On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:47:53 -0700, JR wrote:

From the Holland Herald:

".....when the aviation pioneer Sir George Cayley first worked out the
principles of lift and thrust some 200 years ago, he took the dimensions
of the trout as his model -- and in fact these correspond almost exactly
to a modern low-drag airfoil."

Figure 1:

http://aerodyn.org/People/cayley.html


Interesting that you brought this up. When I was 4, my parents bought
me an 8 volume child's encyclopedia and Cayley's work was one of the
main themes of the development or aerodynamics. Also in that book is
a picture of Sir Hiram Maxim's aircraft built in 1894 that he
apparently flew while it was constrained by rails. It reportedly left
the ground by two feet, the first powered flight. It was too unstable
though to be flown without the rails in place so Maxim didn't develop
it further.

Peter

turn mailhot into hotmail to reply

Visit The Streamer Page at http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...ers/index.html