Aeromarine Origins - Putnam

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EROMARINE ORIGINS H. F. King

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Nothing could epitomize the theme of this book to better advantage than the photograph above, showing the 1911 Monte Carlo Motor Boat Exhibition. Like some amoeba at the very centre is the amazing device which Henri Fabre persuaded to become the first marine aircraft to fly. It was regarded, for the purposes of the occasion depicted, both as a motor boat and as an aircraft.

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'We should then be deriving our boat from a better architect than man . . .' .Sir George Cayley, I809

'The method of procedure in this case is to float the machine on the water, drive the engine for all it is worth, put the horizontal rudder in the lifting position, and then it either flies or it does not ...' Lawrence Hargrave, I902

'The object of interest was the hydroplane which Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the airship, were tampering with ...' Dayton Daily News, March 2I, I907

'... like a fine bird, between water and sky in the changing lights.' Mr E. W. Wakefield, I9II

© H. F. King 1966 Printed and bound in Great Britain for Putnam and Company Ltd 4 2 Great Russell Street, London, w C I by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Set in Monotype Plantin Published in the U.S.A. in 1966 by

Aero Publishers Inc 329 Aviation Road, Fallbrook, California Library of Congress Catalog Card number 66-20 10 5

CONTENTS Foreword

IX

Lighter than Air

II

Flying over Water

13

Flying from Water

19

Flying in Water

41

Winged Hulls

44

Hydrofoil Boats Planing Boats

5° 65

Air Lubrication

73

Air Cushions

79

Vista

88

Index

89

FOREWORD been fascinated by the affinities existing between air and water, and the craft that move in them, and with air-cushion vehicles and hydrofoils now heightening my interest, I thought it worth inquiring into the relationships between the two elements as influencing marine and aeromarine practice. This book emerged, and although it deals with what is past, its content is effectively new, having lain unnoticed or unheeded while man fervidly strove to mount as an eagle before scudding along as a flying fish. I shared with many others a deep regret at the secession of the flying boat. Something, I felt, was amiss or unexplained; and having always envisioned some species of craft that would rise from the water and proceed through the air at the lower levels, I was strengthened in that belief. Today there is a growing probability that in one form or another the marine 'aircraft' will return. Whether its appellation will be 'dynamic interface vehicle', 'surfaceeffect ship', 'winged hull', 'aerodynamic boat' or 'hovership' is not for the present important. As for this book, it deals with nothing later than 1914, and I hope it will bring a recurrent tingle of incredulity to all whose blood is stirred by marine aircraft, hydroplanes and hydrofoils, air-cushion craft - all the unfamiliar and inter-related forms of rapid over-water transport that in this sixth decade of the twentieth century now enter our lives from the past. HAVING LONG

(

London 1966

H.F.K.

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LIGHTER THAN AIR IN A BOOK wherein we set out to rescue from oblivion some of the most curious heavier-than-air devices ever constructed it comes as the first surprise to find that the natural beginning was man's first ascent in a balloon, on November 21, 1783. After witnessing this event Benjamin Franklin found himse1fpondering the possibilities ofthe new-found means oflocomotion to secure 'release from the wheel' - to use the phrase of Christopher Cockerell, whose 'Hovercraft' brought this to pass over a century and a half later. Writing to the Royal Society, Franklin observed: 'Some think Progressive Motion on the Earth may be advanc'd by it, and that a Running Footman or a Horse slung and suspended under such a Globe so as to have no more of Weight pressing the earth with their Feet than perhaps 8 or 10 pounds, might with a fair Wind run in a straight Line across Countries as fast as the Wind, and over Hedges, Ditches & even Waters.' The idea of 'floating on air', envisioned in Franklin's letter, was again propounded by an unknown philosopher during the nineteenth century. While this sage did not hold that man could ever fly as high, or as fast, or in any degree as easily, as a bird, he nevertheless ventured the opinion that he might fly 'somewhat like one'. 'What,' he asked, 'is to prevent a man making two balloons, flattish, and in the form of wings, which, instead of flying away with him ... should be so proportioned to his size and weight as that they would not do more than raise him an inch or so off the ground, and so keep him stotting and bobbing lightly about.... Having attained this position of, so to speak, readiness to fly, there is nothing to prevent him from propelling himself by means of fans ... .' Yet, as with heavier-than-air craft, so with lighter-than-air, man's ambition to soar to the heights was compulsive. Only in the sport of balloon jumping were human beings to be observed stotting and bobbing lightly about. I make a single exception - a very curious one, and not strictly 'lighter-than air', though obviously stemming from ballooning practice. The following extract from the Scientific American of December 31, 1904, together with the photograph, tell their own remarkable and sorrowful tale. 'It may take time and the efforts of others,' the American journal reflected, 'to demonstrate whether or no Peter Nissen has left anything of scientific value in the ideas he entertained of travelling over land and water in a balloonshaped apparatus such as that in which he lost his life in an attempt to cross Lake Michigan on November 29 last. Despite his failure to survive the II

FLYING OVER WATER

November 29, 19°3: Peter Nissen setting out" in his balloon-like c:ontrivance to cross Lake Michigan. He lost his life.

journey, it is evident that an apparatus such as he des1gned will roll with the wind over land, water or ice, but it is too early in the history of the device to determine in what field it might prove serviceable or useful. Man has already devised and constructed so many things in which he may travel, that this infant of Nissen's has not yet found its place.' Yet a vehicle that will traverse land, water or ice has today found a place the air-cushion vehicle. And Nissen's device was indeed an 'A.C.V.' - of a kind.

THA T IT would be safer to attempt to fly over water than over land was the belief of some of the earliest visionaries and experimenters. Leonardo da Vinci not only suggested the testing of a flying machine over a lake but advised on safety equipment also. 'You should carry,' he said, 'a long wineskin as a girdle, so that in case you fall you will not be drowned.' The first practical expression of this aquatic philosophy came in the 1740s, when a French marquis attempted to glide across the Seine. An inscription on an early print relates: 'The Marquis de Bacqueville had announced that he would cross the Seine with some wings of his own invention. On the appointed day he threw himself from the terrace of his mansion on the Quai des Theatins. His flight was at first fairly happy, but over the middle ofthe Seine got into difficulties, and the Marquis, falling on to a boat, broke his thigh.' Some sixty years after the marquis' attempted crossing of the Seine the French general Resnier de Joue retired to his birthplace at Angouleme. The year was 1801 and he was 72 years of age; yet he set about constructing a gliding apparatus which he attached to his person as a kind of corset. Launching himself from a rampart 80 metres above the River Charente, he descended to the surface of the river without accident, and was rescued by a boatman. In a later venture he broke a leg by falling in a field. Over a hundred years after, as we shall see, the Seine was the river from which the first water take-off was effected; and in 1911 it was to receive the first amphibious aircraft on its maiden water alighting. The French seem to have had a natural predilection for associating air and water. At the International Conference on Aerial Navigation held in Chicago in 1893 L. P. Mouillard submitted a paper describing 'a method of experimenting for a soaring apparatus which I have long contemplated, and which I most certainly would have carried out myself if the failure of my health had not left me too crippled to perform the necessary manoeuvres .. .' He explained: 'The method is not new.... It was apparently employed by Dante * in his exploits over Lake Trasimene, for it simply consists in carrying on the experiments over a water-bed.... It will be necessary to make the first experiments in the summer, when the water is warm, for the first attempts to soar will surely result in a succession of duckings and it will be best that

* This Dante (or Danti) experimented over Lake Trasimene (or Trasimeno) before the turn of the fifteenth century. Shades of Leonardo. 12

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When launched in 1903 from a houseboat on the River Potomac, Samuel Pierpont Langley's Aerodrome came to grief. Extensively modified, and fitted with floats, it was made to fly by Glenn Curtiss in 1914, as seen here.

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they should not be disagreeable.... The body of the man and the aeroplane [sic] should both be so arranged as to surely float.' Why the distinguished Mouillard paid no homage to his compatriots whose ventures were recorded earlier in this chapter I do not know. Decades passed, but the same ideas remained. Expounding his own philosophy to members of the Sydney Engineering Association who visited his laboratory in May 1902, Lawrence Hargrave said: 'The first thing to provide for is safety: it is worse than useless to take any risks: a man may spend years getting to the trials stage, and then break his neck by being too adventurous. The method of procedure in this case is to float the machine on the water, drive the engine for all it is worth, put the horizontal rudder in the lifting position, and then it either flies or it does not... .' It is significant also that the tests of Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley's

Major B. Baden-Powell making an over-water glide at the Crystal Palace during 190 4. Existing water chutes were found to be unsuitable, and a special staging was erected.

historic and successful models (1896) and likewise his heartbreaking full-scale attempts with the Aerodrome of 1903 were made over water - from a houseboat on the River Potomac. And when in 1914, Glenn Curtiss eventually succeeded in flying the reconstructed and much modified 1903 machine, he fitted floats. During 1904 Major B. Baden-Powell, assisted by Mr J. T. C. Moore Brabazon, was making over-water glides at the Crystal Palace. Concerning these experiments he wrote: . 'It is ... manifest that before we can build a proper airship we must make a series of trials with some apparatus progressing through the air and carrying an ae~onaut to direct its course. Several experimenters have tried gliding machines, which have been designed either to soar down the face of a hill in the teeth of a wind, or to be drawn along by a string. But in addition to other drawbacks, these systems have the serious objection of being very dangerous to the operator. Already two ofthe principal experimenters in the line have lost their lives through some small deficiency in their apparatus, and if tried over land there is always the danger that any small mishap may result in the machine losing its balance and precipitating its operator to the ground. Such machines, at all events as hitherto designed, cannot well be tried over water for obvious reasons.... 'One of the simplest means of giving an initial speed to any body is to cause it to run down an inclined track and to shoot off into the air at the bottom. If means are adopted to prevent the machine from leaving the track before it gets to the bottom, and if it is then projected over a sheet of water, there can be but little chance of a serious accident. 'I therefore decided to erect such a track, and conduct a series of experiments. Existing "water-chutes" at once suggested themselves as ready-made tracks, but, after examining several, and even making experiments with aeroplanes on them, I came to the conclusion that such were not suitable for the purpose.... 'By the courtesy of the Management of the Crystal Palace, the magnificent grounds of that institution have been placed at my disposal. ... Here I have had a large staging erected.' I illustrate one of the experiments. During 1907 Dr Alexander Graham Bell's immense 'tetrahedral kite' the Cygnet (it had 3,393 cells), was positioned in the middle of a lake and r;ised against the wind by towing behind a boat. There are very strong links here with Glenn Curtiss, the greatest name in the development of marine aircraft; for Dr Bell was founder of the Aerial Experiment Ass?ciation, of which Curtiss became 'director of experiments'; and the Red Wmg, the first powered aircraft produced by the Association was initially flown (March 12, 1908) from the frozen surface of Lake Keuka~ It had a sleigh undercarriage - of a type proposed by Wilhelm Kress in the early 1890s. Lake Keuka was to become the scene of much of Curtiss' early work on floatplanes and flying boats. Another who felt the aqueous instinct was Ernest Archdeacon, who

15

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The Aerial Experiment Association's Red Wing, with its ski-runner undercarriage. It was first flown, from the frozen surface of Lake Keuka, on March 12, 1908.

sponsored Gabriel Voisin's early experiments. Gabriel relates: 'Archdeacon, who had been disturbed by the accident at Issy-Ies-Moulineux, suggested to me some trials over the Seine. I was a good swimmer and, according to the ideas of my rich patron, water was the ideal shock absorber if there were an ' accident.' The outcome was the first take-off from water, as already mentioned and as later described. In a chapter on 'winged hulls' I shall allude to yet another Frenchman, Monsieur Leon Levavasseur, whose 1906 hydroplane was considered by Captain Ferber (one of the most respected French aviation pioneers) to be capable of rising from the water if 'fitted with aeroplanes and an aerial screw'. And from a boat that might fly to an aeroplane that might float in emergency was an early departure by Levavasseur. Colonel Harry Delacombe has related how this aeroplane - the Antoinette monoplane, with its thick watertight wings and long boat-shaped body - came to demonstrate its buoyancy in dramatic and historic circumstances. He was giving an eye-witness account of Hubert Latham's attempt to win the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for the first cross-Channel flight - on July 19, 1909. Having viewed through a telescope the start from Sangatte and observed Latham's passage over the tug in which he was embarked, he later recorded: 'Bad luck dogged this plucky pioneer, for after he had travelled some seven or eight miles his motor suddenly stopped and he was obliged to descend to the water by a series of long glides. His machine eventually took the sea with scarcely a splash, and floated on the surface like a great seagull with outstretched wings until we arrived near him in the tug. 'His customary sang-froid had not deserted him for a moment, for he sat in the canoe-like body of his machine placidly smoking... : Among the earliest and most fervent of British 'water fliers' was Mr E. W. Wakefield, who, in 19II, formed the Lakes Flying Company at Cockshott, Windermere, Westmorland. A letter he sent to Flight early in 1912 has its own story to tell:

'... this new invasion of the charms of Windermere .. .' (Canon Rawnsley in a letter to The Times) - the Waterbird of Mr E. Wakefield, who stoutly rebuffed the Canon.

'~anon Rawnsl~y has written to The Times and several other papers a poe.tIc aP1?eal cal.lmg ?n all lovers of the English Lakes to rise and protest agamst this new mvaSlOn of the charms of Windermere.... He does not tell you ofthe country's need for more trained flying men, and of better and more diverse machines; or how the United States Navy have adopted hydroaeroplanes, or how Germany and Holland are inquiring all about the new machine which he is so anxious to wipe off Windermere. He does not tell you that almost everyone who has seen it flying agrees that it adds to the great natural beauty, like a fine bird, between water and sky in the changing . lights: . The. aircraft which inspired this impassioned protest was the Waterbird, a ~urtIss-type floatplane built by A. V. Roe. It was initially flown from Wmdermere on November 25, 1911 - only one week after the first British take-off from water by Cdr Oliver Schwann. As late as 19.12 a corres1?ondent of The Aero was extolling the prudence, as . ,,:ell as the delIghts, of flymg low over water. 'Except to obtain an extended VIew,' ~e. said, 'there is no necessity to fly high, for the sensation of flight is ~ore VIVId when within twenty or thirty feet ... and at the lower level it is dIfficult to imagine any actual breakage which could entail serious results... : Yet, far from echoing these beliefs, Gustav Hamel and C. C. Turner declared in 1914 : 'Nor are the dangers of hydro-aeroplaning less than those of overland flying ... in a big fall the damage is just as great, and there is some danger also of being held under water if the machine is submerged or overturned.' This was e~ident1y true of the 'box-kite' type of biplane, as the actor/airman Robert Lorrame was to find on the first flight from England to Ireland. After B

17

a terrifying crossing of the Irish Sea, during which his engine stopped ~ve times, he finally ditched a hundred yards from .lan~, finding ~imself strugglmg under water, with 'a medley of hampering WIres around hIm. Yet he freed himself and made the shore. The argument thereafter became a~ academic one; but I hope to ~ave shown that in the dawn of flight there was, m another of Mr. Wakefield s rapturous phrases concerning flight from water, 'something that beckoned .. .'.

FLYING FROM WATER ONE OF the least forgivable perpetuations by aeronautical writers during the past half-century is the idea that marine aircraft had their origins when land aeroplanes were given floats or hulls instead of wheels. The fact is that Octave Chanute saw a water-borne aircraft which he considered to be capable of flight if given more power (and told Wilbur Wright as much) well before the 'tniracle at Kitty Hawk'. But first I must record the earliest known serious proposal for a heavierthan-air marine aircraft. This was patented by Alphonse Penaud in 1876 and was a true amphibian, having retractable wheels as well as wing-tip floats.

The world's first powered marine aircraft: Wilhelm Kress' twin-hulled tandem triplane, of which Chanute told Wilbur Wright: ' ... it seems to me that it may actually fly if a motor lighter than the present one can be obtained.'

18

The first powered marine flying machine (and incidentally the first fullsize aircraft to have a petrol engine) to be brought to the point of testing was Wilhelm Kress' flying boat (Chanute's term). It had two aluminium floats or hulls to which three wings were attached in tandem. Alas for the persevering Kress, who had been experimenting with aerial devices since 1877 and had waited something like two years to test his flying bO:,lt, as the craft was beginning to lift from the water on a trial during 1901 he saw an obstruction ahead. He slackened speed and attempted to turn; but the machine capsized. Still he worked on, and in a letter from Vienna, dated March 13, 1903, we find Chanute advising Wilbur Wright: 'Today I spent with Wm. Kress, who experimented with a flying boat last year. You may remember that pictures of it were published at the time, and that it came to grief; turned over and surtk [sic] upon the first trial. It has 19

since been rebuilt.... It seems to me to possess some excellent points in construction, and that it may actually fly if a motor lighter than the present one can 'be obtained. The latter is a Daimler weighing some 30 lbs. per H.P... .' Poor Kress .... One of my greatest difficulties has been that of isolating the first instances of particular arrangements of floats and hulls. Penaud, as I have said, proposed an out-and-out flying boat, with central hull and lateral floats; but what of the twin-hull arrangement, the floatplane with two main floats and a tailfloat, and so on? As early as 1897, it appears, Gallaudet (whose company later constructed seaplanes for the U.S. Navy) was experimenting with twin-float gliders, and three other schemes seem to have been the proposals, or actual productions, of Lawrence Hargrave. We must note (I cite an article in the January 1964 issue of the Australian journal Aircraft) that Hargrave was formerly working with the Australian Steam Navigation Company, 'where, in the drawing office and workshops, he learnt much that was to be useful to him in his future career'. Hargrave's second design for a full-scale powered aircraft was intended to operate from water on four floats of light wood or papier mache. His fourth design displayed the classic twin-float plus tailfloat arrangement, which was subsequently changed (1903) to the almost equally familiar scheme of central float plus outboard floats. Of this steam-driven 'catamaran', the wings for

A twin-float glider constructed by the American Gallaudet in 1897. Gllllaudet's company was eventually to build seaplanes for the U.S. NavY. 20

Lawrence Hargrave's 'steam catamaran' of 1903. The wings were not built because Hargrave was uncertain about engine performance. .

which were never built, Hargrave observed philosophically, 'My new apparatus is merely a steamer ifit does not lift out of the water, and a flying machine if it does.' The use of what are known today as hydrofoil surfaces to lift an aircraft from the water was proposed by Professor Enrico Forlanini of Milan in a patent for which he applied early in 1905. He declared: 'My i~vention has reference to ships or vessels of that kind which, instead ofplowing their way through the water, skim over the surface, thereby offering much less resistance and as a consequence are capable of attaining very much higher speeds. 'Heretofore many attempts to produce an efficient apparatus of the hydropla~e.type have been made, the majority of them based upon the phenomenon exhibIted when a flat object, such as a stone for example, is thrown in such a manner as to glide over the surface of the water, rather than that of obtaining a true hydraulic flight. To this end it has been usual to make use of hydroplanes arranged, for example, in such a manner as wholly or partially to lift the vessel out of contact with the surface of the water when said vessel is propelled. 'The object of my invention is so to improve such devices that their efficiency is gfeatly increased, and one of the essential features ... is that a boat constructed in accordance therewith will be capable not only of skimming over the surface of the water, but may be also used as a flying machine of the ~eroplane type, and I have succeeded in constructing an apparatus which has III practice given most satisfactory results.' The last claim notwithstanding, Forlanini was unable to achieve aerial 21

flight, and even in the development ofhis waterborne hydrofoil craft, as later described, he was handicapped by his lack of a satisfactory engine. NeveJ;theless, that same year - 1905 - saw the first manned (though unpowered) flight from water, by Gabriel Voisin on June 6. His craft was a float-mounted glider, towed behind the racing motor boat La Rapiere, and the trial was conducted over the Seine.

The first manned flight from water (June 6, 1905) was made from the Seine by Gabriel Voisin in this float-mounted box-kite glider, towed by a racing motor launch.

Gabriel tells the story in his book Mes dix mille cerfs volants (19 61 ), translated by Oliver Stewart and published by Putnam in England in 1963 with the title Men, Women and 10,000 Kites. Thus Gabriel: . 'Now, fifty-five years later, as I write these lines, I hear once more the lapping of the water against the sides of the floats .... I had the cont~ols ready. I waited for a time and then I applied elevator. My lovely ghder instantly left the water. 'In a few seconds I was as high as the tops of the poplars along the quay. I went along without oscillation either in pitch or roll. We were approaching the Sevres bridge. La Rapiere slowed and I alighted on the water without incident.... 'I had flown from the Billancourt bridge to the Sevres bridge at an altitude of fifty to sixty-six feet.' Gabriel made three flights above the Seine that day. One was of 600 metres; the others of 100 metres and 30 metres. His historic float-glider was of Hargrave box-kite type (poetic justice, for Hargrave came near to being the first man to achieve flight from water) and was mounted on two floats constructed to his own designs. September of the same year (1905) saw similar experiments in progress at St Helens, Isle of Wight, by Dr F. A. Barton and F. L. Rawson. I quote some observations made in later years by Dr Barton himself concerning the photograph (which is reproduced) showing 'one of the hydro-aeroplanes which I, in conjunction with Mr F. L. Rawson, made and experimented with at the Isle of Wight'. Dr Barton described the craft as having a 'triangular duct' between 'dihedral planes', adding: 22

A little-known British experiment of 19°5: the water-borne aircraft built by Dr F. A. Barton and Mr F. L. Rawson at St Helens, Isle of Wight. It was fitted with a 'flying jib'.

'The machine rested on the water on light pontoons 26 ft. long, and weighing only 20 lb. each, and in addition to the dihedral wings, had on each side two main horizontal planes in front and two at the rear, all moveable.... 'Two vertical fixed planes and a small flying jib were placed in the bows to assist the action of the rudder in the stern.' How vividly that 'flying jib' epitomizes 'air and water'. 'The engine and 7 ft. propeller,' he went on, 'was arranged for on the steering deck, which was low down on the pontoons just behind the main planes. . 'The photo. shows the machine just being lifted out of the water after a trial on the open sea on September 26th, 1905.' Towing tests behind a launch were unsuccessful, and the intended 35-h.P. engine was never installed. Three days after the float-glider trials over the Seine, Gabriel Voisin and. Lo:us Bleriot met by chance and Bleriot suggested going into partnership. ThIS was agreed; and so largely to Bleriot's ideas (and much to Gabriel's alarm) a powered aircraft was built, the essential features of which were two ellipsoidal wing cellules arranged in tandem. Gabriel relates a tale ofdoubt and woe, the last indignity being the necessity of giving up the floats, which he knew so well, and of replacing them 'with "skids" equipped with buoyancy bags'. The initial test took place in 1906, on Lake Enghien. 'It was disastrous,' 23

'Disastrous' was Gabriel Voisin's description of trials in 1906 with this BleriotfVoisin contrivance, having ellipsoidal wing cellules. It is seen on Lake Enghien.

says Gabriel; so after further trials and errors, and by common consent, the idea of trials from water was given up. I briefly introduce at this point a water-borne wing-flapper and a marine helicopter. The flapper was the American Gammeter Orthopter of 1907, which had (or certainly was to have had) canvas-covered rubber floats, because the inventor 'intended to experiment over water'. The helicopter was first envisaged in 1905 by E. H. Mumford and J. Pollock Brown, who were in charge of tank-testing for William Denny & Brothers at Dumbarton. Two machines were built. The first made a successful ascent - from the grounsi in 1912, and the second is said by Mr Peter Lewis, in his book British Aircraft I809-I9I4, to have shown considerable promise in its tests on the Clyde before a storm wrecked it in 1914. Reverting to the development of 'conventional' marine aircraft, we are confronted with some remarkably unconventional engineering, and in illustrious company, for during 1907 the Wright brothers were themselves occupied with the problem of flying an aeroplane off the water, using not only floats but hydrofoils also. The story was later told in a letter from Orville to Commander Holden C. Richardson. Thus: 'In 1906 after our Government and some of the European governments had shown little inclination to take our invention seriously we thought a way to impress them of its importance would be to make a flight over the parade of battleships to be held at the Jamestown Exhibition in 1907. At that time we contemplated assembling a new machine at our old camp at Kitty Hawk, flying it from there to Jamestown, and after taking an unexpected part in the parade, flying it back.... As such a project could not be carried out safely in a single flight we decided to put hydroplanes and floats on the machine so that starts and landings could be made from the water. 'As soon as the weather permitted in 1907 we began experiments with the hydroplane on the Miami River at Dayton.... The cambered steel hydroplanes, located a few inches beneath the forward and rear ends of the floats, 24

and extending between them, do not show in the picture [in the Dayton Herald of March 21, 1907] as they are under water.... In these tests on the river we used the motor, transmission and propellers from our 1905 aeroplane.... That motor when functioning properly developed a little over 20 horsepower. But the experiments ... terminated before we succeeded in getting more than two thirds of that power. 'With 14 horsepower the apparatus quickly raised until only the bottom of the floats dragged on the water. But we failed with this power to get the front edges of the planes entirely out of water and thus let the planes skim on their rear edges as we had expected. Just as the front edges reached the surface the planes seemed to lose a part of their lift with a consequent sinking back into the water. This was due to the loss of the lift on the upper side when the water ceased to flow over the top, but we did not understand the cause of it at the time.... 'Immediately following these experiments negotiations with a foreign syndicate called us to Europe, so that the project of flying at Jamestown had to be given up.' I present with particular relish a contemporary report of the trials which appeared in the Dayton Daily News: 'The balustrades of the Third Street Bridge were lined Thursday morning with curious spectators.... The object of interest was the hydroplane which Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the airship, were tampering with in preparation for its initial experimental run. 'Although the inventors, who are being branded as geniuses, would not state the exact purpose of the hydroplane it was intimated that it is to be used in connection with their airship....

Almost unbelievable - although this photograph, jointly with reports in the text, bear testimony - is the fact that the Wright brothers were trying out hydrofoils for their aircraft as early as 1907. The scene is the Miami River, Dayton, Ohio.

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Although the Wrights were unable to appear at the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, Mr Israel Ludlow was there with this strange device. It was towed by a torpedo boat.

'The present machine which is uniquely constructed from water boilers, an old gasoline engine and numerous strips of wood and sheet iron, with the water planes of copper, made its sail down the Miami River amid the encouraging cheers of the assembled spectators.' The non-appearance ofthe Wrights at Jamestown must rank as one ofthe bigger disappointments of history. Yet an aeromarine craft was present nevertheless. A multiplane affair on floats, shown in a photograph, this was constructed in the Aeronautical Building at Jamestown by ten soldiers placed at the disposal of Mr Israel Ludlow, its originator, by the U.S. Government. Mr Ludlow had previously built a series of gliders, and by 1904 was towing them behind cars, with Charles Keeney Hamilton, later to become one of America's best-known airmen, as pilot. At Jamestown Mr Ludlow's remarkable creation was towed by a torpedo boat, but the intended two petrol engines Were apparently never installed and the craft was eventually wrecked. A powered aircraft resembling Mr Ludlow's was entered, early in 1909, for both the aeroplane and motor-boat meetings at Monaco. Called an aeroscaphe, and piloted by Monsieur Ravaud, it had a seven-cylinder Gnome and was about 25 ft long. There were tWo concentric peopellers aft. This craft never left the water and ultimately came to grief.

Seen here on a iand chassis, this 'a~roscaphe' was entered by Roger Ravaud for the aeroplane and motor-boat contests at Monaco in 1909. It came to grief.

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A remarkable British aeromarine contrivance of 1908/9 was the Humphreys Waterplane, built at Wivenhoe, Essex. A contemporary description ran: 'Amidships and incorporated in the lower plane is fitted the most original feature of this machine in the shape of a kind of coracle hull of very thin wood, in which the navigator sits. The reason for this is that Mr Humphreys has elected to start his aeroplane from the surface of the water, thereby eliminating practially all the danger attendant upon experimental flights from land in an untried machine. For a fall from a considerable height need haveno terrors with water below, and none of the fears of hedges, ditches, telegraph wires and disturbing air currents due to inequalities in the ground. Further, it is possible to skid on water, whereas land running gear would break or, at least, prove unresponsive to side influences.'

The Humphreys Waterplane, built at Wivenhoe, Essex, during 1908/9 by Mr Jack Humphreys, who is said to have been known locally as 'the mad dentist'.

This could, in fact, have been the first amphibian, for it was intended to be 'capable of arising from and alighting on both water and land'. By late 1908 Glenn Curtiss, in America, was himself at work upon the water. Experiments were reported in the first issue of Flight, dated January 2, 1909, as follows: 'The "June Bug" has now been slightly remodelled and mounted on pontoons.... During some recent tests upon Lake Keuka at Hammondsport, N.Y., the machine, now known as the "Loon", covered 2 miles (I mile with and one against a wind of 5 or 6 miles an hour) at an average speed of 27'06 miles per hour, but this was not sufficient to enable the apparatus to completely rise from the water. Further experiments are now being conducted with hydroplane hulls of various types.' This was over two years before Curtiss finally succeeded in taking off from water. His Loon was primitive, but the basic features of flying boats that were to follow many years later were discernible in the monoplane built by Major August von Parseval, 'for approval of the German War Office' and 27

A rare photograph of Glenn Curtiss' Loon (the June Bug on floats), which failed to become airborne during tests in 1908.

subjected to 'preliminary trials' during September 1909. It was intended to carry a crew of three and had a body of tubular steel. The engine was a Daimler of laO h.p. In England, late in 1909, design work was in progress at the Thames Bank Wharf Motor Works, Westminster, on a type of monoplane 'hydro-aeroplane' having 'catamaran hydroplane hulls'. I would give much to see a picture of this craft - if, indeed, it was ever completed. Gabriel Voisin provides yet another link in this chapter through his friendship with Henri Fabre, the first man to leave the water in a powered 'seaplane' (a term coined by Winston Churchill). 'Fabre,' Gabriel recollected, 'who was living in Marseilles, was our friend.

He often came to Paris and our discussions were always about flying machines. He was building a hydro-aeroplane - a seaplane, as the type was later called close to the Berre lake. It can be seen in the French Musee de l' Air at Cha1aisMeudon. It is an admirable machine, designed with the greatest care and made like a masterpiece.' Another distinction for a predecessor of this astonishing machine is that it appears to have been, or to have been intended as, the world's first fourengined heavier-than-air craft. An October 1909 report (which also alludes to two floats) bears witness: 'M. Henri Fabre has completed at Marseilles, and hopes to try shortly, a new combination hydro-aeroplane. The machine is of the tandem monoplane type, and mounted on two air chambers, so that it can start from and, if necessary, skim along the surface of the water. It is fitted with four 12-h.p. two-cylinder Anzani motors.' Having, it seems, tried hydrofoils and abandoned them because they picked up weeds and other floating debris, Fabre invented a type of float - flatbottomed, and having a curved upper surface - with which his name was thereafter to be associated. He arranged three of these under a tail-first apparatus, one at the forward end and two aft, under the wing. The same disposition of planing surfaces had been tank-tested by Britain's great naval architect William Froude during the early 1870s. A contemporary description of the Fabre floats ran as follows: 'These particular floats are so designed that when the machine is moving either through the air or on the surface of the water, or with the floats completely submerged, there is always a vertical lift on them due to the speed. When a hydroplane is travelling over a rough sea, if its speed is sufficiently

Major August von Parseval was responsible for this flying boat of 1909, amazingly far ahead of its time, with its monoplane wing and tractor propellers.

Close-up of the first powered aircraft to take off from water - Henri Fabre's Gnomeengined creation which was said at the time (1910) to be 'more hydroplane than aeroplane'.

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high and the waves large enough, there will come a moment when the forward part will be submerged in a wave into which at that moment the main body is just entering; that is to say, in spite of the vertical lifting effect due to the buoyancy of the float, there is also a contrary vertical force acting on its upper surface, which "'tends to cause such portion to dip, and the whole of the hull to pass under water. When this vertical downward thrust is greater than the upward thrust, a wreck would almost inevitably result, and the aim of the present invention is to prevent this.' . It will have been gathered that Fabre's approach to the problem of gettmg clear of the water was as much marine as otherwise, and it was said of his machine that it was 'more hydroplane than aeroplane'. It might even be suggested, in our aeromarine context, that it was as much a sailing craft as a hydroplane, for the wings were covered with 'simili-silk', such as was used for light boats, and when the craft was on the water this covering could be clewed up to prevent damage by sudden gusts. The general effect was that of a boat under bare poles. And yet the airframe appeared so heavy, and the floats so small, that it seemed remarkable that it would float - far less fly. Mr E. Holt-Thomas sagaciously expressed himself in June 19 12 : 'It has always seemed to me that too little attention has been paid to the flying part of the hydro-aeroplane machine, i.e., to the planes of the waterplane. What I mean is this; no matter how good the floats may be, an efficient waterplane can only be evolved by using an efficient aeroplane. The floats should be regarded as a landing chassis and a landing chassis only.... I have known Monsieur Fabre for a very long time, and we have often discussed his early experiments at Marseilles ... he was quite convinced that he must evolve an extraordinary machine to get over the holding power of the water; whilst I was convinced, and I think events prove me right, that if he had taken a very efficient biplane and attached floats to it, he would have flown successfully two years ago.' 'Successfully,' of course, was a relative word; but, while paying due attention to the views of Mr Holt-Thomas, I nevertheless affirm that Monsieur Fabre had indeed flown successfully two years earlier - that the world's first

Action study of the Fabre machine, with the curious 'lifting' floats almost clear of the surface.

flight by a powered aircraft from water was, in fact, made by him at Martigues on March 28, 1910, and that he was airborne at a height of about six feet for a distance of some five hundred yards. This historic take-off was Monsieur Fabre's first aerial experience of any kind. Even during the following year, 19II, the Fabre machine continued to be regarded as a phenomenon. I quote from The Yachting World: April I2 - 'There was an alarming incident at Monaco this morning, M. Fabre, the owner of the aero-hydroplane Goeland, nearly losing his life. Goeland is a novel kind of machine.... It is driven by a Gnome engine, and the inventor's idea is that, after skimming for a certain distance on the surface of the water, the plane should gradually rise up into the air. It has caused one ofthe competitors to remark that he thought of carrying a punt-gun mounted vertically on his craft in case the long-legged monstrosity looked like hopping over him and securing the prize. [Previously it had been suggested that the craft would compete as a motor boat, rigged so that it could not fly.] 'Since the weather conditions seemed perfect and the sea was quite smooth, M. Fabre determined on a trial run. The machine crossed the harbour in perfect style, skimming along the surface; nearing the harbour mouth, it rose up into the air to a height of about 30 yards, and soared along beautifully, greatly admired by thousands of spectators. As soon as it cleared the harbour, however, and encountered the full force of the wind outside, the machine became unmanageable and to the horror of the onlookers was swept along at a terrific pace towards the rocks and stone walls below the terraces. Fortunately, M. Fabre, with great presence of mind, managed to throw himself clear of the machine into the sea, and was promptly picked up, none the worse for his startling experience.' There is now evidence that the pilot on this occasion was Jean Becue. In the application of hydrofoils to aircraft the pre-eminent name is that of the Italian Guidoni, who began his experiments in 1910. As General A. Guidoni he told the story many years later. 'Having witnessed some of the trials of the Forlanini boat,' he said, 'I was impressed with the ingeniousness and the possibilities of this system. So when in 1910 I designed my first seaplane, I put on it the Forlanini type of floats, but soon realised that they were no good for a seaplane. The change from one vane to the other gave severe bumps to the machine and produced changes impossible to control. 'The Crocco system' [I shall have more to say about Crocco in the chapter on hydrofoil boats] 'gave a too small area owing to the size of the floats and, astonishing though it may appear, I did not know at that time of his work. In my first test, using a two floats seaplane, I placed the hydroplanes between the floats; this proved unsatisfactory, because the floats would never get out of water, the drag at the getting-off speed being too high. Then I tried the Forlanini vanes under the floats, but without success. 'My idea was then to have the hydro area divided in a multiplane with two or three legs; the vanes would be parallel and with a side inclination, the low end of each one being lower than the high end of the following vane.

3°

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-

.,-"'.~

For several years after 1910 the Italian Guidoni was developing schemes for hydrofoil aircraft. Glimpsed here, beneath the floats of one of his Farmans, is a very early installation of foils.

'This design had the advantage of the Crocco vane, because it gave a gradual variation of hydro area when emerging from water, and it had at the same time the advantage of the Forlanini's, in giving a sufficient hydro area with a considerable depth and a reduced width. , "Provando e riprovando" was my motto, but at the same time I tried to evolve the theory of the jumping due to the vanes.... 'The first set of vanes was built of steel plate and were very heavy. I tried wood with success and aluminium, which proved the best. In order to be able to move the vanes along the float, they were mounted on rings of steel plate or aluminium. The planes I used in this first stage of research were an old Farman 1909, F.I, and similar improved machines F.2 and F.3, built at the Navy Yard. Two monoplanes were also tested. 'Increasing the power and speed of machines, I found the wood vanes inadequate. I tried aluminium sheet vanes and then I standardised a set of steel vanes, which proved to be the right sort for any kind of machine, provided the size, thickness and shape were designed according to the power, speed and weight. I used ordinary steel plates, reducing them at the grinding wheel and welding the legs to the surfaces.' Yet one may search in vain the aeronautical history books of the past half century for any recognition of Guidoni's work. May his own utterances, which I have quoted, save his name from oblivion. Once again the name of Voisin presents itself, and in yet another tribute to it I record that the world's first successful amphibious heavier-than-air craft was a Voisin canard biplane. In addition to its wheels this was fitted with three Fabre floats, and during August 1911, piloted by Maurice Colliex, it 32

Seen in two elements is the Voisin 'canard' in which Maurice Colliex, during August 19II, took off from Issy aerodrome and alighted on the Seine, afterwards making the return trip. This was the first successful amphibian.

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I

Fabre floats were adopted for several types of aircraft. This fewer than four.

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V~isin

'canard' had no

took off from Issy on its wheels and alighted on the Seine, afterwards making the return journey. The take-off run from water was about zoo yards. Nor was this a 'one-off' freak, for Gabriel recalls that he delivered to the Russian Government 'eight to ten amphibious "canard" types'; and a Voisin canard 'hydro-aeroplane' was the first marine aircraft delivered to the French Navy (mid-19IZ). It was housed in a special hangar aboard the battleship Foudre.

As amazingly 'advanced' in design as was Fabre's glorious canard 'elementary' was a contemporary (early 1910) flying boat, having a catamaran hull, rear elevator, variable-incidence wing and a tractor propeller driven by a 50-h.P. three-cylinder Anzani. Designed by Monsieur Gabardini, it was constructed by MM. Seron and Lavagnau.

The Gabardini flying boat of early 1910, with its catamaran hull, variable-incidence wing, rear elevator and tractor propeller.

Glenn Curtiss first succeeded in leaving the water on January 26, 1911, using this biplane. It had tandem-mounted floats and a six-foot hydrofoil. It was later extensively altered.

ceeding in England. The aircraft was a monoplane designed by Oscar T. Gnosspelius and had Bleriot-type wings. It was first tried with twin floats and later with a broad single float; but it never became airborne, although a successor flew early in 191Z. The first British powered floatplane to rise from the water was an Avro biplane owned by Cdr Oliver Schwann and tried at Cavendish Dock, Barrowill-Furness, during 191I. Like Fabre, Cdr Schwann had never previously flown. The engine was a Green, the power of which was increased by fitting additional exhaust ports. I find - to my continuing astonishment - that both air lubrication and hydrofoils were involved in these experiments. In one installation' ... an ample air supply was led- through the floats to the after side of the steps'; and with this set of floats the first take-off was accomplished - on November 18, 191I.

More elegant still was the Charpentier flying boat, work upon which is said to have been in progress at St Malo during 1909. Likewise of catamaran type, this was to have had twin pusher propellers and a gull wing. I have no reason to suppose that it was ever completed. Truly it seemed that the designer had found as his inspiration some beautiful sea bird. Having failed in 1908 to coax his Loon from the water, Glenn Curtiss was obliged to proceed with his landplanes; but when he made his famous AlbanyNew York flight in one ofthese on May 31, 1910, he fitted it with two cylindrical under-wing floats (removed during the stop at Spuyten Duyvil), an airtight canvas bag, running the length of the strut that connected the front and rear wheels, and a small hydrofoil. With this equipment he made some flights over Lake Keuka and landed successfully upon the water. By the end of 1910 Curtiss had become so confident of his ability to get free of the water that he invited officers of the U.S. Army and Navy to his camp at North Island, San Diego. Success came on January z6, 1911, using two floats set in tandem and a forward-mounted six-foot hydrofoil. In February a single Iz-foot scow-shaped pontoon was fitted (before the paint was dry), and thereafter the machine was frequently and extensively altered, even, at one stage, becoming a triplane. In another phase it had retractable wheels. In that same year also - 1910 - experiments with a floatplane were pro-

Seen at Barrow-in-Furness, ;nhere it first left t~e water on .November 18, I9 II , Commander Ohver Schwann s Avro was tned With several different sets of floats. Hydrofoils and air lubrication were both employed.

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Of the hydrofoil installation I am able to give the following authentic description. The floats were 'fitted with two planes under the water. ... These were made of duralumin plate. Their span was 40 in., chord 4 in., and the distance apart 4 in. The plates were mounted one above the other at a depth of 20 in. below the water level and at an angle of 3° to the horizontal. Each plane was slightly curved to a depth of _{ie in.' Apparently this British Avro was the first marine aircraft to use the 'stepped' form of planing bottom. For some years to follow most 'seaplanes' were built to the twin-float-plus-tail-float formula, and the floats in consequence were too short to exploit the principle to advantage. There were, however, notable exceptions. During 191 I the Italian Crocco built a seaplane, having - I quote Guidoni - a 'hydrovaned boat'. The vanes proved too small in area, and the machine 'never got over critical speed'. Towed behind a motor boat, it did succeed in getting off, but was wrecked. Meanwhile, in America towards the end of 19II, Curtiss, whose 'hydros' were achieving international renown, was building what was called a 'family hydro', and which emerged as the first of his flying boats. The maiden flight was on January 10, 1912. A 60-h.p. engine drove twin tractor propellers through a clutch and chain transmissions, and the tail was carried on outriggers from the long and capacious hull. To the bedevilment of history, this machine has been repeatedly and prominently confused with a later type, first flown in the summer of 1912 and distinguished primarily in having the tail attached directly to a full-length hull. This formula was later to become the most common for craft of this class; but to contend that this was 'the first real flying boat' is wholly incorrect. The earlier type mentioned not only appears to have been called a flying boat by Curtiss himself, but the means of carrying the tail was perpetuated in the transatlantic NC-4. And that was certainly so termed by Curtiss and his colleagues. The first 'classic' type of flying boat, with the tail mounted directly on the

The French Donnet-Leveque flying boat of 1912 was the first 'classic' machine of its type - that is, having the tail mounted directly on the hull. Curtiss has been extensively and wrongly credited with this arrangement.

Glenn Curtiss' first flying boat - the 'family hydro', with its tail carried on outrig~ers and twin propellers driven through chain transmission from the hull-mounted engme.

hull, cannot, in fact, be credited to Curtiss at all, but to Denhaut, who constructed the Donnet-Leveque machine of this type in 1912. Among the least-known work which I have recorded in this chapter was that put in hand by the Wrights in 1907, and of which Bishop Milton Wright recorded in his diary: 'The boys rigged up their floats and hydroplanes and tried them on the Miami.' But the boys did not allow their trip to Europe to end their aquatic 'tamperings'; nor have I in mind their floatplane of 1913 or the flying boat of 1913-14. I allude to some almost unknown experiments undertaken in the latter year and described by Orville in a letter which illuminates with astonishing clarity our aeromarine theme. To William E. Valk, Jr, a patent attorney with the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, Orville wrote: 'Your letter inquiring about our experiments with so-called slotted wings was duly received. 'Mr Octave Chanute told my brother and me that he had heard that a surface with slots cut in it would give an increased lift and suggested that we try it in our tunnel. We did so in the fall of 1901 or spring of 1902, and found that a slightly increased lift resulted from the slots. The drift, however, was more than proportionately increased, so that we did not see any value in it at that time. 'In the summer of 1914 we experimented on the Miami river here at Dayton with cambered sheet-steel hydrovanes with an auxiliary narrow cambered strip of steel placed just above the forward edge of the main hydroplanes... .' Having recalled earlier difficulties, and affirming that the new scheme was successful in preventing the water from leaving the upper side of the 'hydroplane', Orville went on:

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'In 1918 or 1919 I tested this same arrangement in the wind tunnel, hoping to maintain the boundary-layer flow on the upper side and so secure increased lifts. But we did not secure a lift at all comparable to that secured by Handley-Page. 'Handley-Page could have..hadno knowledge of these wind-tunnel experiments, and it is most improbable that he had any of the hydroplane experiments, although we did send a hydroplane of this type to Pensacola in 1915. 'It is Handley-Page who has brought the slotted wing to a state of usefulness, and I do not think that anything we previously may have done along that line ought to affect the validity of his patent.' Could there be any more vivid example than this, not only of the theme of the present book, but of the interplay of great ideas? To resume our pursuit of marine aircraft 'firsts', whether regarded as a twin-hulled flying boat or as a twin-float seaplane the Radley-England waterplane of 1913 was of such remarkably original layout that I must give it a place. The accompanying photograph tells its own story: I feel it only necessary to add that the engines were three 50-h.P. Gnomes, coupled to a single shaft, and that the craft made several flights before an alighting accident. It was rebuilt with several modifications, and a 150-h.P. Sunbeam engine. I conclude this chapter by placing on record some British proposals and experiments involving hydrofoil undercarriages. In 191 I the Short brothers patented a scheme employing 'planes for varying draft'. An arrangement was described whereby a 'hydro-vane' supported a flying machine when alighting on, or starting from, the water.

Stimulated by work in Italy Lt C. D. Burney, R.N., persuaded the British and Colonial Aer?plane Co..Ltd. to un~ertake a design and development programme for aircraft havIng hydrofOIl undercarriages. In the upper picture the X.2 is seen on tow. The lower view shows the X.3 hoisted almost clear of the water.

'Whether regarded as a twin-hulled flying boat or as a twin-float seaplane the RadleyEngland waterplane of 1913 was of remarkably original layout... .' The engines were three Gnomes, coupled to a single shaft.

Some truly remarkable experiments were conducted jointly by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Co (later the Bristol Aeroplane Co) and Lt C. D. Burney, R.N. Stimulated by work in Italy - especially that of Guidoni _ Burney persuaded the company to undertake a secret design and development programme. The .first design, the X.I, was for a biplane; but this was abandoned. The X.2 was a monoplane with a boat hull which, after various trials and modifications, succeeded in becoming airborne. Unhappily it crashed almost immediately, owing to the premature slipping of the tow from a Naval torpedo boat. The X.3 was larger and more refined, but never became ai~borne. In June 1914 it was taxied into a hidden sandbank and, following WIthdrawal of Admiralty support, the experiments were discontinued.

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The essential features proposed by Burney are set out in a patent of 191 I. A monoplane layout is shown and the craft is described as an 'aeronautical apparatus furnished with laterally extended wings and having a body of boatlike form provided with inclined hydropeds upon which are disposed hydroplanes....' Mention is made of propellers and rudders for use in water, situated at the lower ends of the hydropeds, the rudders being connected to the wing-warping controls and to the aerial rudder so as to operate simultaneously and in sympathy therewith. It is further stated: 'The propeller for propulsion in the air is situated at the forward end of the apparatus and is put into operation as soon as the lift produced by the combined action of the water propellers and the hydroplanes is sufficient to enable the aerial propeller to be used.' I hope this chapter may disperse some of the mists and myths which, for well over half a century, have obscured the true history of flight, and that it may establish some new and rightful claims to a place therein.

FLYING IN WATER QUITE OFTEN in the early history of aeronautics is the fish exemplified as a form oflow resistance, and historian Charles Gibbs-Smith believes it possible that fish and boats may have brought the idea of streamlining to the mind of Sir George Cayley. The shapes of birds seem to have been a later consideration. An 1809 notebook entry by Cayley, quoted by Mr Gibbs-Smith in Sir George Cayley's Aeronautics I796-I855 and referring to the sketch on this page, observes: 'Trout on a scale of half an inch to one inch. Weight (being a well fed fish) 13 ounces, length from nose to the centre ofthe tail, 13 inches. In the figure

Sir George Cayley's design for a solid of least resistance, based on the form of a trout ( r80 9)·

... the girths are divided by three and reduced to a mean diameter so as to give a spindle the same girth at the respective places that the trout had. Why should not a boat be constructed to resemble one half of such a spindle by a section thro' the axis? We should then be deriving our boat from a better architect than man, and should probably have the real solid ofleast resistance.' The study of aerodynamic problems, using water as the medium, was undertaken in the early 1860s by Thomas Moy, an inventor and latterly patent agent, whose 'Aerial Steamer' lifted 2-6 in. off the ground in 1875. In The History of Aeronautics in Gt Britain J. E. Hodgson praises Moy's stalwart support of the Aeronautical Society in days when mechanical flight was commonly regarded as the futile hobby of unscientific - not to say deluded enthusiasts. Hodgson considered that Moy was entitled to 'a modest place with the pioneers of modern aeronautical science and technology'. I hope later to establish that he deserves a loftier eminence, in that, while experimenting in his 'water flying' (as he himself called it) he invented the hydrofoil boat. In the relating of aero- and hydro-dynamics the name of Moy is notable also for a paper of his which appeared in the seventh (1872) report of the

41

Aeronautical Society. The title wa; On the Application of Scott Russell's Wave-line to Aerial Machines, and it concerned a theory propounded by one of Britain's foremost naval architects. During the early 1870S the German physicist Von Helmholz was comparing the behaviour of models in both air and water, and in Germany also some remarks were made by Otto Lilienthal in his historic treatise Birdfiight as the Basis of Aviation, first published in 1889. 'It may be of interest,' he said, 'to experiment with slightly curved surfaces under water. Even on a very small scale we can obtain some results; as, for instance, when we move a spoon in a cup full of liquid we can notice the tendency for the spoon to move in the direction of this curvature. We may assume that the speculations which we have made [previously in the book] apply to a certain degree to movements under water, and the question arises whether there is not a gap in the theory of the marine propeller, because the camber of the cross-section has not been given sufficient attention... .' I have recorded that the first heavier-than-air take-off from water was made in 1905 by Gabriel Voisin in a Hargrave box-kite type of aircraft towed by a motor boat; yet two years earlier S. F. Cody had crossed the English Channel in a boat towed by a box-kite. These two events, so close in time and so paradoxical in nature, provide one of the more remarkable of our aqua-aerial associations. And at least two years before Cody's Channel crossing torpedo boats of the Russian Navy had been towing man-lifting kites for spotting the enemy. Doggedly experimenting with flapping wings as late as 1906 was Antoine Mutti. Having stated his theory, he wrote: 'My conviction that the secret of a bird's flight is explained in this way is arrived at as the result of a great number of experiments both in the air and also (more latterly) in the water. The resistance of the water being greater than that of the air, it is naturally easier to fly upon the water, and it can be done absolutely without danger. I am the owner of the English patent, and of a little model of a flying boat, which I shall be glad to show to anyone who is interested... .' The 'little flying boat' will have a place in our chapter on hydrofoils. Discussing relative dynamic and buoyant support, Major George O. Squier, U.S. Army Signal Corps, had this to say in 19°9: 'Peter Cooper-Hewitt [the inventor of the mercury-vapour lamp, and who was experimenting with a hydrofoil craft in 1907] has given careful study to the relative behaviour of ships in air and water. He has made a special study of hydroplanes, and has prepared graphic representations of his results which furnish a valuable forecast of the problem of flight. 'Without knowing of Helmholz's theorem, Cooper-Hewitt has independently computed curves for ships and hydroplanes from actual data in water, and has employed these curves to solve analogous problems in air, using the relative densities of the two media, approximately 800 to I, in order to determine the relative values of support by dynamic reaction and by displacement for various weights and speeds.'

Britain's own debt to maritime practice drew comment from Professor J. H. Biles at a meeting of the British Association in 1911. The professor a naval architect of distinction - reminded his audience: 'The question of the strains produced upon the plane has been mathematically investigated, and was afterwards experimentally confirmed by Mr. Froude in his experiments upon the screw propeller. This covered much of the mathematical ground needed in the discussion of aeroplanes, although mathematically Froude neglected the circular motion. I would like to add that one of the earliest practical flying men, Mr. Pilcher, was one of my own assistants, and he was also a naval officer. We owe much to the Navy in the past, and must look to it in the future for further assistance in respect to mechanical flight.' To my immense satisfaction I have justification for including Pilcher's work in this 'flying in water' chapter. Obviously motivated by his gliding experiments, he and his partner W. G. Wilson rigged up a 'cyclone sail' for a 17-ft boat, and tried it in the Solent during 1897 (two years before Pilcher was killed). The sail worked 'on the principle of the kite' and exerted 'a lifting effect'. In any case, the 'umbrella boat', as it was otherwise known, was intended to sail on an even keel, without being inclined by the wind, and therefore to offer less resistance than when proceeding with a list. With an ordinary rig, 200 sq. ft of canvas proved too much for her; but with the 'umbrella' she carried 360 sq. ft and sailed much faster. Messrs Thornycroft of Chiswick were said to be building 'a light boat especially adapted for the sail'. It is fitting to remark that Pilcher was an acquaintance not only of Sir John Thornycroft, patentee of the air-cushion boat, but also of Otto Lilienthal, constructor of marine engines and pioneer in aeronautics.

42

43

Pilcher's 'umbrella boat', with its 'cyclone sail'. It was intended to sail on an even keel, thereby lessening resistance.

WINGED HULLS Now WE consider how aerodynamic means were used to relieve water-based aircraft of hydrodynamic resistance, and an English clergyman first enters our story. In the last years of the nineteenth century the Rev. E. Rust was trying unsuccessfully to arouse some interest in a form of transport vehicle with which his mind was occupied. This was a kind of 'flying machine' which would be 'amphibious to air and water; that is, with a boat or ship-shaped sub-structure, so as to rest upon the water, or to travel along its surface, as well as through the air'. The craft was to be lifted and propelled by 'feathering paddles consisting of four fans'. These last were alternatively called 'wings'. The boilers for the light marine engine would be supplied with water 'by pumping from the sea when afloat, or by projecting a feed pipe into the water when skimming over its surface'. That the reverend gentleman really intended his craft to operate in ground effect (the existence of which was doubtless unknown to him) is clear from his declaration that: 'There would be no need to rise more than a few inches (or a few yards at most in rough weather) above the surface ofthe ocean... .' Overland operation he considered possible, 'but only to a very limited degree ...'; adding that 'travelling, to some extent, might be conducted along the lines of the rivers and canals'. The 'principal scope' of the machine, however, would be 'to supersede the discomfort and delay of over-sea transit .. .', in competition with 'the Calais-Dover and other lines .. .'. This is the first proposal that I have found for a transport vehicle intended to operate 'at the interface', as the Americans say. It was submitted to, and rejected by, Lord Armstrong, whose name is nevertheless perpetuated in today's air-cushion world by incorporation in 'Vickers-Armstrongs (Engineers) Ltd.'. Hardly surprisingly, the first practical suggestions for 'winged hulls' were linked with the sport of hydroplaning. During 1906 there appeared in France a Levavasseur hydroplane built by Lein of Perreux and powered by a 50-h.P. Antoinette engine. This craft is doubly interesting, first, because M. Leon Levavasseur was designer of the famous, beautiful and buoyant Antoinette monoplane and its engine also; second, because it was tried out by Santos-Dumont and Captain Ferber. Ferber declared it to be 'quite practical', and expressed the belief that, 'fitted with aeroplanes and an aerial screw, it could be made to rise from the water'. A contemporary description runs: 44

'The chief features of this craft appear to be a floating hull, occupied by the motor and crew, and a rear part, forming a propulsive tailor stem, terminating by a sustaining surface, which is held at a constant angle to the hull in front.' Another writer declared: 'It would be a stretch of imagination to call her a boat, as she is more like a gigantic flying-fish in the act of leaping... .' Speeds of about 50 m.p.h. were rumoured for the wingless craft. L'Auto declared that it feared to mention the speed achieved, though this 'exceeded anything yet attained by motor craft'. I have no reason to suppose that the wings and aerial screw were ever fitted, but during the following year, 1907, details were published of the ObusNautilus, intended to race at Monaco. The Autocar of March 2, 1907, reported: 'Now a true hydroplane of entirely novel construction has been entered by Messrs. Conchis and Hemsen. It has two floats four metres square. Each float has a fore body on parabolic lines, and is cut away aft. On each side of the fore body project steel plates above the water, which are intended to store the air, as it were, when the hydroplane is travelling at high speeds, so that the air thus partially compressed tends to raise the floats out of the water.... There is no doubt that this device offers the minimum of skin friction that it is possible to get... .' The Automotor Journal said: 'Each of the floats is provided with two pressed steel plates arranged laterally in such a way as to assist the floats in acting partly as aeroplanes.' The impact of the hydroplane sent a shock and a shudder through the yachting and motor-boating worlds. 'Mechanically propelled tea-trays' was the definition bestowed by one shellback. Not surprisingly, the profusion and confusion of nomenclature which today afflicts everyone concerned with the development of 'new forms' of vehicle was as acutely apparent in those Edwardian times. So let us extend our sympathy to the editor of the aforementioned journal, whose heart-cry I reprint from his December 10, 1908, issue: 'According to the latest note from the British Motor Boat Club, an interesting point has arisen as to the exact dividing line between a hydroplane and an ordinary motor boat; and supposititious cases have been put, such as whether a craft with her upper works of ordinary section, but with a stepped under-body, would be a hydroplane or a boat.... Personally, we regard discussions as quite futile. For all power-craft racing purposes, a vessel is what she is declared to be.... For instance, a motor-punt, albeit flatbottomed and gliding, is distinctly no hydroplane. Nor would a sharpie with her boat-shaped top be one either. Nothing, again, would make any catamaran type - which is just as much a glider - a hydroplane. Yet no one has yet denied that classification to Santos-Dumont's combination of silken cigarshaped gas-float [see page 61] although it presents many features of the catamaran... .' It was, no doubt, this turmoil among the yachting fraternity that moved Rudyard Kipling in 1909 to envision a similar rumpus involving what he 45

,.

I

BAT-BOATS

Flint & Mantel C:f r"~;) Southampton

FOR

:.~.

SALE

at the end of Season the following Bat-Boats:

GRISELDA, 65 knt., 42 ft., 430 (nom.) Maginnis Motor. under-rake rudder.

MABELLE, SO knt., 40 ft., 310 Hargreaves Motor, Douglas' lock-steering gear.

IVEMONA, SO knt., 35 ft., 300 Hargreaves (Radium accelerator), Miller keel and rudder.

The above are well known on the South Coast as sound! wholesome knockabout boats, with ample crUIsing accommodation. Griselda carries s'p'are set of Hofman racing vans and can be hfted three foot clear in smooth water with ballast-tank swung aft. The others do not lift clear of water, and are recom mended for beginners. . Also, by private treaty, racing B. B. Tarpon (76 winning flags) 120 knt., 60 ft.; LongDavidson double under-rake rudder, new thiS season and un strained. 850 nom. l\1aginnis motor, Radium· relays and Pond generator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble reinforced forefoot and entry. Talfourd rockered keel. Triple set of Hofman vans, giving maximum lifting surface of 5327 sq. ft. Tarpon has been lifted and held seven feet for two miles between touch and touch. Our Autumn List of racing and family Batl ready on the 9th January. A mock advertisement for indubitable winged hulls, concocted by Rudyard Kipling and published during 1909 in a supposed aeronautical journal of the year 2000. Reproduced from Actions and Reactions by Rudyard Kipling by kind permission of Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

called 'bat-boats'. These imaginary craft were nothing more or less than winged hulls, as clearly shown in an advertisement which Kipling concocted for a supposed aeronautical journal ofthe year A.D. 2000. In that same 'journal', under the heading 'Bat-Boat Racing', appeared the following: 'The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the yachting world to concerted action in regard to "bat" boat racing. 'We have been treated to the spectacle of what are practically keeled racingplanes driven a clear five foot or more above the water, and only eased down to touch their so-called "native element" as they near the line. Judges and starters have been conveniently blind to this absurdity, but the public demonstration off St Catherine's Light at the Autumn Regatta has borne ample, if tardy, fruit. In the future the "bat" is to be a boat, and the longunheeded demand of the true sportsman for "no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike... .' The name Bat-Boat was eventually to be adopted, in 1913, for Sir Thomas Sopwith's indubitable flying boat, with its beautiful Saunders-built hull. By no means indubitable in character (though a very real creation) was a craft of 191 I which one may regard either as a flying boat which flew with the tip of its tail in the water or as a boat which, by means of wings, lifted everything clear except its tail. A product of the Michigan Steel Boat Co., this singular craft was displayed at the New York Boat Exhibition of 1911, and it travelled from Detroit to Cleveiand (some 100 miles) in two hours. Discussing the longitudinal stability of 'skimming and hydro-aeroplanes' in 1913, J. E. Steele, B.Sc., observed that she was in the transition stage between the skimmer and the all-air machine, only leaving the water for an

The Flying Fish, built by the Michigan Steel Boat Co. in 19II, flew with its tail in the water. A hydrofoil was mounted under the metal hull.

47

r' occasional bound into the air, 'which bound is involuntary, and not one of her natural functions'. The hull was an aluminium tank 7 ft 2 in. long, 5 ft 7 in. wide and 2 ft deep, with rounded-up bow. The vertical sides were carried aft past the hull for another 10 ft, where they were connected by a cross-piece which formed the horizontal tail. The hydrofoil was fitted under the hull to assist in lifting it from the surface. At a moderate speed, with the hull lifted out of the water, the craft planed along on its hydrofoil and tail; but at high speeds she lifted completely clear, except for her tail. A speed of between 65 and 70 m.p.h. was reported for this 'winged hull' or what might be termed today ram-wing air-cushion vehicle or dynamic interface vehicle. More curious still was a craft built early in 19II by S. E. Saunders Ltd of East Cowes, Isle of Wight. 'Sam' Saunders, of whom I shall have more to relate, had undertaken aeronautical work for Sir Hiram Maxim, and formally announced his entry into the aircraft business in 1909. A news item of November that year ran: 'Messrs S. E. Saunders Ltd are opening a new department for building everything required for aero navigation. Mr Saunders, the head of the firm, is eminently qualified to do full justice to customers' requirements in this new branch of the business, as no man in the boat-building trade in this country has had so much experience in wood working in which the chief object has been lightness of construction combined with strength. For the past 35 years, Mr Saunders has been working in this direction, and this long experience has taught him invaluable lessons in regard to the selection of light woods for the particular purpose required. In addition, Mr Saunders has seen most of the aerial machines in flight and has also had an opportunity

of examining them in their sheds. He is confident that in the choice of woods and methods of construction he can save weight without in any way sacrificing strength.' Then, after a little over a year, in the opening weeks of 19II: 'Satisfactory floating tests were made on Monday with an aero motor boat which has been built to the design of M. Pavaud, the French airman, a~ Mess~s S. E. Saunde~s .and Co's works.... The designer has personally supe~mtended the bmldmg of the machine, which is about 20 ft long and consIsts of t~o flat floats carrying above them a boat-shaped hull capable of accommodatmg two or three persons. It is driven by an air propeller with a 50 - h ·P· Gnome engine. At the bow there is a rudder above water. ... Messrs Saunders, who are builders of the hydroplanes and motor boats for the Duke of Westminster and others, are proposing to develop at East Cowes a centre for marine aviation, and have built a shed up the river Medina, near Osborne Naval College engineering workshops.' When I resurrected this delightful specimen (Air-Cushion Vehicles of November 1963) I quoted no fewer than four different renderings of the 'd' d' 'Ravau, d' 'Pavaud' and 'Payaud'. To these I eSIgner ,s, name - 'Revau, am now able to add 'Rivaud' and 'Rayaud'. But as I remarked at the time compared with contemporary descriptions of the craft itself, the renderin~ of Ravaud's name was almost unanimous. She was declared by various observers and authorities to be an 'aeroscaphe', 'motoscaphe', 'curious hybrid', 'aero motor boat', 'hydro-aeroplane', 'sea flier', 'aero-hydroplane', 'half an aeroplane and half a hydroplane', 'skimmer with aerial propeller' and 'aeroquat' . Launched in January 19II, this chimera was intended to appear at Monaco later in that year. It failed to arrive, although it may have operated in the Shore~am ~istrict. The intention was to install a Gnome engine of 100 h.p., and WIth thIS Ravaud was hoping for a speed of about 60 m.p.h. A dynamic interface vehicle if ever there was one. Or should she, after all, have been included in the chapter on hydrofoils; because I find that Ravaud declared that the bottoms ofthe floats were (or could be) 'constituted by blades', serving 'to raise the vessel clear of the water'. A~d in case the glorious photograph I reproduce should provide further beWIlderment, I must explain that Ravaud is facing astern.

Monsieur Ravaud in the undeniably curious craft built for him in I9II by S. E. Saunders Ltd of East Cowes, Isle of Wight. No fewer than ten different contemporary appellations are quoted in the text.

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D

49

attention during that year of a M. de Sanderal. A rectangular flat-bottomed boat, it had at each corner a 'propeller', working horizontally in the water, the propulsive screw being at the rear and more or less out of that element. I think it appropriate to mention here that in 1909 L. Bernasconi patented a type of vessel having two or more pairs of propellers symmetrically disposed in relation to the centre of gravity, the shafts being inclined at an angle so that the vertical component of the thrust along them served to support the craft. A similar principle was proposed by L. and M. Janin and M. Tetard in 1913. A number of 'screw propellers or turbine devices' were arranged beneath the hull and supported on inclined shafts so as to cause the whole vessel to move forward and emerge from the water. Adjustable inclined 'plates' or blades were fitted to increase stability and prevent rolling and pitching. In 1878 John Stanfield and Josiah Clark of London proposed 'A new (or improved) method of raising vessels or other moving bodies out of the water ... so as to increase their speed.' They declared: 'We place a number of fin blades or oblique floats on the sides of the vessel or beneath her at different parts of her length, inclined at an angle, so that as the vessel is propelled forward, their tendency is to raise the vessel out ofthe water.... At extreme speeds her whole weight may be supported on the floats or fin blades, so that she skids along with only her screws submerged and her blades on the surface. . . . Very high speeds may consequently be attained... .' Ten years later - in 1888 - an American, G. W. Napier, patented a scheme for varying the draught of ships by means of adjustable fins on each side of a vessel. The fins also tended to minimize rolling. Another American, C. E. Emery, applied in 1890 for a patent referring to retractable and adjustable surfaces, and in England during 1892 Sir Hiram Maxim patented a 'highspeed steamer'. The proposed craft was designed to 'skim the surface' and was the outcome of 'experiments with aeroplanes'. Sir Hiram's object was to vary the draught in order to attain high speed. A vessel of ordinary form was shown with an adjustable 'horizontal blade or fin' at the stern. 'By inclining this blade when going at a high speed,' it was stated, 'the stern is lifted and the vessel skims along the surface.' Maxim further claimed that similar blades might also be used at the bow, or the latter might be punt-shaped. The propeller blades could be automatically adjusted by a mechanism which was the subject of one of Sir Hiram's patents. Though I am unable to ascertain the precise form of the craft, I record here that in 1893 an 8-h.p. steam engine was fitted to a Tissandier 'glider' boat, which had its propeller under water. A speed of23 kmfhr was mentioned for this boat, which was successively fitted with several engines, including the Buchet used by Santos-Dumont to fly his airship round the Eiffel Tower in 190r. A model craft with adjustable foils was constructed in 1895 by one of the best-known and most controversial figures in French aviation, Clement Ader. , Ader's craft was pointed at each end. At the front there were two foils, spreading out from the sides and adjustable from inside to any desired angle. At the rear a single plane, likewise adjustable, formed the tail. 51

HYDROFOIL BOATS I NAIL THE British flag to the masthead of this chapter by expressing the plain belief that a boat was first lifted out of the water by means of hydrofoil surfaces on an English canal in I86r. At that time Thomas Moy, whose name has hitherto been known chiefly for his 'Aerial Steamer', was experimenting with the technique of 'flying in water', to which I alluded in the chapter bearing that title. He was trying out a boat, towed by means unknown to me, on the Surrey Canal, which in t~e early years of the last century linked Rotherhithe and Camberw~ll. HIS apparent preoccupation was aerodynamics, and not hydrodynamIcs; but

Approximate section of the foils used by Thomas May in 1861.

recognizing that water was the easier (and the safer) medium, he conducted his investigations into what he himself termed 'water flight'. His boat had on its underside three 'planes', rounded above and slightly hollow underneath, and Moy, I find, has left record of how, with the boat under tow, it was raised 'quite out of the water'. The planes were 'self acting as to angle of incidence' and 'assumed finer angles as speed increased'. Moy noted that the front edges of the 'planes' threw up water; 'a kind of vacuum' was created on the after part and 'thrust was reduced as speed increased'. In 1869 a Frenchman, Emmanuel Farcot, was granted a patent for various improvements to ships. 'My last improvement in propelling vessels,' he said, 'consists in arranging along the sides a series of inclined planes, the angles of which may be varied at pleasure.' He went on: 'These planes are first of all arranged horizontally, so that at the moment of starting the vessel may be carried forward with all the speed that the propellers are capable of exerting. The planes are then inclined ... and the vessel will rise a certain distance in the water.... The motive power may therefore be reduced, as the vessel will skim along the surface like a stone which ricochets.' Moy and Farcot were trying to get lift; and just as several of the early experimenters strove to achieve flight with wings not fixed but rotating, so, in 1876, there was a steam-powered rotary-foil hydrofoil craft. For that is the most accurate description I can give of a contrivance which was engaging the

5°

i

I

,I

Contemporary drawings (circa 1904) of the astonishing 'air-cushion hydrofoil' of Clement Ader, showing the hinged 'wings' and tail, and giving a cross-section of one of the 'wings', showing the space for the air cushion.

tail, raising them and the boat until the bottom just touches the surface. The resistance being thus diminished, the boat is driven forward rapidly by a submerged propeller. 'Though the boat worked fairly well,' it was added, 'it is too complicated and unwieldy for practical use, and has been presented by its inventor to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, where it is to be preserved as the embodiment of an ingenious idea.' I shall say more about this phenomenal device in later chapters. The name of Horatio Frederick Phillips (1845-1926) is acclaimed by Charles Gibbs-Smith as one of the most honoured in aviation history (a description that no one would dispute), though 'his later activities' were 'shrouded in mystery'. In a hydrodynamic context at least I may be able to dispel some of this mystery, for it was none other than Phillips who collaborated with the Comte de Lambert in designing the first of a series of so-called 'gliding' or 'sliding' craft with which the count's name was to be associated for many years to follow. Phillips had proposed in 188r a scheme for 'Improvements in boats or vessels to be driven at high speed'. Owing to the great velocity oftorpedo boats and other fast craft, he reasoned, the water had not time to fill in the run of the boat, causing the stern to be depressed and resistance to be increased. 'Now the object of this invention,' declared Phillips, 'is to ensure an even ked, by which means the resistance will be reduced... .' 'This I effect by securing under the boat, and transversely of the keel . . a plate or plates, so arranged that they may be set at any suitable angle By the use of these plates the vessel will be lifted partially or wholly from the water... .' The contribution of Phillips in connection with the de Lambert craft must, I believe, be accorded generous acknowledgement, by reason of his international reputation as an authority on aerofoil surfaces - this notwithstanding a pronouncement by Orville Wright, who said: 'Although suggestions of the hydroplane idea had been made years ago, and although Froude had made some experiments without results as far back as 1872, Comte de Lambert was the real inventor of the hydroplane. He was the first to produce a successful one, and all modern hydroplanes are based upon his work. In 1897 Comte de Lambert experimented with a catamaran formed of two narrow floats, to which were attached four transverse planes, whose inclinations could be varied two or three degrees. At a speed of ten miles an hour, the floats were lifted entirely out of the water and the machine glided over the surface on the four hydroplanes. Comte de Lambert continued these experiments during the following years up to 1907, and he succeeded in increasing the speed to thirty-four miles an hour.' The Wrights were closely associated with the Comte, and Orville's loyalty is commendable. But he might have declared with greater precision that the first full-scale powered hydrofoil craft (as it would be classed today) was the work of de Lambert assisted by Phillips. I have shown that the essential hydrofoil idea was far older - and British.

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53

And now I introduce a form of craft which is not to be found even in the bewildering catalogue of modern modes of transport, this being nothing more or less than an air-cushion hydrofoil. It was Ader's idea, even in 1896, 'to inject compressed air underneath the surface of the three planes so that they would work more or less upon an air cushion'. By this means he intended that the resistance of the boat would be still further diminished. An abridgement of an Ader patent specification of 1904 read: 'A vessel is supported during forward motion by two lateral wings and a transverse tailpiece in such a manner that it "slides" upon the water'. Ader showed drawings of a flat-bottomed vessel, having a pointed stem and elongated stern, and with the pivoted wings and tail having channels communicating with apertures through which atmospheric or compressed air escaped, 'forming a cushion between the wings &c and the water'. During 1904 Ader was experimenting with what was described as a flatbottomed boat 'provided with wings and taillike a bird's, which, when ex"' panded, graze the surface of the water'. The account continued: 'Air at the pressure of one-twentieth of an atmosphere is forced under the wings and

-=.

==-~------~=-==--==---..=:=.===-=--:.~----

- =:-

Contemporary sketches of the steam-powered hydrofoil tested by the Comte de Lambert in 1897. This craft was designed with the collaboration of the Englishman Horatio Phillips.

For a description of the de Lambert/Phillips craft we turn to The Yachting World of January 21, 1898. Headed 'A Novel Craft on the Principle of the Sleigh', the account runs: 'The idea of constructing a boat of such a shape that, instead of cutting through, it skims over the water, is old, but until lately all experiments of boat-builders in this direction have been without success. 'This success has now been obtained by Count Lambert, of Versailles, who has invented a very ingenious and at the same time simple craft, which is able to skim over smooth water with great rapidity.... The boat is constructed to carry a small engine and one man. The buoyancy is provided by two water-tight skiffs, connected by a light framework, which supports machine and helmsman. The bottom of the swimming frame consists of four thin plains [sic] resting on the water, not quite horizontal, but slightly oblique, so that in forward motion the resistance of the water raises these plains, and therefore the whole craft. 'The total weight is 6 cwts, the total surface of the sliding plains 55 sq. ft. A screw-propeller of 2 ft diameter on a slanting shaft is driven by a small engine, fed from a water-tube boiler. The position of this shaft and screw brings the main weight well aft and produces a lifting tendency of the fore part, in conjunction with the skimming plains, so that at a speed of 10 miles per hour the whole front part of the craft is above water, and at 20 miles only the back parts of the plains touch the surface ofthe water. At this high speed the screw makes 800 revolutions per minute, the engine consuming less steam

in proportion to increasing velocity, causing higher elevation of frame and skiffs, and therefore decreasing displacement of water.' Craft of this general type continued to be developed for eight years or so; but in 1907, as I relate in the chapter on planing craft, de Lambert transferred his attention to a type of 'glider' more appropriately described as a planing boat than as a hydrofoil. In 1903 an Italian, Guiseppe Vigo, advanced a scheme for fitting foil-cumstabilizer surfaces, and in 1904 an American, H. J. Noll, proposed another ~mbodying rotary adjustable shafts. The name of Enrico Forlanini has already been mentioned by reason of his 1905 proposal for a hydrofoil aircraft. During that same year he built and tested a hydrofoil boat, and his work on craft of this type continued for some years thereafter. Forlanini's place in hydrofoil technology was assessed by P. R. Crewe in a paper delivered before the Institution of Naval Architects in 1958. Crewe said:

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55

Photographed on the Seine in 1906, an Antoinette-engined development of the original de Lambert craft.

.J

The hydrofoil boat of Crocco and Ricaldoni (1907) being driven at speed on its angled surfaces by its variable-pitch metal propellers.

In 1907 another American, L. E. Simpson, described a hydrofoil craft adjustable frames carrying submerged foils, and the same year saw work m progress on another remarkable hydrofoil boat devised by A. Crocco and. O. R~caldo~i. It was 26.ft long, weighed 3,350 lb, and had a loo-h.p. engme, WIth whIch a speed of Just over 50 m.p.h. is said to have been attained. The foil surfaces were mounted at stem and stern; the front ones were of V form, and the rear ones were similarly arranged, although they did not join at the inverted apex. They were made of steel. Not the least remarkable features of the craft were the propellers. I append a contemporary account: 'The aerial propellers are decidedly ingenious devices. They are of double aluminium plating, and weigh each about 25 lbs. Their pitch can be altered while running, and they can be reversed if need be. The propellers are mounted on frames of aluminium sheeting, which, together with the shafts, havin~

The Forlanin.i hy:drofoil boat of 1906. This ~reat Italian designer (he was responsible for several airships) also foresaw the application of hydrofoils to marine aircraft.

'Hydrofoils may be completely submerged at all design operating conditions, or ~ay pass through the water surface with change in operating condition, in whIch case the draught may be said to control the area used for producing water lift. Ladder hydrofoil units vary area with draught in this way. 'The original ladder unit appears to have been developed by the Italian Enrico Forlanini in the years 1898 to 1905, with application to seaplanes in mind, and several patents in his name have been examined. A marine craft of 1·65 tons displacement was demonstrated on Lake Maggiore in 1906. It lifted clear of the water and reached a speed of 38 knots, using a 75 h.p. engine. It is said to have been stable in small waves, but the patents show a history of increasing complexity, clearly arising from attempts to overcome defects in behaviour. These included adjustment of the ladder in height and attitude relative to the hull, modification of the ladder construction, introduction of auxiliary ladders which were to be retractable at high speed, introduction of safety ladders intended to enter the water only in emergency, and use of aerodynamic damping surfaces.' Some time during, or before, 1905 Albert de Puydt was experimenting with a model boat having inclined planes, and subsequently in America G. R. Napier put forward an idea for a craft having feathering blades pivotally attached to the bifurcated ends of vertically reciprocating rods, arranged in pairs on each side of the boat and operated by a hand lever. Springs tended to keep the rear edge of each blade lower than the front edge, and this tendency was augmented on the up-stroke, and counteracted on the down-stroke, by the pressure of the water. Napier was granted a British patent in 191 I. 56

The Crocco/Ricaldoni craft out of the water.

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gear, transmission, and controlling devices, etc, weigh 660 lbs. Curiously enough, the motor - a Clement-Bayard machine - also weighs 660 lbs.' Having, I hope, established in hydrofoil history the names of Moy and Phillips, I am now able, with the highest satisfaction, to associate 'an Englishman named Thompson' with the experiments of Crocco and Ricaldoni; for that was the description of a man who was said to have been granted a patent in accordance with which the Italians designed their craft. I find that a patent specification of 1904, in the name ofW. P. Thompson, described a vessel having a series of fins fitted to projecting portions of the keel, and inclined in such a manner that they would tend to raise the vessel out of the water. They could be arranged in three sets, or in one set continuous along the keel. In 1907 Thompson proposed a development of this form of craft, having 'curved aquaplanes of approximately catenary shape in a transverse direction, attached to the sides of the vessel, with additional angular or curved fins, also attached to the sides, but extending outwards'. A true American pioneer was William M. Meacham, who, on July 29,1897, at Chicago, Illinois, towed a boat, fitted with blades, until the hull rose clear. In 1906 Meacham published particulars of 'a proposed motor boat fitted with automatically adjusted submerged hydroplanes', together with a photograph ofa boat on tow (note that both he and Forlanini used towing, as had Phillips) and being lifted clear of the water by 'submerged hydroplanes at bow and stern'. Jointly with his brother Larned, Meacham had been investigating the properties of hydrofoils since 1894, and Mr Leslie Hayward, patent manager of Westland Aircraft, has related how the two brothers applied for a U.S. Patent in September 1896. A similar proposal had been advanced, however, by another American citizen, S. A. Reeve (July 1895), and after a long and involved case, continuing from November 1903 till September 1904, judgement was given to Reeve. Eventually Reeve assigned his patent to the Meachams. I promised earlier to include in this chapter M. Mutti's 'little model of a flying boat', with which he was experimenting in 1906; and this I must not fail to do, for it was nothing more or less than an 'ornithopter' hydrofoil. Two longitudinal floats supported the craft on the water, and beneath the surface were the hinged wings and fixed fore-and-aft 'planes'. A contemporary description declared: 'When set in motion, which is accomplished in the present model by means of a coiled spring, the wings flap up and down, and are intended to lift the floats out of the water and to propel the apparatus, which is also partly supported by their action, as well as by the stationary planes.' Another who proposed early schemes for hydrofoil craft was W. H. Fauber, whose name I shall be linking closely with air lubrication. In 1907 Fauber described a form of vessel having a 'dependent keel', on the lower end of which was a 'tubular hydroplane member, having the underside, both fore and aft, cut away obliquely'. 'Inclined edges,' declared the American, 'give 58

Mutti's 'little model of a flying boat', showing the twin floats, fixed fore-and-aft surfaces and flapping 'foils'.

the hydroplane member a pen-pointed shape, which decreases the skin resistance and the liability to collect foreign substances in shallow water.' On each side of the 'hydroplane' were 'balancing rudders', and additional fins could be fitted on the sides. America's first powered hydrofoil craft seems to have been that constructed by Peter Cooper Hewitt and tested during 1907. This had a light mahogany hull, suspended in a rigid rectangular framework of steel tubing. The framework carried the engine, and attached to projections from its lower extremities were the sheet-steel foils. Of these there were several, arranged well outboard at different levels, the four largest having their upper edges at about the same level as the keel of the boat. At a weight of 2,500 lb a speed of 30 m.p.h. was readily attained, and at this speed all the foils were out of the water except those at the lowest level, which had a combined area of only 8 sq. ft. By the summer of 1907 Alberto Santos-Dumont was himself at work on a hydrofoil craft. The Motor Boat described it and gave the circumstances of its construction. Thus: 59

with any kind of hydroplane anything like the speed he says is possible. Sixty miles an hour is Mr. Santos Dumont's modest hope.' In its issue of January 4, 1908, The Automotor Journal reported: 'On December 23rd, M. Santos Dumont took his hydroplane out on the Seine near the Ponte de Neuilly, but unfortunately the engine was not going well, and no high speeds were attained. Since the last trial a 50-h.P. engine has replaced that of I2o-h.p., and a two-bladed aerial propeller has been substituted for the three-bladed tractor screw. The forward lifting-plane has also been increased in area.... Three months still remain in which M. Santos Dumont may win his bet with M. Charron by accomplishing .l00 kilonis. per hour.' Santos never won that 50,000 francs, but his project - 'No. 18' as he called it - may have inspired others; and certainly during 1909 there was a French craft called Vagabond, designed by M. Banneau, which had two tubular buoyancy chambers, and which at full speed rose out of the water, travelling on transverse planes 'like the old Santos Dumont machine'. The Forlanini craft of 1906/7 had been handicapped by an unsatisfactory engine, and another was tried during 1908 and 1909, driven by steam. This engine proved more reliable, and although giving only 25 h.p., it propelled the boat, which weighed over a ton, at about 30 m.p.h. During 1910 Forlanini was experimenting with a two-ton craft having very accurately made steel foils and capable of carrying two to four persons. An engine of 100 h.p. gave a speed of 45 m.p.h. . I alluded earlier to Ader's 'air-cushion hydrofoil' idea ofthe late 1800s; and I can now place on record a British proposal of 1909 for a craft having adjustable 'planes' and in which air was to be introduced under the bottom. Advanced by C. H. Clark and J. Morrison, this proposal was described as follows: 'The boat is fiat-bottomed, and underneath is a fiat plane or planes, carried at the forward end by a transverse hinge, while the after-end is attached to a

--- - , .......

-=~-"~-~ -;;::::-~~:;.~--'-:~-

...........

In 1907, Peter Cooper Hewitt, the American inventor of the mercury-vapour lamp, built and tested the hydrofoil craft seen here both in and out of the water.

'The hero of "aerography" has turned his attention to matters motornautical, and in M. Santos Dumont's new hydroplane some quite novel features are displayed. The "hull" is cigar-shaped, with very long points fore and aft, and is made in wood and aluminium with stiffening rings about every 2 ft; of fore and aft members there are only four, the whole framework being about 33 ft in length. Around the framework will be fitted an envelope of rubbered canvas, which will be firmly distended with compressed air. Forward, a plane 4 metres long will hold her trim, while aft another similar plane I t metres long will steady her. ... This novel vessel is the outcome of a challenge by M. Charron to give 50,000 francs to M. Dumont if he touches

Santos-Dumont in his 'No. 18' - a hydrofoil craft which he constructed in 1907 with the intention of winning a prize of 50,000 francs. He failed.

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6r

rod by means of which it can be raised or lowered. Thus, the plane can lie close against the bottom of the boat, or it can be set at any desired angle. 'The sides ofthe boat are extended below the bottom, forming a boxed-in step, and if two planes are used side by side a keel is fitted, having the same profile as the sides. This arrangement necessitates the use of ventilating cowls communicating with air chambers, from which air has access to the bottom of the boat through ports.' It delights and amazes me that I am able to introduce the name of Sir John Thornycroft into this chapter - and in a context hardly less remarkable than were his pre-eminent achievements respecting planing and air-cushion craft. Development of the Thornycroft hydrofoil boat began in a curious way. The characteristic round-bottomed torpedo craft that were the company's staple products around the turn of the century could produce discomfort and inefficiency among their crews by taking spray aboard at speed. Specimens built for Russia in 1904 had broad strips, or strakes, on both sides ofthe hull, running well forward from mid-ships. In the building yard (I quote Mr L. R. Tout, AMINA) these were known as 'mudguards', and in 1908 attachments of this sort were tried on the fast motor skimmer Gyrinus. These 'appendage planing surfaces', as they were more formally known, were hollowed out in order to turn down the bow wave, with the result that the wave exerted a lifting force. Such was the reduction in resistance that Gyrinus increased her speed by about 2 m.p.h., attaining 25 m.p.h. at full power. (Mr Tout recalls that a few years before the war a German firm rediscovered the 'mudguard' principle and took out a patent. A striking

Miranda III, the Thornycroft boat of 1909 which had a hydrofoil surface under the bow. A report of a trip in this craft is given in the text.

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cD Thornycroft drawings of Miranda III.

parallel, this, with the story I shall have to tell of Sir John's 1877 skimmer patent and that of Mr Knight so many years later.) To employ the lifting effect ofthe mudguards to the best advantage a new form of hull was evolved, and in 1909 Miranda III was built. She was 22 ft long, her beam was 7 ft and she had a 60-h.p. engine. The bottom ofthe hull was a continuous plane, but there was difficulty regarding disposition of weights, which 'prevented an early planing angle'. It was then that a hydrofoil surface was fitted under the bows, to induce them to lift. As speed increased to about 15 knots lift was sufficient to trim the hull on the main planing surface and speed increased rapidly to some 27 knots. The hydrofoil, having less lift to provide, then acted as a planing surface. Press reports in recent years of trips in hydrofoil craft have stressed the novelty of the experience; which adds a zest to the following first-hand account of a demonstration by Miranda III, written in July 1909. Having observed the craft from a distance, the author of the report was able to record that, as she passed by, daylight could be seen for about 5 ft aft of the forward plane; and, looking aft, he was just able to glimpse through the spray that the stern was out of the water. He was taken for a trip, and reported: 'When first [the engine] opened out, the forward plane came clear of the water, then the after body rose gradually, the speed increasing at the same time. At a certain point the stern came clear of the water and the bow dropped till the aquaplane [sic] just touched the surface. Simultaneously the engine, which had been running at about 1,000 r.p.m., sprang at once to 63

1,500 r.p.m., clearly showing how the resistance had dropped. The whole operation of corning to the surface occupied no more than 10 sec., perhaps not so much, and thereafter the boat travelled at full speed without taking any spray aboard.' Further development was contemplated, but never came to pass. Describing, during 1909, a 'balancing device for aerial machines', J. Richards, of Camberwell, declared that the invention could 'also be applied to hydroplanes'. An 'increased pressure on one plane' caused it to be raised 'to decrease its inclination and to rock a beam to increase correspondingly the inclination of the other plane'. Work continued in America, and in 1911 Cdr H. C. Richardson was experimenting with a hydrofoil dinghy. Of this he reported that it had 'warping blades for lateral control and a rudder and elevator combined'. Elevator and warping control were by stick, and rudder control by foot bar. From such beginnings came the hydrofoil craft that, only in very recent years, have been put to public use.

PLANING BOATS 'VESSELS WHICH greatly reduce their displacement when travelling at high speeds,' said Sir John Thornycroft (who did more than anyone to develop this kind of craft), 'are generally called "hydroplanes"; but this name is not altogether satisfactory, as the surfaces on which they glide are not always planes.' He was speaking in 1909, and he added: 'To call such vessels "gliders" or "skimmers" has been suggested as more appropriate; but the former title suggests smooth motion, and this is not always characteristic of their behaviour.' Sir John himself called them skimmers, and considered the original to have been the surf-board. 'A single slab of wood, rounded at the edges,' he explained, 'is employed, and supports a man where huge waves form a sufficient slope to enable him, assisted by gravity, to attain the necessary start. After the start the man will even assume a standing attitude on the board, which skims along before the advancing wave.' Clearly here before us is the aquatic precursor of the 'gliders' of Lilienthal, Pilcher and the Wrights. Lacking propulsive power, man comrived to be 'assisted by gravity'. Other early commentators instanced the flat, richocheting stone, or the ability of a schoolboy to cross a stream of water on small, broken pieces of ice - if he stepped lively. A craft of so-called 'shin form' was patented as early as 1837 by Abraham Morrison of Pennsylvania, and this has been instanced as a very early planing boat. The Patent Office in London, I find, holds only drawings, and in the absence ofa description I quote Capt H. E. Saunders, U.S.N. (Retd), that no mention is made in the specification of the phenomenon ofplaning. Nevertheless, I place on record that the drawings show a vessel with a concave bottom and an open bow. Certainly the phenomenon of skimming became dramatically (and very beautifully) apparent to the eminent John Scott Russell during experiments which he conducted some 125 years ago. It was from these same trials that his classic 'wave line' theory was evolved. An account dated 1840 ran as follows: 'Mr Scott Russell has submitted to the British Association the proceedings ofthe Committee appointed last year to conduct experiments on the Forms of Vessels.... 'There appeared to be three different conditions of fluid motion and E

resistance, accompanied with distinct characteristic phenomena: motion slower than that of the wave - motion on the wave - motion on wings of water. The last occurred only at very high velocities, when two high and beautiful films of water spread themselves in the air, and carried the boat as on gossamer wings along the surface.... 'Mr Russell would barely venture to state what may be the result of this exquisite phenomenon: the speed to be obtained with ease may be railway pace: and when a ship mounts her gossamers she may truly be said to be riding on the waves, or, for other's fancy, to be taking flight. The form best adapted for this very swift passage appears to be a bow exceedingly fine and sharp, with the stern very full and very capacious... .' , I find that in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in April 1837, Scott Russell had stated as one offive 'Laws of Dynamical Emersion and Diminished Resistance' that: 'At 43'8 miles an hour ... the floating body emerges wholly from the fluid and skims its surface.' In a provisional patent specification of 1852, Joseph Apsey declared the nature of his invention to be as follows: '... I make the vessel of such a breadth of beam with regard to her length that a vessel of about 1,000 tons burthern shall draw at her stationary load line about eight feet of water; secondly, I incline the bottom of the vessel from amidships or thereabouts gradually upwards to about the load water line at the fore-foot or bows; thirdly, the upper part of the bows are made very much fuller or broader than steam ships are usually built; the most approved form, such as the wave line, may still, however, be retained in that portion of the vessel which is immersed; the object of such a build of vessel is obviously to obtain a greater speed by reducing the resistance of the hull in passing through the fluid in which she floats; and when a high speed be given to such a vessel by the steam power (for I wish to dispense entirely with sails) she will rise and skim entirely upon the surface of the water, drawing less and less as her speed increases, so that the total resistance she experiences from the fluid shall not increase in the usual excessive proportion through the submerged cross sectional area of the ship decreasing with the increase of speed. The inclination given to her bottom will always have a tendency to dip her at the stern, so that the draft there will slightly increase with the speed... .'

~--~ Two of the Rev. Ramus' hull-forms, with the original design of 1872 uppermost. The story of how an historic model of this type came to a fiery end is told in the text. The second shows a later 'polysphenic' ('many wedged') form.

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There is no doubt that Apsey intended his craft to skim; though, like the man whose work I next describe, he underestimated the power required for a large vessel to attain the skimming condition. I must here remark that the men in this book seem fully as diverse in character and temperament as the modes of locomotion with which their names are linked; and few are more worthy of our veneration than the Rev. Charles Meade Ramus, who once held the living of Playden, near Rye, in Sussex. In April 1872 he wrote this letter to the Admiralty: 'Some years ago, while engaging my thoughts on another subject, it became manifest to me that the speed of all vessels might be immensely increased by a very extensive alteration in the shape of their hulls. 'The change I propose is based on mathematical and mechanical principles, and I have long been convinced that my theory is indisputable, but not till very lately have I, by experiment in a small way, made actual proof of its correctness. 'The discovery will, I firmly believe, at least double the speed of steam vessels, and will effect a change in locomotion by sea which has never till now been conceived. 'If your Lordships will only assure me that my discovery will be acknowledged as emanating from me, I will at once place it at the service of the public for the benefit of the country.' On April 10, 1872, the following minute was written by Mr Nathaniel Barnaby, Chief Naval Architect of the Admiralty, and was countersigned by the Rev. Ramus: 'Rev. Mr. Ramus has today communicated to me the plan of designing steamships of great speed.... 'It consists in forming a ship of two wedge-shaped bodies, one abaft the other. 'The object of this invention is to cause the ship to be lifted out of the water by the resistance of the fluid at high speeds. 'The double wedge provides that while the bow is lifted by the foremost of the inclined surfaces, the stern is lifted by the after one, and these may be so placed with regard to each other that the ship shall always keep her proper trim.' The outcome was a series of model trials by William Froude, one of the greatest naval architects of all. These were conducted, however, on the assumption that the full-scale vessel would be one of several thousand tons, and it was found that the speed required for such a craft to skim was so great that the idea was considered impracticable. The full story of the Rev. Ramus' work did not become known until 1908, when it was published in The Motor Boat, which had then been in existence for four years. The tale is of such remarkable interest, and is now so forgotten, that I reprint the most relevant parts. Headed 'Early Hydroplanes', it ran: 'It is some time since we published particulars of the earliest hydroplane models seen in this country, and at that time we referred to Mr B. Ramus having been connected with the early experiments of his father. The outcome

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of this article was a very courteous invitation from Mr Ramus to visit him at Playden, near Rye, Sussex, to see these models. 'We were shown the early models lying forgotten in the corner of a workshop. Mere dusty old pieces of wood that one would pass by without thought except perhaps to chop up, never realising them to represent the earliest tests of a great invention.... 'Ultimately the use of rockets was decided upon.... Thirty knots seems to have been quite frequently obtained for a distance of a couple of hundred yards or so, and in one case over a very carefully measured distance the speed was 72 miles per hour. ... 'Perhaps the most interesting model of all ... was used in many of the towing experiments made in connection with the Admiralty, and it is a matter for extreme regret that it has long since been destroyed - its end was a curious one. 'It appears that it used to be a custom in Rye on some particular day of the year to burn a boat. Usually, we understand, the boat was selected quite indiscriminately from its moorings, taken into the town and converted into a bonfire. On one occasion the townspeople took it into their heads to honour the Rev. C. M. Ramus with their attentions. Late one night, when the last light was extinguished in his house, the crowd lifted and carried the model, which was lying in the grounds, away to the usual scene of the bonfire, and thus an interesting old relic was lost.' A hardly less remarkable aspect of the Ramus story, and one of which the writer I have quoted seems to have been unaware, is that this man steadfastly advocated the construction of awesome weapons which he called rocketrams. I am able to give a sketch of one such proposal. The craft was to be made of 1 in. boiler plate and to measure 120 ft X 20 ft X 7 ft. Weighing 140 tons, it was to have a propelling force of 175 tons. 'Time of propulsion' was quoted as 30 seconds, 'distance to be traversed' as 'nearly 2 miles', and . 'final speed' as 500-700 ft per second. 'Constant experiments on a sufficient scale', declared the reverend gentleman, 'will alone enable us to bring the new implement to perfection; but enough has already been done to show that a new weapon has been discovered, the power of which is illimitable. It will sweep away all existing navies, and will, I trust and believe, render war at sea no longer possible.'

In Switzerland during the early 1880s M. Raoul Pictet was conducting model tests on Lake Geneva - 'dynamometric experiments' as Ernest Archdeacon later termed them; and in 1883 he published a pamphlet Etude theorique et experimentale d'un Bateau rapide. Pictet described his hull as being of 'parabolic form' (i.e. the bottom curved down towards the stern), and when the British Admiralty caused it to be tank-tested it was found to be considerably superior to the earlier Ramus models - approaching, in fact, present-day efficiencies. It was Sir John Thornycroft's son, Mr J. E. Thornycroft, who, in 1908, first linked his father's name with that of Ramus. After mentioning the Admiralty tests conducted by Froude he wrote: 'There is no doubt from the description and drawings of the boat's design by the Rev. C. M. Ramus ... that they were the same as the recently reinvented and re-christened hydroplanes. 'The Rev. C. M. Ramus' son, Mr B. Ramus, served an apprenticeship to a ship-building firm, with a view to further developing the idea, but unfortunately was unable to do so.... 'Shortly after the Rev. C. M. Ramus' proposal to the Admiralty, a patent was taken out by Sir John Thornycroft for boats which were intended to skim in the surface water. From the patent specification it will be seen that he recognised the difficulty of a large vessel to get to the high speed required to skim, and proposed to raise the vessel to the surface of the water by blowing air under it.

The de Lambert planing craft ('glisseur') of 1907. This was a simplified departure from his earlier craft mentioned in the chapter on hydrofoil boats.

An impression of the mighty 'rocket ram' proposed by the Rev. Ramus about 1875. Measuring 120 ft in length, it was to weigh 140 tons.

'One ofthe types proposed by Sir John Thornycroft was practically a twowedged ship, the after wedge being made in such a way as to retain the air.' Many decades were to pass before air cushions came into effective use, though in the meantime, as lighter engines became available, so were sportsmen able to apply them to simple forms of hydroplane. But work on more exotic craft continued. In an earlier chapter I have described the hydrofoil experiments ofthe Comte de Lambert, assisted by Horatio Phillips. Several variants were built, but in 1907 de Lambert turned his attention to a 'simpler form' of craft which finds its rightful place here. It comprised a series of

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five box-like transverse floats, having punt-like 'bows' and mounted on two longitudinal members, the spaces between the floats being open to the air at top and sides. A Serpollet steam engine with flash boiler drove an air propeller. With petrol engines and water screws this form of craft was to be continuously developed until after the First World War. When I come to deal with air lubrication I shall refer to Mr W. H. Fauber's scheme for inducing air under his multi-stepped hydroplanes. But this appears to have been less important to him than his particular system of stepping; and that he was considered a leading authority on stepped hydroplanes is clearly evident from early motor-boating literature. Yet like leading authorities who were to follow him (and had doubtless preceded him), he seems to have had the haziest of notions concerning the antecedents of his scheme, for in 1908 we find him declaring that the stepped form of hull was unpatentable, having been patented some thirty years previously 'by a clergyman'. It came as one of my less-agreeable surprises that after the best part of a century, with the stepped form of hull and float a commonplace of naval architecture, it should fall to me to unravel its history. And as patents are involved, I must go very warily indeed. Presumptions, of course, can create utter chaos in any inquiry such as this. Yet who would doubt that Mr Fauber's Victorian clergyman was any other than the Rev. Ramus? But no patent in that name exists, although I have given the firmest evidence concerning what Her Majesty's Chief Naval Architect declared to be the cleric's 'invention'. Sir John Thornycroft, as I shall relate, did patent what was 'practically a two-wedged ship'. But as far as I know, Sir John was never in Holy Orders. The stepped form of hull was nevertheless the subject of a patent dated 1906, in the name of A. E. Knight, who declared: 'A navigable vessel or launch constructed according to this invention comprises the novel principle of forming the after part of the body, for a considerable portion of its length, more or less, as found convenient, in a different and higher longitudinal plane to that of the bottom of the fore part, the bottom of the after part, preferably, inclining in a downward direction towards the after end, and a distinct joggle or step being formed in the bottom of the vessel, where the fore and after parts meet.... 'When the vessel is travelling at a more or less high speed, the after body will be lifted more or less, out of the water, the bottom of same being then about parallel to the surface of the water, the forward body being correspondingly depressed - so that air is admitted between the surface of the water and the bottom of the after body, remaining there in the form of a film of air which serves to support the after part of the vessel and keep same out of actual contact with the water... .' The Motor Boat of December 10, 1908, commented: 'There seems to be no end to the number of people who have invented hydroplanes of one kind or another, but perhaps the most unexpected of all developments is an English patent that was taken out in 1906 for a type that

differs in no essential particular from the "Richochets" of M. Maurice Le Las, experiments with which were, we believe, commenced some time earlier. The inventor of this English patent is Mr A. E. Knight, engineer to Lord Howard de Walden, and who will be remembered in that capacity aboard Daimler 1. ... Having seen the hydroplane design published in The Motor Boat he called upon us last week, bringing his specification with him, and was very much surprised to learn of what had been done with the "Richochet" boats, while it was also news to him to learn of the efforts of 30 years ago of the Rev. C. M. Ramus, and Sir John Thornycroft.... The likeness to the "Richochets", even to the double rudder, is positively startling. Yet the two were evolved absolutely independently.... Perhaps the most astonishing part of the whole thing is that the official search ... failed to reveal any previous patents of the same nature.' Sir John Thornycroft, who not only was a friend of Pilcher but at one time contemplated aircraft construction himself, had this to say in 1909 concerning 'skimmers' and the passage of air beneath them: 'Skimmers are near relations to flying machines... .' 'It is often supposed,' he added, 'that air passes under skimmers, but this is only likely to take place when the water surface is broken. It is well known that a jet of water impinging on a surface, even at an acute angle, does not all pass under in the direction ofthe jet. A small part at a point near to the surface has its motion reversed. This reversal renders the passage of any air between the jet and the surface impossible. If, however, the surface of the moving water is broken or churned into foam, then that mixture of air and water will pass along the surface. What will be the effect of this seems uncertain, but the late Lord Kelvin was thoroughly of the opinion that the friction of this mixture would be greater than that of solid water.' I leave the modern hydro/aero-dynamicists to pronounce on this, remarking only that Lord Kelvin displayed infirmity in aerial matters, as when he declined to join the Aeronautical Society as hite as 1896 because he had not 'the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning ...'. Although in 1852 Joseph Apsey had declared his intention of dispensing entirely with sails, the wind-driven planing boat was nevertheless to come, and I produce this letter, dated October 1913, in evidence. 'I have noticed with interest,' wrote an American, Ernest Weltmer, from Nevada, Mo., 'the development in the last few years of the motor-driven hydroplane, but I have seen nothing of any sail-driven hydroplanes.' He continued: 'I am sure that if a cup defender is desired that will run away from anything else driven by the wind, a sail-driven hydroplane is what is wanted. 'About fifteen years ago my brothers and I used to sail boat races on the ponds. It was too much trouble to make a hollow-hulled boat, so we fashioned ours by taking a piece of lath, setting it up edgewise, fastening a piece of shingle across one end, sloping upward forward at an angle of about 25 degrees, then fastening a cross-bar to a short mast which was stepped in the upper edge of the lath near the front end, the end which bears the piece of shingle

7°

71

mentioned; to each end of this cross-bar was fastened another piece of shingle sloping upward forward at the same angle as the first. This was the hull of the boat. We stepped the mast in the edge of the lath just behind the crossbar, attached a long rudder to the rear end, and when the sail was up the "boat" was ready to go. You can see that we had a rough hydroplane with outriggers. When the "boat" sat quietly on the water it was barely afloat, but as soon as the sail began to draw it began to rise, and as soon as it had got clear of the water it was "flying". These boats attained surprising speed.' To illustrate the very advanced state attained by planing craft before the First World War I finally cite this account, headed 'Motor Craft at the Paris ' Aero Show', published by The Motor Ship and Motor Boat in December 19 13: 'Although primarily devoted to vessels of the air, the Paris Aeronautical Salon, opened in the Grand Palais last Friday morning by President Poincare, has some things of interest to the marine motorist. Gliding boats form an interesting section of the exhibit. _Count de Lambert has two craft on view. One of these is the glider Flyer, with which M. Paul Tissandier a few days ago set up the world's record for the kilometre at roughly 60 miles an hour. The boat, which is propelled by a 200 h.p. I8-cylinder Gnome motor, driving an aerial propeller by a double chain, has undergone no other change than the addition of full seating accommodation. A smaller craft, with which M. Tissandier intends to undertake long journeys up the rivers Seine and Rhone at the close of the Show, is driven by a Gobron 40 h.p. motor. It is interesting to note that an important business is now being done by the Lambert Co. in gliding boats with aerial propellers. The record-breaking boat has been soldfor passenger service on Lake Geneva, where a couple of these craft have been in regular service during the past summer. One of them is about to undertake a journey up the Nile, and many have been sold for service on South American rivers, where shifting bottoms make ordinary navigation difficult. Bleriot has one example of a glider with aerial propeller. Nieuport has a couple of these vessels, and Borel shows gliders with passenger accommodation.' Yet none of these truly remarkable 'gliding boats' was to achieve the commercial success now promised by hydrofoil and air-cushion vessels, even though de Lambert-type craft were quite extensively used before, during and just after the First World War. Nor was interest in them widely manifest among the motor-boating community, for as late as 1938 one specialist journal was describing a basically 1907 de Lambert type machine as 'novel'. This craft was operating on the Nile - and twenty-four years earlier Lord Kitchener had skimmed the surface waters of the Nile in a de Lambert Tissandier 'glisseur' capable of 50 m.p.h. Perhaps the evidence I have adduced will at last unravel the confused and tangled history of planing craft.

72

AIR LUBRICATION IN 1865 JOHN SCOTT RUSSELL, to whom I have already paid tribute, wrote that 'a recurring proposal to lessen friction resistance is to pump air into the water ahead of, around, or under a ship'; and as recently as 1960, P. R. Crewe and W. J. Egginton - both prominent in the development of air-cushion vehicles - observed: 'The Hovercraft provides an engineering solution to the problem of "air lubrication" of the boundary layer which has occupied the attention of a number of investigators and inventors for many years. It is understood, for example, that the earliest record at the Admiralty Experiment Works concerning air lubrication of ships is a letter dated November 23, 18 75, from Wm. Froude to Dr B. 1. Tideman of Amsterdam commenting on the latter's theory concerning the matter.' Proposals and letters are, of course, welcome material in any book such as this; but there is nothing like the record of actual achievement to give sinew; and, viewed against mere suggestions, that which I now relate appears larger than life itself. The fact is that, even before Scott Russell was writing in 18 65 of 'proposals', a vessel with an unquestionably air-lubricated hull was in regular public service. That she was a ferry boat renders her no less eligible for a place in history which for more than a century she has been denied. In this belief I am able to adduce the evidence of only one man, and he long since dead. Yet this man is the one, above all others, whose testimony can be accepted, for not only was he an eminent engineer but he was Britain's foremost consultant in his field, and his services were much in demand in cases involving patent litigation. This man was Sir Frederick Bramwell, who during r889 recalled that, while visiting America in 1863, he had seen an attempt to diminish the friction of steamboats by blowing a film of air between the bottom and the surface. The vessel concerned was a New York-New Jersey ferry boat, and she was in service 'for several years'. While this vessel 'went with less power applied to the paddles' the power required to provide compressed air was just about equal to what was saved in driving the paddles, and 'the thing was not continued'. Nine years later Sir Frederick made further allusion to this vessel, though ascribing to his American visit a date ten years earlier than that already mentioned. In this instance I quote him at length: 'When I was in New York, in 1853, there was a steamer plying from New Jersey to New York the real name of which I forget, but the nickname I remember as that ofthe "Smoothing Iron" ... the steamer had a flat bottom 73

and was provided for about two thirds or three quarters of its whole length, measured from the stern forward, with four or five very shallow strips (one can hardly call them keels) running longitudinally, and closed at their forward ends. Into each of the channels thus made there was injected air by an air pump, under a slight pressure, only just sufficient to overcome the "head" water, and thus air travelled along the channels and escaped at the stern. In order to keep down the species of ebullition, there was a projecting work at the stern which earned for the boat the name of "Smoothing Iron". 'The object of the invention was to substitute air friction for water friction. I saw it at work, but I was never on board of it, and my recollection is that I was told that about the same result was got out for the total horsepower employed as would have been obtained if none of the power had been devoted to working the air pump, and if it had all been employed to the paddles of an ordinary water-skin-friction boat.' Thereafter, as Scott Russell observed as early as 1865, came recurring proposals for schemes to lubricate hulls with air, perhaps the best-known being that of the Swede Gustaf de Laval, whereby a stream of air bubbles was forced from tubes. Some fifteen years later the American Culbertson patented a scheme which appears similar to that declared by Sir Frederick Bramwell to have been implemented the best part of half a century earlier. My second mention of Clement Ader's 'swing-wing air-cushion hydrofoil' (and I shall make three in all, for abundant reasons) concerns the references he made to air lubrication in his 1904 patent. 'The wings and tail,' he said, 'are so arranged that a body of air can be supplied to their underside, which serves as a lubricant for diminishing or almost doing away with the adhesion between such surfaces and the water, thus facilitating the propulsion... .' He further proposed air lubrication for the propeller. 'For reducing the friction of the screw propeller in the water,' he said, 'it is made with channels having openings on the rear side of the blades, and the propeller shaft is made tubular and communicating with the said channels at the rear end, while the forward end is open to the air. On the rotation of the propeller a suction is produced by the water on the rear side of the blades, causing air to be drawn through the tubular shaft and to issue through the perforations of the channels, so as to serve as a lubricant between the surfaces of the propeller and the water.' Writing from the yard of a leading French boatbuilder late in 1908, M. Emile Cardon declared: 'I patented - soine months ago - a very simple arrangement, by which, without extra expense, I direct large quantities of gas underneath the hull with beneficial use to the motor. 'I make use of the hot exhaust piping to convert water to steam, and with this steam my apparatus discharges large quantities of gas under th;, water. 'For instance, with a 100 h.p. motor there is heat enough in the gas going out to vaporise 35 kilos of water per hour, and this 35 kilos of steam, going through my apparatus, impels about 140 cubic metres of gas under the water per hour; just the quantity to have permanently a sheet of gas under the hydroplane, which diminishes the surface resistance by 80 per cent.'

With the coming of the hydroplane the principle of air lubrication was quickly adapted to these craft. In 1908 Mr W. H. Fauber, an American resident in France, claimed as an advantage for the type of craft which he evolved that 'the frictional resistance of that part of the hydroplane surfaces in actual contact with water is greatly reduced because a strata of air is drawn in between the water and hydroplane surfaces'. It was later claimed that 'the

74

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DESCRIPTION. . The" FAUBE~" Hydrop!ane combines the ~esign and best features of tbe ordinarfi motor boat with new principles oC ~lj~t~fl~:n~~~~t.ructlOn, produClOg the only practical H)'droplane Boat that b&:J Stabi ity, and will navigate rough water 'The great stability and smooth-running are due to several patentable features. tbe most conspicuous being the V ~'-shaped !-:Jltom, composed of concave h)'droplane surfaces arranged in such a manner as to give a gradual and easy line o( displacement" commencinR' i\t the bow, and widenin~ and deepening towards Of

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opposite side, tbe surfaces on. the low side thus 'This new element called" Hydroplane Stability," is not found in flat Ihdroplane surfacu- it being quite evident (rom a ~ud)' of Fi~;: ~~~b represents theu~~~~t~(erall~:~r~t~r~c;a~~~ftt.h:~Jhl~:~S~~ihii~~~~~~~~~:~e~aler beoea.th, tends to ~ partially lifted out of the waler, '·ery little displacement stability ~ ."t,.. remains-whereas tbe II FAUBER" Hydroplane has not only ~i;~b~~~;.t"stability, but tbe n.ew element, II Hydroplane

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numerous steps, in conjunction with the concave surfaces of the planes and the system of air tubes, introduce more air under the bottom of the boat and introduce it at lower speeds, thus obtaining the hydroplane effect earlier'. The Labor-Fauber hydroplane of early 1909 had eight short planes, in the form of concave steps, and seven air ducts leading from the sides of the boat to the bottom of the hull. Work somewhat similar in nature was in progress in England at the same period, involving the famous naval architect Linton Hope. Jointly with a Mr Rathbone, he patented in 1909 a craft contemporarily described as follows: 'At first glance the design seems to resemble the Fauber, but in reality it is not so. In the first place, the Fauber sections are all hollow Vs, and the steps are carried right forward; in the present design, however, the steps do not commence until about a third of the length from forward, and in place of the hollow V, flattened aft, the ordinary form of a racing launch is retained. The steps simply follow the normal lines of the hull. 'Again, in profile the Fauber planes are true planes; in the Hope-Rathbone, they are given a form approximating to the section of an aeroplane wing. At speed, naturally, the after part of each plane only will be in contact with the water, but it is expected that the special form will assist in lifting to the surface at the start, and will give the very great structural advantage of much shallower steps, without reducing the angle of the "working" part of the plane. For the rest, there are air tubes to prevent any drag being set up behind the steps.' In 1909 also the Thames Bank Wharf Motor Works built a hydroplane for Lt Noel Sampson which had 'two ventilators' in the turtle deck providing air to the steps, as did 'two ventilators on each side'; and during 1913 a Mr D. Hanbury owned a Thornycroft hydroplane called Silver Heels, which had six large pipes, three of which were forward and led into a false bottom located immediately before the step. This bottom acted 'as an air chamber'. The three after pipes, it was reported, led 'straight to the water'. The state of air lubrication in respect of displacement craft was summarized thus during 1911: 'The latest development is that a provisional installation is to be fitted to the Belgian Government's cross-channel mail steamer, La Flandre, which has been placed at the disposal of the inventor - a certain M. Gustave Quannone - by the Belgian Admiralty. The inventor has been working on the scheme for over eight years and has had two full-size installations at work already - one aboard a powerful tug and another on the Belgian Hydrographic Survey steamer, La Belgique. The trials of the latter boat proved sufficiently conclusive to induce the Government to place a larger and faster vessel at the inventor's disposal to make further tests.... Already it has been clearly shown that a considerable economy is possible - even when all allowance be made for the power necessary to work the air-blowing machinery. The tests carried out on La Belgique showed something like 12 per cent coal economy for the same speed when the air-blowing apparatus was working.... 'Apart from the experiments to be conducted on a large steamer, the in76

ventor is stated to be considering an installation on a fast motor launch of the displacement type....' . It was furthe: remarked that if the tests showed that for the same consumptIon of fuel an lllcreased speed could be obtained, there could hardly be any great objection to the invention. Disadvantages suggested in the past had been that the piping on, or orifices in, the vessel's skin would tend to slow the boat and (more weighty, perhaps) that the air would form bubbles, which would cling to the sides of the vessel and interfere with the efficiency of the propeller. The last suggested disadvantage, it was noted, could apparently be got over by arranging the piping so that the air flowed along the buttock lines, in a way, and came to the surface underneath the ship's counter and clear of the propeller. Nor was the principle of air lubrication unknown to early subscribers to Flight, for in the issue of July 13, 1912, we read: 'If it be granted that frictional resistance depends on the body L111lIlersed in water being wetted by the fluid, it at once follows that if any means can be devised by which the body is no longer wetted, or even if we can reduce the extent or degree of the wetting, the frictional resistance will be reduced. One method is to coat the body with a smooth metallic surface such as copper, aluminium, etc, another is to coat it, so to speak, with a layer of air, the frictional resistance then being "air-air", instead of "water-water". Some years ago such an experiment was actually tried by Sir Frederick Bramwell, who described it as peculiar and "soda-watery", but the important point is that the resistance was "materially" lessened.' Thus, by virtue of his own researches, as well as the reminiscences of his youth, Sir Frederick Bramwell has a place in this chapter. I have already mentioned Cdr Schwann's Avro seaplane, which had airlubricated floats in 191 I. Other early floats having provision for air to be ducted to the steps were those of the Wright 'hydro-aeroplane' displayed at the exhibition organized by the Aero Club of America in New York during May 1912. A 'special feature' was the provision of three air-tubes running vertically through each float, with the object of delivering air to each of the three steps. Thus, well before the First World War the Wrights had experimented with both hydrofoils and air lubrication. The practice of inducing air under floats was exemplified at the Olympia Aero Show of 1913, when the Grahame-White Aviation Co. Ltd exhibited their oo-h.p. Hydro-biplane, the floats of which were described as follows: 'Two main floats ... are employed. A feature of their design is that the first half of the float is flat on the under surface while the rear portion is concave, having a maximum camber of 4 in. Air is projected below the after portion of the floats, so that the machine may glide the more easily over the water, by tubes, about 2 in. in diameter, into which air is forced by miniature scoops.' How effective this sort of arrangement proved in practice I do not know; nor was Algernon E. Berriman, the contemporary technical editor of Flight, 77

any more knowledgeable, for when his admirable book Aviation appeared later in 1913 he observed: 'In some stepped floats, air is admitted through a vent to the instep with the object of "lubricating" the after section with an air film. I have no information as to its efficiency.' Writing about seaplane floats in 1918, Naval Constructor H. C. Richardson remarked: 'Ventilation of the steps facilitates quick planing and is useful, but is not essential if there is ample reserve of power.' And that seems to explain why air lubrication was never to become common practice in marine aircraft design. In closing this chapter I must record that in 1912 a proposal was advanced for discharging the engine exhaust 'through a series of holes in the tread of the step', and I find that some such scheme was implemented in America on the Hamilton hydro-aeroplane. This was reported as providing 'a good forced gas film and an engine silencer'. Astonishing though it may seem, there was correspondence in the Scientific American during 1905/6 discussing the 'novel idea' of air lubrication, and suggesting experiments 'on a small scale'; and, surely, quite incredible is the fact that within recent months one great American concern has put forward proposals for a 'radically new principle of boat hull design', virtually identical with that of a century earlier - and suggested for ferry service on the same New York-New Jersey run!

AIR CUSHIONS IN ASSIGNING any particular scheme to the present chapter, instead of to the former one dealing with air lubrication, I have taken as my criterion the intention to lift a craft pneumatically: that is, to induce, and more or less contain, a cushion of air between the craft and the surface. Although the benign phenomenon we nowadays call surface effect, or, more commonly, ground effect, and upon which the air-cushion craft of today depend, must have influenced many of the early gliding experiments, it seems never to have been consciously felt, even though as early as November 1901 Wilbur Wright was declaring his intention of testing 'the effect of placing a flat surface just under the lower curve to see what effect proximity to the ground may have had in our kite tests'. There are, it is true, repeated references to the Wright brothers skimming the ground; but this was explained by Wilbur in an address delivered to the Western Society of Engineers on June 24, 1903. .'Fo,r the purpose of reducing the danger to the lowest possible point,' he saId, we usually kept close to the ground. Often a glide of several hundred feet would be made at a height of a few feet, or even a few inches sometimes. It was the aim to avoid unnecessary risk.' The ~rst recorded utterance on the possible effect of the ground's proximity seems, III fact, to have been a negative one, although of the greatest historical interest. This occurred during a discussion following the address already mentioned. Replying to a Mr Warder, Wilbur said: 'It may be that you misunderstood my statement in regard to my brother's experiments in low gliding. I did not mean that he touched the ground; he kept 5 or 6 inches off the ground. Of course now and then he made a mistake and touched the ground.' This prompted the said Mr Warder to inquire: 'In these glides that your br~ther made close to the ground, do you not suppose there might have been a lIttle more pressure than at 10 or 20 feet above the ground?' To which Wilbur answered: 'I do not think there is very much difference. We have found, by experimenting, that if you hold a surface stationary - almost touching the ground, it will have less lift than when it is up in the air. In gliding I do not think there will be very much difference.' Could it have been W. R. Turnbull who first observed and recorded the beneficial influence? It appears more than likely on the evidence of a letter, dated June 2, 1907, written by Orville Wright to Octave Chanute. One passage ran: 'We have received a copy of the paper by W. R. Turnbull. I think the 79

paper quite interesting, though his different measurements do not agree very closely with ours. On page 301, he speaks of an increase [in] lift when the sustaining surface is brought in close proximity to an under plane. Under practically the conditions he used for measuring, we got exactly the opposite result.' Yet twenty years later ground effect was to aid the Wright's compatriot Lindberg in making his solo Atlantic crossing. Although there is no air-cushion vehicle in nature, a tangible cushioning effect is produced over water by natural means - yet another echo of our airand-water theme. I quote from Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls by the' American Lindsay Lord: 'When the distance between crests is around half the length of the hull, or less, a considerable air cushion operates beneath the plane ... effectively cutting down frictional resistance. This reduction in friction is pure gain up to the point where the size of waves causes sufficient plunging to add new wetted surface plus added wave-making.'

We have already noted that the principle of creating a cushion of air between the bottom ofthe boat and the surface ofthe water had been patented by Sir John Thornycroft in 1877. I quote the Specification for 'An Improved Method of Reducing the Friction of Vessels when Travelling on the Water'. 'According to my Invention,' declared Thornycroft, 'in order to reduce the friction of a vessel when travelling on the water I interpose a layer or body of air between the bottom of the vessel and the surface of the water, which air I confine within a cavity of the bottom of the vessel so that the air shall be carried along with the vessel over the surface of the water, and air being in direct contact with the exterior of the bottom of the vessel and with the surface ofthe water below it. To this end the bottom of the vessel is formed with an external cavity into which air is forced so as to displace water from the cavity, and the air is maintained at such pressure as to keep the cavity filled, or nearly so, with air, such air as may escape being replaced.'

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The original drawings (1877) of Sir John Thornycroft's air-cushion hulls. The craft of near-circular plan form is shown with a semi-immersed propeller.

80

The foregoing is a description of what is called today a plenum-chamber air-cushion vehicle. Two distinct forms of hull were shown in the patent drawings. One was 'practically a two-wedged ship, the after wedge being made in such a way as to retain the air'. The other was of relatively conventional form, with a hollow bottom forming the air chamber, and resembling a model which Sir John tank-tested as an alternative hull for the Royal Navy's first torpedo boat H.M.S. Lightning, delivered in the year of the patent specification. Sir John described how he 'tried models intended to carry air under them in a hollow', continuing: 'This construction is favourable to high speed, for the angle of the surface rubbing on the water can be considerably reduced by the adoption of this plan, so reducing the resistance due to gravity on the incline. At the same time the friction due to air on the supporting water is much less than that due to water on a solid; and if the air could be cqrried with the model, the power required to force it under would be small, and would only amount to that necessary to make up waste. It may be safely taken F 81

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that when air goes under a vessel without forcing, it will fail to give any support. It is evident that the air under a vessel to serve this purpose must have a pressure above that ofthe atmosphere.' Later he added: '... in a vessel in which the support is due to air in a hollow, the centre of pressure must coincide with the centre of gravity of the area of the hollow. It is much more advantageous to have such a definite centre of support than the ever-shifting position ofthe centre of the lifting force due to contact with the water surface. The practical difficulties, however, to be overcome in producing a type embodying this principle are many. Care must be taken, for instance, to avoid disturbing the water surface by the surfaces which must surround the hollow containing the air. If this be not done waves will form and increase the rubbing surface, besides taking up energy in their formation. With a model the author designed to overcome these difficulties the resistance has not proved very small, but it was observed that the wake of the model indicated very little disturbance of the water surface. This model was very wide and nearly circular in plan, and it skimmed at quite a low velocity. It may be interesting to state that this form of model was made in 1873. A similar model was towed from a launch at about 8 knots; this speed was more than sufficient to make it rise to the surface. When air was forced under it the resistance was greatly reduced, but it was never very low. At the best it fell to a value of about one-quarter the weight of the model. At a lower speed - about 5 knots - a greater resistance was recorded.'

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Models constructed and tested by Sir John Thornycroft to investigate the possibilities of the air-cushion. In the foreground is one representing H.M.S. Lightning, and immediately behind is another of the same vessel designed to be lifted by air.

82

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Sir John concluded: 'It has often been proposed to force air under a vessel of ordinary form, and Ericson is said to have tried this, but found it was not a success. In a skimmer, however, if the air can be carried with the model for the most part, there must be an advantage in this system, and perhaps it might also be used with advantage in very shallow vessels, not intended to skim, but having a very large surface of bottom, and not requiring the air to be pumped against much head of water.' Another man of massive stature in the dawning of the air-cushion age was Clement Ader, and in this third and last citation of his 1904 specification I state his proposals fully, in his own words. 'When a cushion of compressed air,' he said, 'is retained under the wings and tail, these are made concave on the under side, and the space thus formed is preferably divided into compartments by suitable ribs, and compressed air is forced by pumps into the said cavities through conduit pipes, so that the wings and tail rest by means of the air cushions upon the water.' Elsewhere Ader stated: ... 'in place of a pump a fan may be employed'; and he also used the phrase ' ... the frictional contact of the water with the wings and the resulting resistance to forward motion are done away with'. Early in 1906 semi-confidential demonstrations were given of a model boat, broad-beamed and flat-bottomed for most of her length. It was implied in one report that the craft was 'suspended' pneumatically and that a sizeable craft designed along the lines ofthe model was nearing completion at 'a certain ThSlmes-side yard'. There is negligible doubt that this was the boat described by one who saw her in the Saunders yard at Goring-on-Thames as being 33 ft long by 8 ft beam and having a bottom sloped up at the forward end. A sketch showed that there were two sidewalls (to use current terminology) together with a centre 'wall', and spaced between these were fourteen smaller walls (plates, fins or fences), all these extending the full length of the hull. Through the bottom of the boat between the 'plates' were a number of holes, slanted aft, and these were to be connected with 'an air compressor, fan or reservoir driven by a motor engine'. 'The boat depends for her propulsion,' said the observer, 'on the reaction of the jets of air from the orifices striking the water. At the same time air is prevented by the fins from escaping to the sides of the boat, and so forms a species of air bed between the water and the bottom of the boat, upon which the latter rides.' It must be noted that this was intended to be an air riding (or air-cushion) craft, and beyond all reasonable doubt it was constructed according to a British patent issued to F. W. Schroeder. The vessel was meant to be 'lifted' by air, and the intention was that it should 'practically slide or skate' over the water, and not through it. The year 1908 saw at least two air-cushion proposals advanced in Great Britain. A patent specification of that year, describing 'Hulls, lubricating', declared that, in order to reduce the violent rise and fall of the fore part of high-speed vessels in rough water, a constant supply of air was directed by means of a cowl into a bellows-shaped chamber, extended by springs. An air 83

Original drawings (1906) of the craft proposed by F. W. Schroeder. An actual boat designed on the same principle is described in the text.

valve was fitted in the upper part of the cowl shaft, compelling the air, when compressed by the movement of the vessel, to pass out through pipes to the under surface of the hull. The sides of the vessel would preferably project below the bottom in the form of side keels to retain the air. In another context the inventor - none other than 'Sam' Saunders himselfclaimed that when the boat was at full speed the air rushing into the bellows chamber would form a cushion that would absorb shocks, and that the compressed air escaping would form a cushion on which the boat would ride. Saunders-Roe Ltd are today foremost in the production of air-cushion craft; and, although these are ofthe Cockerell 'hovercraft' variety, it is none the less remarkable that well over half a century ago one of the founders of the company should have foreseen the two great benefits offered by the air cushion - reduction of drag and a smoother ride. Late in 1908 the design was announced of a craft following 'roughly the Ricochet principle' but having an exceptionally deep step placed very far forward. The sides were boxed in, and 'the better to retain air under the boat' there were two keels forming three channels, running from step to stern. The designer wished to remain anonymous, but invited correspondence addressed to 'E.G.S.' Hydroplane. And early in 1909 there was completed in Maynard's yard a hydroplane hull described as a 'distinct departure', the sides of the step being boxed in and having a tunnel stern, the tunnel being 'worked in right from the step'. The idea was to retain as much air as possible. I have traced yet other air-cushion craft constructed or proposed before 84

the First World War. In these it was forward motion which induced the formation of the cushion. In June 1906 news had come from Australia of a novel form of boat which, although an experiment, was reported to have proved very successful. A contemporary report ran: 'She is fiat-bottomed and somewhat resembles a Thames punt, with an increased freeboard. Air is taken in under the bows, on which she partly floats, after the manner of an aquaplane. The form has been found to give great stability, and a speed of about I I miles per hour has been obtained. Her length is 23 ft overall, with a beam of 4 ft, and a remarkable feature is an almost total absence of wash.' On the same principle was a craft which became widely known in the U.S.A. as the Hickman Sea Sled, the bottom of which was concave for much of its length with a view to 'trapping air and forming an air cushion' (I quote a 1913 report). A particular advantage claimed for the cushion was that it reduced pounding. It is instructive, after some fifty years, to cite the views of a present-day expert concerning the superior speed qualities of the Sea Sled. In his book Fast Boats, Mr John Teale comments: 'The reason for the increased speed is a little obscure, though it is borne out in practice. However, what probably happens is that, in calm water, the inward bow-wave formations from the two bows converge into the inverted V and become trapped under the bottom together with the air forced in by the boat's progress. The transom is flat and fully submerged. All this provides a certain amount of lift. The boat will thus rise in the water and will be riding with a small part of the hull actually in the water and a fairly large portion in a mixture of air and water from the trapped bow waves. Though the wetted surface will be greater than in a conventional hard-chine boat, the wetting will be done by this mixture rather than purely by water, with a lowered frictional resistance effect. The faster the boat travels the greater the lift becomes, until at some point, presumably, the craft will rise completely out of the water and rise solely on the cushion of air. It would then be a hovercraft, rather than a boat!' Nor was the idea ofriding on an air cushion, which had been proposed and tested by Sir John Thornycroft in the 1870s, forgotten as the years went by within his own family and company, for in 1908 a design was prepared for a hollow-bottomed craft having an open bow for the admission of air. Certainly in 1909 such a punt-like craft was being tested by Mr Tom Thornycroft and before his death he was able to recall it for the edification of British Hovercraft constructors Britten-Norman Ltd, of Bembridge, Isle of Wight. A patent of 1909, in the name of H. P. Dinesen, described a form of ship, under the bottom of which was a chamber filled with air and closed at the front, back and sides. The ship was driven by an internal-combustion engine, and the invention consisted in discharging the combustion gases into the chamber so as to replace the air, which escaped during the movement of the vessel. The recess under the hull could be compartmented to diminish loss of gas when heeling. Air under pressure was supplied to the chamber when

85

The punt-like open-bowed air-cushion craft which was tested by Mr Tom Thornycroft in I909.

the ship was stationary. A form of flexible rubber skirt was also proposed for retention of the air. The use of a pump or fan to force air into a chamber, which in turn s:Hpplied air to the under-surface of a flat-bottomed craft, was described in 1909 by G. F. Whitmore; and in the same year J. C. Hansen-Ellehammer proposed a form of vessel having one or more spaces in its underside to which compressed air was supplied by 'a propeller or fan'. 'Ribs' were provided on the underside to keep the air under the hull when in a seaway, and to act as runners on ice. The essential feature of a patent specification of 1909, in the name of Alex Holmstrom, was a form of propeller; but his specification showed two of these applied to what Holmstrom called a high-speed boat. 'In addition to the resistance of the air being overcome', it was stated, 'air is simultaneously swept under one or more awnings [sic] whereby a lifting effect is produced. Thereby it is made possible, with suitable motive power in the boat, to attain a high speed not hitherto possible, with the slightest frictional resistance to air and water.' The essence of the 'ram wing', as it is known today, was to be seen in a proposal by H. M. van Weede, advanced in 1911. 'The invention,' he said, 'is characterized by forming the hull of an arched shell open at bow and stern, so that the air taken in at the larger front end of the arch will be compressed as the boat moves forward because of the reduction in the cross sectional area of the arch towards the rear, with the result that the boat will skim along the surface of the water.' Van Weede showed in detail the shape of the bottom of the boat, and referred to 'the mass of air constantly contained in the bottom cavity, whereby the frictional resistance is materially lessened'. The containing of air within a cavity qualifies this as an air-cushion proposal. I had not expected to be able to include in this book of 'air and water' the annular-jet devices of J. Robertson Porter, but I find (and the fact appears not to have been recorded previously) that in 1913 this man proposed a version capable of operating from water. Porter declared: 'This invention relates to aeronautical machines of the type in which a 86

hollow pear-shaped body is enclosed within an outer parachute surface, forming with the said body an annular air channel through which air is drawn by means of a fan or propeller; there being also at the top of the machine an annular and flat or slightly curved surface disposed horizontally and forming in its centre a flared inlet communicating with the aforesaid annular air channel.' Porter went on to mention 'an annular hollow float, designed to afford greater stability when the machine alights on water'. 'Before starting a flight,' he said, 'the engine is run for a while to heat the air in the hollow body, so that when the machine is free, the combined lifting effect of the heated air and the propeller causes the machine to rise. Owing to the assistance afforded by the heated air in the hollow body, the power required to lift the machine is reduced in proportion to the size ofthe machine.' These devices of Porter's were regarded by him as helicopters, but they had much in common with today's annular-jet A.C.V.s. Porter even seems to have been conscious of ground effect. He actually employed the expression 'annular jet' and described how this formed an air 'curtain'. A species of flexible skirt was also mentioned in connection with his devices - surely among the more remarkable of those which I have sought in this book to establish in historical perspective.

One of the annular-jet devices of J. Robertson Porter on exhibition at Olympia in I9 I ,. The 'flexible skirt' is seen to advantage.

\

VISTA JOHN JACOB ASTOR (1864-1912) was an American capitalist and iilVentor, a member of the world-renowned family. He was drowned in the Titanic disaster. In 1894 he published a book called A Journey in Other Worlds, a Romance of the Future and mainly concerned with an interplanetary journey in the year A.D. 2000. There were incidental allusions to the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company, flying machines, magnetic railways, cars (and policemen with 'instantaneous kodaks'), television - and air-cushion ships. These last were called 'marine spiders' and had 'large, bell-shaped feet' through which 'a pressure of air' could be 'forced down upon the enclosed surface of the water'. (This is suggestive of the Bertin system of 'petticoats', though the 'bells' swung backwards and forwards for propulsion.) Astor wrote of his 'marine spiders': 'Although, on account of their size, which covers several acres, they can go in any water, they give the best results on Mediterraneans and lakes that are free from ocean rollers, and, under favourable conditions, make better speed than the nineteenth-century express trains... .' He further relates how delegates returning from a conference boarded a 'water spider' at Key West. This craft was six hundred feet long by three hundred in width, and its deck was a hundred feet above the sea. It bore its passengers 'over the water at a mile a minute, around the eastern end of Cuba, through Windward Passage, and so to the South American mainland... .' With this inspiring vision of what is yet to be, glimpsed in the reign of Queen Victoria, I am content to end these excursions into the near-forgotten past - in the sister elements of air and water.

88

INDEX

r:

IIII

INDEX Cockerell, Christopher, I I, 84 Cody, S. F., 42 Colliex, Maurice, 32, 33 Conchis and Hemsen, 45 Cooper-Hewitt, Peter, 42, 59, 60 Crewe, P. R., 55, 56, 73 Crocco, A., 31, 32, 36, 57, 58 Culbertson, 74 Curtiss, Glenn, 15, 34, 35, 36, 37 June Bug, 27 Loon, 27, 28

Ader, Clement, 51, 52, 53, 74, 83 Aerial Experiment Association, 15, 16 Red Wing, 15, 16 Antoinette monoplane, 16 Apsey, Joseph, 66, 71 Archdeacon, Ernest, 15, 16 Armstrong, Lord, 44 Astor, John Jacob, 88 Bacqueville de, Marquis, 13 Baden-Powell, Major B., 15 Banneau, M., 61 Barnaby, Nathaniel, 67 Barton, Dr F. A., 22, 23 Becue, Jean, 3 I Belgique, La, 76 Bell, Dr Alexander Graham, 15 Bernasconi, L., 51 Berriman, Algernon E., 77 B.G.S. hydroplane, 84 Biles, Prof. J. H., 43 Bleriot, Louis, 23, 72 Borel,72 Brabazon, J. T. C. Moore, 15 Bramwell, Sir Frederick, 73, 74, 77 Bristol Aeroplane Co., 39 British and Colonial Aeroplane Co., 39 Britten-Norman Ltd., 85 Brown, J. Pollock, 24 Burney, Lt C. D., 39, 40

Daily Mail cross-channel prize, 16 Dante, 13 Delacombe, Colonel Harry, 16 Denny, William, and Brothers, 24 Dinesen, H. P., 85 Donnet-Leveque flying boat, 37 Egginton, W. L., 73 Emery, C. E., 51 Enghien, Lake, 23, 24 Fabre, Henri, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Farcot, Emmanuel, 50 Farman biplanes, 32 Fauber, W. H., 58, 70, 75, 76 Ferber, Captain, 16, 44 Forlanini, Prof. Enrico, 21, 31, 32, 55, 56, 58, 61 Foudre battleship, 34 Franklin, Benjamin, I I Froude, William, 29, 43, 67, 73

Cardon, Emile, 74 Cayley, Sir George, 41 Chanute, Octave, 19,37, 79 Charpentier flying boat, 34 Charron, M., 60, 61 Churchill, Winston, 28 Clark, C. H., 61 Clark, Josiah, 5 I

Gabardini flying boat, 34 Gallaudet, 20 Gammeter Orthopter, 24 Gibbs-Smith, Charles, 41, 53 Gnosspelius, Oscar T., 35

91

Grahame-White Aviation Co. Ltd., 77 Guidoni, Gen. A., 31, 32, 36, 39 Gyrinus,62

Maxim, Sir Hiram, 48, 51 Maynard's yard, 84 Meacham, Larned, 58 Meacham, William M., 58 Michigan Steel Boat Co., 47, 48 Flying Fish, 47, 48 Miranda III, 62, 63 Morrison, Abraham, 65 Morrison, J., 61 Mouillard, L. P., 13-14 Moy, Thomas, 41, 50 Mumford, E. H., 24 Mutti, Antoine, 42, 58, 59

Hamel, Gustav, 17 Hamilton, Charles Keeney, 26 Hamilton hydro-aeroplane, 78 Hanbury, D., 76 Handley-Page, F., 38 Hansen-Ellehammer, J. c., 86 Hargrave, Lawrence, 14, 20, 21, 22 Hayward, Leslie, 58 Helmholz, von, 42 Hickman, 85 Hodgson, J. E., 41 Holmstrom, Alex, 86 Holt-Thomas, E., 30 Hope-Rathbone, 76 Humphreys Waterplane, 27

Napier, G. R., 56 Napier, G. W., 51 Nieuport, 72 Nissen, Peter, II-I2 Noll, H. J., 55 Obus-Nautilus, 45

Jamestown Exhibition, 24, 26 Janin, L. and M., 51 Joue de, Resnier, 13

Parseval, Major August von, 27, 28 Penaud, Alphonse, 19,20 Phillips, Horatio Frederick, 53, 54, 58,69 Pictet, Raoul, 69 Pilcher, Percy, 43 Porter, J. Robertson, 86, 87 Puydt de, Albert, 56

Kelvin, Lord, 71 Keuka, Lake, 15 Kipling, Rudyard, 45, 46, 47 Kitchener, Lord, 72 Knight, A. E., 70, 71 Kress, Wilhelm, 15, 19

Santos-Dumont, Alberto, 44, 45, 51, 59,60,61 Saunders, Capt. H. E., 65 Saunders, S., 47, 48, 83, 84 Schroeder, F. W., 83, 84 Schwann, Cdr Oliver, 17, 35, 77 Scott Russell, John, 42, 65, 66, 73,74 Short brothers, 38 Silver Heels, 76 Simpson, L. E., 57 Smoothing Iron, 73, 74 Sopwith, Sir Thomas, 47 Squier, Major George 0., 42 Stanfield, John, 5 I Steele, J. E., 47 Surrey Canal, 50

Thornycroft, J. E., 69 Thornycroft, Tom, 85, 86 Tideman, Dr. B. 1., 73 Tissandier, 51, 72 Tout, L. R., 62 Turnbull, W. R., 79 Turner, C. C., 17

Vagabond, 61 Vickers-Armstrongs (Engineers) Ltd., 44 Vigo, Guiseppe, 55 da Vinci, Leonardo, 13 Voisin, Gabriel, 16, 22, 23, 24, 28, 32, 33, 34, 4 2 Wakefield, E. W., 16, 17, 18 Warder, 79 Weede van, H. M., 86 Weltmer, Ernest, 71 Whitmore, G. F., 86 Wilson, W. G., 43 Wright brothers, 19, 24, 25, 37, 53, 77,79

Teale, John, 85 Tetard, M., 51 Thames Bank Wharf Motor Works, 28,76 Thompson, W. P., 58 Thornycroft, Sir John, 43, 62, 65, 69, 70, 71, 80, 81, 82, 83

Quannonne, Gustav, 76 Labor-Fauber hydroplane, 76 Lakes Flying Company, 16 Lambert, Comte de, 53, 54, 55, 69, 70 ,7 2 Langley, Prof. S. P., 14-15 Latham, Hubert, 16 Laval, Gustav de, 74 Lein of Perreux, 44 Levavasseur, Leon, 16,44 Lightning, H.M.S., 81, 82 Lilienthal, Otto, 42, 43 Lindberg, 80 Linton Hope, 76 Lord, Lindsay, 80 Lorraine, Robert, 17 Ludlow, Israel, 26

Radley-England waterplane, 38 Ramus, Rev. Charles Meade, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 Rathbone, 76 Ravaud, Roger, 26, 48, 49 Rawnsley, Canon, 17 Rawson, F. L., 22, 23 Reeve, S. A., 58 Ricaldoni, 0., 57, 58 Richards, J., 64 Richardson, Cdr. Holden C., 24, 64, 78 Roe, A. V., 17, 35, 36 Rust, Rev. E., 44 Sampson, St. Noel, 76 Sanderal, M. de, 51

Maggiore, Lake, 56 92

93