Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Engineers, Mechanics, and Other Scholars Better Skip This Chapter

"When will human beings stop crawling on the ground and live in the blue sky and enjoy the tranquility of space?" Regarding this question, the answer is very simple: wait until the machine is advanced enough to allow humans to solve the problem of flight.In recent years, as electricity has become more and more practical, it is expected that the problem will eventually be solved. In 1783, the world's first Montgolfier-style hot air balloon was created, and physicist Charles created the first hydrogen balloon.And long before that, some adventurous people fantasized about conquering space with the help of machines.That said, the earliest inventors didn't contemplate using lighter-than-air devices—the physics of their day didn't allow that.What they think about is how to use heavier-than-air tools or imitation of birds to achieve air transportation.

That's what Daedalus' son, Madame, did, except his waxed wings melted as he flew near the sun. No need to go back to the age of myth and legend, and needless to say, even Dante de Belluz.Ideas for machines navigating the atmosphere can be found in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Guidoti, and others.Two and a half centuries later, inventors began to emerge in droves. In 1742, the Marquis of Barkerville built a wing system; he broke his arm while trying to fly it over the Seine. In 1768, Pockton designed a device with a lifting propeller and a propulsion propeller. In 1781, the architect of the Prince of Baden, Milwein, created a machine that imitated the actions of straight-winged insects to compete with the airship that had just been invented at that time. In 1784, Ronois and Bianvoni tested a clockwork propeller machine. In 1808, the Austrian Jacques Degen conducted a flight test. In 1810, Denio of Nantes published a pamphlet proposing the principle of "heavier than air".Later, from 1811 to 1840, there was Bellinger.A series of studies and inventions by Vicar, Salti, Dubocher and Garnier de Latour, among others. In 1842, the British Henson invented the oblique wing and the propeller driven by steam; in 1845, Kesu invented the helicopter propeller; Paul invented the controllable parachute system, and he himself died in the experiment. In the same year, Michel Roux invented a glider with four rotating wings; San-Sardana invented the controllable kite, and Georges Goron proposed a flying machine with a gas engine. Between 1854 and 1863 came the likes of Joseph Polina (who patented several aeronautical inventions), Blaion, Carlingford, Le Brie, Dee Dampler.Brett (whose invention of the lifting propeller can be rotated separately in opposite directions), Smith, Panafier, Crosnier and others. In 1863, thanks to Nadal's efforts, the "Heavier than Air" Association was finally established in Paris.There inventors experimented with their machines, some of which were patented: such as Ponthon Damecourt's steam propeller.Lalandelle's oblique-wing parachute-propeller combination system, Louflier's flying boat.Estelno's mechanical bird, Grover's lever tractor wing.Enthusiasm was mobilized for all: inventors inventing, calculators crunching all the numbers that would make air transport a reality.Bourcar, Le Brie, Goffman, Smith, Stetfero, Prijean.When Jarre.Bohme and de Rapoz, Mois.Benoy.Jobert, Hulot de Villeneuve, Aschenbach.Garapon, Dishesner, Don Durand, Balizel, Dieued, Melekisov.Forlanini.Some of them use wings, some use propellers or oblique wings, and some of them are imagining, creating, developing and perfecting their flying machines.The day some inventor comes up with a powerful yet extremely light engine that can be fitted to these flying machines, these flying machines will actually fly.

Readers, please excuse this lengthy list.Should not the stages of the development of the flying machine before Robier the Conqueror reach its pinnacle be described?Without the groping and experimentation of these pioneers, could this engineer have designed such a perfect flying machine?Certainly not!Although he looked down on those who stubbornly only wanted to build airships, he had great disdain for those who held the idea that aircraft should be "heavier than air", such as the British.Americans, Italians, Austrians, French, he is highly respected.Especially the French, it was on the basis of their labor results, after his improvement, he finally invented and manufactured the "Albatross" flying machine, which enabled him to travel in the sky.

"If you are a pigeon, you should fly in the sky!" shouted a staunch supporter of the aviation industry. "You should step on the atmosphere like your feet on the earth!" echoed another ardent supporter of the aviation industry. "If there are trains that run on the ground, there should be trains that run in the sky!" said one of the most yelling people, holding an advertising loudspeaker calling for new and old continents. Indeed, both experiments and calculations have proved very clearly that air is a very reliable support.A circular parachute with a diameter of 1 meter can not only slow down the speed of falling 8, but also make the landing lose acceleration.This is a well-known fact.

It is also well known that in high speed motion, gravity becomes insignificant since its effect is essentially inversely proportional to the square of the velocity. And it is also known that the greater the mass of flying animals (although such animals do not fly fast), the correspondingly smaller the wing area necessary to support them. The means of flight, therefore, should take advantage of these laws of nature to imitate the flying bird - which Dr. Marais of the French Academy of Sciences called "the wonderful species of aerial movement" - Broadly speaking, machines that solve this problem can be divided into three categories:

1.Propellers, or propellers: Actually, these are just propellers with vertical axes. 2.Grasshoppers are machines that try to fly as birds naturally fly. 3.Flying machines, in fact, are just some sloping planes, much like kites, except that they are pulled or pushed by propellers in the horizontal direction. All of these systems had, and even still have, some determined adherents to their end. After much consideration, Robier decided to abandon the first two systems. Grasshopper machines, mechanical birds, undoubtedly have their strengths. This was proved by M. Reynaud's experiments in 1884.But as someone pointed out, it is impossible to imitate nature as it is.The locomotive is not a copy of the rabbit, nor is the steamship a copy of the fish.The former had wheels instead of legs, and the latter had propellers instead of fins, but they both walked well.The flying movements of giant birds are so complicated, how to figure out its flight mechanism?Didn't Dr. Marley speculate that the feathers of the crow's wings spread out to let the air pass when they were raised upward?Such a movement, it is very difficult to artificially build a machine to imitate it.

Besides, it is an undoubted fact that there are already many good records in flying machines.The slope of the propeller acts on the atmosphere in such a way as to generate upward momentum.Experiments with small installations have shown that the load--that is, the load at the disposal of a man in addition to the weight of the machine itself--increases with the square of the speed.This is extremely advantageous, even more so than a longboat moving at a constant speed. Robbier felt that the easiest way was the best way.Therefore, the propeller—that is, what the Welton Society people jokingly called and accused—sufficed for all the needs of his flying machine, using part of the propeller to keep the machine suspended in the air, and the other part to provide speed and safety. to push the machine forward.

Yes, theoretically speaking, with a propeller with a short pitch but a large blade area, it is possible, as Mr. Victor Tatan said, to "lift an object of infinite weight with the smallest force". Whereas a grasshopper generally rises by forcing the air down in imitation of the flapping of a bird's wings, a propeller rises by obliquely cutting the air with the blades of its propeller, as if ascending on an inclined plane.These are actually helical, not turbine-like blades, and the rotation of the propeller moves the propeller axially.If the axis is vertical, it will move vertically; if the axis is horizontal, it will move horizontally.

Engineer Robier's entire flying machine only has these two functions. Precisely, it can be divided into three main parts: platform, lifting and propulsion mechanism, engine room. The platform - this is a frame structure 30 meters long and 4 meters wide, like a full-fledged ship deck with spur-like points.Below the deck is a round shell with solid bones, which includes machines for producing power, baggage compartments, control devices, tools, and a general warehouse of various materials and miscellaneous goods including the fresh water tank on board.The platform is surrounded by small pillars, connected by barbed wire, with railings on them as handrails.There are three cabins above the platform, some of the small rooms in the cabin are used as bedrooms, and some are used as machine rooms.The middle cabin houses the machines that drive all the hoists, the front cabin houses the drives for the forward propulsion units, and the rear cabin houses the drives for the rear propulsion units.All three machines have their own unique way of starting.In the first cabin at the front, it also includes the pantry, galley and crew cabin.There are several cabins in the aft cabin at the stern, one is the engineer’s room and the other is used as a dining room; in the glass cabin above, the helmsman controls the aircraft through a powerful steering wheel.The portholes of the cabin are all equipped with tempered glass, which is 10 times stronger than ordinary glass.Although the engineer is already very comfortable in manipulating the machine, and the landing can be done smoothly and softly, a spring system is installed under the shell to cushion the landing.

Lifting device and propulsion device - on the platform, there are 15 shafts vertically placed on each side, 30 shafts in total on both sides, and seven higher ones in the middle. It looks like a ship with 37 masts, except that the masts are not The sails, but the propellers.There are two propellers placed horizontally on each shaft, with relatively short pitch and diameter, which can be used for surprisingly high-speed rotation.Each axis moves independently of the other axes.The directions of rotation of every two shafts are opposite, and this design is a necessary measure to prevent the aircraft from spinning.In this way, the propeller can continuously rise along the vertical air column without losing balance in the horizontal direction.The result is a total of 74 lifting propellers throughout the craft.The three blades of each propeller are held in place by a metal ring that acts as a flywheel to save power.The front and rear of the hull each have two four-bladed propulsion propellers mounted on horizontal axes in opposite directions with extremely long pitches, each rotating in different directions to generate propulsion.Both propellers have a longer diameter than the lift propeller, but are equally capable of spinning at extremely high speeds.

In short, this flying machine has inherited the characteristics of the systems of Cosy, Lalandelle, and Ponton-Damecourt, and has been improved by Robier to make it more perfect.Especially in the selection and application of power, Robier is worthy of the title of "inventor". The power part—Robier neither uses water vapor or other liquid vapor, nor compressed air or other elastic gas to produce the power of his aircraft to rise and advance, nor does he mix different substances to generate explosive mechanical force to obtain his flying machine the power needed.He used electricity, the driving force that would one day be the soul of the industrial world.Moreover, he did not use any generators to produce electricity, only dry cells and accumulators.But what are the components of these batteries?What acid is the acid that makes it generate electricity?This is Robier's secret.As for the storage battery, what is the nature of its cathode plate and anode plate?None of this is known.It is self-evident why engineers deliberately do not apply for patents.In short, the undeniable result is that the battery is so effective that the acid used in the battery is almost completely non-evaporating and non-freezing.Its performance has left the Fur-Sialon-Vokmar battery far behind.In a word, the intensity of the current was unprecedented at that time.The electric power generated by it can be said to be unlimited, no matter what the situation is, it can provide power for the propeller, so that the flying machine can get enough lift and propulsion. It is necessary to repeat here: all this was done by Robier alone.But he himself is tight-lipped about it.If the chairman and secretary of the Welton Society can't reveal the secret, maybe this secret will never be known to the world. Because of its low center of gravity, it is needless to say that the aircraft is stable. In the horizontal direction, it will not tilt to a frightening degree, and there is no need to worry that it will capsize. The last thing to say is what material Robier's flying machine (the flying machine is a good name for the "Albatross") is made of.What kind of material is this kind of thing that even Phil Evans' knife can't cut through, and even Uncle Prudden can't say what kind of thing it is made of? - It's paper. The paper industry has come a long way over the years.The unadhesive paper is soaked in dextrin and starch, and then pressed by a hydraulic press to become a substance as hard as steel.This material can be used to make pulleys, rails, and train wheels.These wheels are even stronger than metal wheels and are lightweight.It was precisely this strong and light substance that Robier needed to build his aerial vehicle.The hulls, frames, cabins, and cabins are all made of straw-based paper. After high-pressure treatment, this paper becomes like metal, and even becomes incombustible.For a machine meant to fly at high altitudes, this latter point should never be underestimated.As for the various parts of the lifting and propulsion equipment, such as the shaft and blades of the propeller, it is made of gelatin, a strong and flexible fiber, as a raw material.The substance is easy to shape without decomposing in most gases and liquids (acids or gasoline), not to mention its insulating properties.Therefore, it is very valuable to use it in the electrical part of the "Albatross". Engineer Rob Bill, foreman Tom Turner, a mechanic and two assistants.Two helmsmen, one cook, a total of eight people, this is all the members of the crew, which is enough to handle all the operations of this air locomotive.The aircraft is equipped with hunting weapons.Weapons for war, fishing gear, electric lights, observation instruments, compasses and sextants for measuring headings.Thermometers to learn about air temperature, various barometers (some to measure the altitude of flight, others to measure changes in atmospheric pressure), a climate change forecasting tube to predict storms, a small bookcase, a portable printing press, a door on the deck The cannon in the center (rotatable around the axis, shells loaded from the breech, caliber 60 mm), a warehouse for storing gunpowder, shells and detonators, and a heating furnace powered by batteries.A stock of food in a special storeroom (canned food, pork, vegetables, plus barrels of brandy, whiskey, and gin) was, in short, enough for a flight without landing for several months.These are all the supplies and food on the aircraft, and of course the famous horn. Also in the cabin is a lightweight, unsinkable dinghy for eight people on a river, lake or calm sea. Did Robier also have a parachute in case of distress?No.He doesn't think such accidents will happen.All propeller shafts are independent of each other.Even if some propellers stall, the others will continue to spin.As long as half of the propellers are turning, it is enough to maintain the flight of the "Albatross". As Robier the Conqueror later said to his new (and reluctant) guests: "With it, I become the master of the seventh part of the world. This seventh part, which is bigger than Australia, Oceania, Asia, America and Europe, will be visited by thousands of Ikarians in the future The ones in the air come to live."

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