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Crick History Notes 43 Percy Pilcher – the Second Icarus

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Crick History Notes 43 Percy Pilcher – the Second Icarus Crick History Notes 43 Percy Pilcher – The second Icarus In a field visible from the Stamford to South Kilworth road is a monument erected in 1907 by the Royal Aeronautical Society, to the memory of Lieutenant Percy Pilcher, who had a fatal accident on the spot where the column now stands. The Ionic pillar stands on four steps measuring five square yards at the base. On one side are the words 'Percy Pilcher, Pioneer of Aviation, fell here in Sept 30 1899,' and on the other side are the words in Latin 'Icaro Alteri' – To the second Icarus. Percy Pilcher was born in Bath in 1866 and served in the Royal Navy from 1880 to 1887, Afterwards he became an apprentice with shipbuilders Randolph Elder And Co. of Goven in Glasgow. Pilcher studied at London University and then went up to Glasgow to become a lecturer in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 1893. Based on the work of his mentor Otto Lilienhal, who flew 100 yards in a glider in Germany in1892, Percy built a glider called The Bat which he flew by leaping into mid air off a hill near the Clyde in 1895. Other gliders followed, The Beetle, The Gull, and The Hawk with which he broke the world distance record when he flew 820 feet in the grounds of Stanford Hall. Pilcher set his sights upon powered flight and built a triplane that was to be powered by a 4hp engine. Previously he had visited America with the idea of purchasing a 2hp oil engine and two propellers. When he failed to find such an engine he returned home. Construction of the biplane put him heavily into debt and in 1898 he went into partnership with W G Wilson, a man who was later to become famous as one of the first designers of the tank. Together they designed the Wilson Pilcher car. It was at this stage that Percy decided to ask his friend Adrian Verney-Cave, who was the son and heir of Lord Braye who lived at Stanford Hall, if he could carry out flying experiments on the estate. On 30th September 1899 having completed his triplane he intended to demonstrate it to a group of onlookers and potential sponsors. However days beforehand the engine crankshaft had broken and so as not to disappoint his guests he decided to fly the hawk instead. Large crowds gathered at Stanford to watch 'a man fly'. They had come from Rugby, Birmingham, and from different parts of Northamptonshire. The weather had been bad all day, and it was still drizzling with a gusty wind when Percy decided to make his third attempt at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It was against his better judgement but he did not want to disappoint so many spectators. Two previous attempts had failed because of the tow line breaking. Percy dressed all in black stepped into his aircraft, The Hawk. The fragile glider was made out of bamboo piano wire, and covered with Egyptian cotton. The two wings which were sodden with rain after being left out all night, had a span of 23 feet and an area of 180 feet. There was a hole so that his head and arms were above the wings. There were no moveable parts on the glider and control could only be effected by moving his body, similar to a modern hang glider. The glider was launched into the air by horses pulling on ropes and pulleys. He reached a hight of 30 ft and a distance of 200 yds when a bamboo rod in the tail snapped, the glider collapsed and turned over and plummeted to the ground. Pilcher's sister Ella, the Hon. Adrian Verney-Cave, the Hon. Everard Fielding and Doctor Stewart were among the first to arrive on the scene. Carefully they lifted off the wreckage and removed Percy. He was unconscious and badly injured. His relatives were sent for but sadly Pilcher died at 3 am on Monday morning without regaining consciousness. He was 32 years old and had made history by being the first man in Britain to fly a heavier than air machine. A full sized replica of The Hawk is on display at Stanford Hall, the original Hawk is in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland. Pilcher's plans were lost for many years, and his name was also long forgotten except by a few enthusiasts. When the centenary of the Wright Brothers flight approached, a new effort was made to find the lost work, and some correspondence was found in a private American collection. From this it was possible to discern the general direction of his plans and the basis of his design. Based on Lilienthal's work, Pilcher understood how to produce lift using winglike structures, but at this time a full mathematical description was years away, so many elements were still missing. In particular, Pilcher was stuck trying to design a wing that could lift the weight of an engine, the aircraft itself and the occupant – each increase in wing area increased the weight so much that yet more lift was required, requiring a larger wing – a seemingly vicious circle. Pilcher's breakthrough, thanks to correspondence with another pioneer, Octave Chanute, was to stack smaller, lighter wings one atop the other in an arrangement we know today as the biplane or triplane. This allowed the wings to generate much more lift without a corresponding increase in weight. In 2003, a research effort carried out at the School of Aeronautics at Cranfield University, commissioned by the BBC 2 television series 'Horizon', has shown that Pilcher's design was more or less workable, and had he been able to develop his engine, it is possible he would have succeeded in being the first to fly a heavier-than-air powered aircraft with some degree of control. Cranfield built a replica of Pilcher's aircraft and added the Wright brothers' innovation of wing- warping as a safety backup for roll control. Pilcher's original design did not include aerodynamic controls such as ailerons or elevator. After a very short initial test, the craft achieved a sustained flight of 1 minute and 25 seconds, compared to 59 seconds for the Wright Brothers' best flight at Kitty Hawk. This was achieved under dead calm conditions as an additional safety measure, whereas the Wright brothers flew in a 25mph wind to achieve enough airspeed on their early attempts. Alan Bale Crick History Society www.westnorthantshistory.co.uk/crick.
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