2" had a cantilever monoplane wing, and the "Sh-2" was made according to the polutoraplan scheme. Triple "MBR-2" was in service with the Navy. 1365 of these aircraft were built.

Sh-2 was used to transport passengers and cargo, for ice reconnaissance and in underdeveloped areas of Siberia, the Far East and the Far North. He could take off and land on small land airfields, and in their absence - on rivers and lakes, took 3-4 passengers on board. From 1932 to 1934, the aviation industry produced about 270 Sh-2 aircraft.

The 1930s saw the triumph of Soviet aviation, design ideas and, above all, naval pilots, who showed examples of flying skills, courage, courage and heroism. They were repeatedly involved in the performance of special tasks. The polar aviation was recruited from naval pilots, which played a huge role in the development of the Northern Sea Route.

Beginning in the late 1940s, the world began to reduce programs and transactions related to military hydroplanes. The "golden age" of hydroaviation is behind us. Much of the advantage of an airplane on the water has become nominal in the age of jet and supersonic aviation speeds.