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Adventures in Lighter-Than-Air Flight Preview

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Adventures in Lighter-Than-Air Flight Preview Contents Introduction. .1 Myths, Legends, and Early Attempts. 1 History of Ballooning. 1 The History of Airships. 4 The Science of Lighter-than-Air Flight . 7 Ballooning Firsts . .8 Instructions for Building a Nine-Foot Balloon . 9 Instructions for Building a Six-Foot Balloon . .12 Glossary. .14 Bibliography. 15 Photograph of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families on page 2 © 2000 Stern Magazine/Black Star Image of the balloon accident on page 3 © CORBIS Photograph of the Piccard-Jones Balloon on page 8 © AFP/CORBIS ©2000-2007 Pitsco, Inc. Pitsco gratefully acknowledges the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to this book. Dr. Addison Bain for use of the colorized photograph of the Hindenburg and for reviewing text related to the Hindenburg Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for use of the diagram “Anatomy of a Nonrigid Airship” U. S. Department of Energy for the photograph of the Clean Airship I NASA for vintage photographs of airships University of Texas at Austin for the photograph of Count von Zeppelin United States Air Force Museum for photographs of Joseph Kittinger, Jr., and the Excelsior III Writer and Researcher Kristine Gilbertson Technical Consultation and Revision Bill Holden Steve Snider Dan Eckelberry Original Drawings and Cover Artwork Seth Stewart Todd McGeorge Content Update PJ Graham Editors Tom Farmer Barbara Bateman Dorcia Johnson Introduction Our fascination with flight is as old as man himself. To soar like a bird over mountaintops, to view the world below free of earthly restraints – this was a dream of power, of safety, and of freedom. Is it any wonder that many ancient cultures described mythological creatures, legendary characters, and gods who possessed wings and were gifted with the ability to fly? There were also individuals who thought it was possible for man to fly. Their meticulous observations and record keeping laid the foundation for inventors, adventurers, and scientists who, often at the risk of their own lives, made the dream a reality. Let’s meet them. Myths, Legends, and Early Attempts • Ancient Arabs spoke of a creature called the Jinni who landed a hang glider made of canvas. rose from the earth by inhaling hot desert air. • In 1010, the Anglo-Saxon monk Eilmer fastened wings • English legend tells of the mythical King Bladud, father to his hands and feet, leaped from the summit of a tower, of King Lear. While attempting to fly, Bladud fell into and glided 600 yards before crashing. Eilmer survived the temple of Apollo and was dashed to pieces. the crash albeit with two broken legs. He attributed his • In Greek mythology, Daedalus made failure to stay aloft and return safely to the lack of a tail. wooden-framed wings of feathers and • Marco Polo witnessed Chinese aeronauts leaving the wax. He and his son, Icarus, flew to ground on giant kites in the fourteenth century. The the sky to escape the prison on Crete flyers signalled instructions to the ground during military where they were held. Icarus and shipping maneuvers. • Before Nike was a shoe, she was the • Around 1650, Englishman Greek personification of victory who had wings on her Robert Hook constructed a feet. She could run and fly at great speed. flapping wing aircraft, called an • Gatutkaca, in the Javanese Wayang myths, was a ornithopter, that was powered by formidable warrior who possessed a magic jacket with the human body. The ornithopter which he could fly long distances. was designed by Leonardo da da Vinci’s ornithopter • In 852 A.D., Moorish inventor Armen Firman flew and Vinci in the sixteenth century. History of Ballooning “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in obstacle was the ability to produce gas in sufficient quantity escaping the old ones.” John Maynard Keynes to enable manned flight. Both obstacles were overcome in the eighteenth century. By 1680, scientists recognized that the human body A Workable Concept was not built for flying like a bird. The Italian scientist Father Bartolomeu Lourenco de Gusmao is Giovanni Borelli observed that, even if a human is credited with inventing the hot-air balloon. In 1709, he equipped with wings, his heart is not big enough nor demonstrated small paper balloon models of his own does it beat fast enough to sustain his weight in the air. Attention then turned to alternate methods of achieving Balloon – A spherical craft making for King João V altitude. made of silk, rubber, or other of Portugal. Gas, in this The idea of filling a closed container with a substance suitable nonporous material that case hot air, was supplied that naturally rises in the atmosphere occurred as early contains either hot air or a gas from a small burning as the thirteenth century. Different substances – most that is lighter than air. A balloon basket suspended below has no propulsion or steering commonly hot air, steam, helium, and hydrogen – were mechanism. Its vertical position can the balloon. Although recognized as being lighter than air. However, two obstacles be regulated by dropping ballast one model started a stood in the way of harnessing this knowledge for manned and venting gas, but the horizontal minor fire at the palace, flight. One obstacle was the container or envelope itself. position is entirely at the mercy of the demonstration was The material used had to be lightweight, airtight, securely the prevailing wind. considered a success and fastened, and strong enough to support a man. Another 1 Pressure Atmospheric pressure combined with the weight of Balloons are subject to the payload and passengers determine how big the balloon another force that pushes must be. The lifting capacity of a balloon is directly related against them from all to its size and how much gas it can hold. Larger balloons directions. The force is can lift more weight than smaller balloons because they called atmospheric pressure. displace more of the heavier air. At sea level, the air applies Air Pressure Experiment 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch of surface Fill an empty, plastic, one-gallon milk jug about a area on everything quarter of the way full with very hot water. Screw the cap it touches, including on tightly and let it stand for about an hour. What do you humans! The balloon’s expect will happen? What did happen? Why did it happen? lifting gas must overcome Discussion Questions air pressure in order to Q. Which balloon would meet with less atmospheric rise into and remain in the sky. Air pressure is strongest at pressure – one launched in Denver or one launched in New the ground where the air is warmest and decreases as the Orleans? Why? Which would have the lesser amount of balloon rises into cooler temperatures. gravity to overcome? Why? Gravity Q. How and why do hot-air balloons and airships adjust The final force affecting a balloon is gravity, the force that their internal air pressure? causes objects to have weight and draws them down toward Q. Given that the ancients understood the concept of the ground. Gravity exerts the most force at sea level and buoyancy, explain why manned lighter-than-air flight was declines at higher elevations. not successful until the mid-eighteenth century. Ballooning Firsts November 21, 1783 – Parisians J. F. Pilatre de Rozier and the March 20, 1999 – Bertrand Piccard (grandnephew of Jeanette Marquis d’Arlandes make the first manned flight in a hot-air Piccard) and Brian Jones, flying a type of hybrid craft known balloon. as a Rozier balloon that combines helium with hot air for lift, June 23, 1784 – A 13-year-old are the first to circle the globe. boy, Edward Warren, is the first They cover 28,596 miles in 19 Jumping from the person to ascend in a balloon on days, 21 hours, and 47 minutes, Edge of Space American soil. setting a flight duration record. On August 16, 1960, Air October 23, 1935 – Jeanette June 1, 2000 – David Force Captain Joseph W. Piccard pilots the Century of Hempleman-Adams flies closest Kittinger, Jr., jumped from Progress balloon to 57,559 feet, to the North Pole in a hot-air an open balloon gondola at becoming the first woman to The Piccard-Jones balloon balloon. Bad weather kept him 102,800 feet, breaking the ascend into the stratosphere. © AFP/CORBIS from crossing the top of the sound barrier with his body October 22, 1960 – Ed Yost world. as he descended. The jump, which lasted 13 minutes, 45 July 2, 2002 launches the first hot-air balloon – American Steve seconds and included a four- equipped with a propane heating system. Fossett becomes the first to fly minute, 37-second freefall, September 18, 1984 – Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr., flies from solo around the world in a hot- set a world high-altitude Caribou, Maine, to Savona, Italy, to complete the first solo air balloon. And it didn’t take 90 parachute-jump record that transatlantic balloon flight. (See the sidebar at right for another days: 14 days, 19 hours, and 51 stands to this day! Kittinger record!) minutes was Fossett’s time. Kids, Don’t Try This at Home Californian Larry Waters unintentionally set an altitude record for flight with gas-filled weather balloons on July 2, 1982. Larry, a 33-year-old truck driver with no pilot or balloon training, attached 45 weather balloons filled with helium to his aluminum lawn chair, loaded on supplies that included a pellet gun, and rocketed from the roof of a friend's house. Expecting to rise only 300 feet, Larry found himself instead at 16,000 feet and headed for the Long Beach airport. Pilots of commercial airliners reported seeing Larry and alerted authorities.
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