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One hundred years ago Frenchman Paul Cornu piloted a twin-rotor helicopter of his own design, and rose about one foot (0.3 meter) off the ground. He hovered for about 20 seconds. Or he didn’t. A century after that maiden flight, some engineers and historians question whether Cornu’s craft could have taken wing as he described it.But despite the skepticism, most helicopter historians – especially in France – still mark the first helicopter flight on Nov. 13, 1907. That makes this centennial the perfect time to take a look back at the long history of stationary flight, from its roots in ancient China, to concept vehicles being touted as the flying cars of the future.Left: Circa 400 B.C., Chinese Bamboo Helicopters For many Westerners, the myth of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun on manmade wings, represents the dreams and the dangers of flight. But a century before the earliest mentions of Icarus in ancient Greece, Chinese children were already playing with kites and spinning bamboo propellers. While the kites had religious significance, and rockets became favored by the military, the flying propellers remained mainly toys. Children sent them aloft by spinning the central stick between their palms.credit Image: Manuscript B, folio 83 v., Courtesy of Biblioteca Ambrosiana

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1483 to 1486, Leonardo da Vinci’s Vite Aerea — the Aerial Screw Trade from the Far East resulted in the Chinese toys reaching Europe in the early Renaissance, likely inspiring Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) to create a drawing called the Aerial Screw. “I believe that if this screw device is well-manufactured, that is, if it is made of linen cloth, the pores of which have been closed with starch, and if the device is promptly reversed, the screw will engage its gear when in the air and it will rise up on high,” da Vinci wrote in a note next to the drawing, according to the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, Italy.credit Image: IBM Corporate Archives1483 to 1486, Aerial Screw is Flightless =description Leonardo da Vinci drew a number of designs for flying machines, including ornithopters, which mimic bird flight, and the Aerial Screw. The designs assumed, incorrectly, that one or more human pilots could generate enough power to lift the machine into the sky. While the design indicates that four men could turn the screw using a pumping action, the machines would never have been able to generate enough lift to get off the ground, according to experts. credit Image: Aircraft Development Lab

July 1754, Mikhail Lomonosov’s Aerodynamic Three centuries passed before another major milestone in vertical flight appeared. Looking for a way to loft meteorological instruments into the air, noted Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov designed a model that used two propellers rotating in opposite directions on the same axis. The coaxial design offsets the torque created by a single propeller – a situation that would have caused the device to spin in the opposite direction of the propeller blade. Lomonosov demonstrated a model powered by a clock spring to the Russian Academy of Sciences in July 1754. Questions remain whether the device managed to lift itself during the demonstration or whether it was supported by a string.1784, Launoy and Bienvenu Recreate Helicopter Toy =description Naturalist Christian de Launoy and his mechanic Bienvenu, about whom very little is known, presented a coaxial model of a simple helicopter powered by the tension in a bow. “When the bow has been bent by winding the cord, and the axle placed in the desired direction of height – say vertically, for instance – the machine is released,” the pair told the French Academy of Sciences in 1784.”The unbending bow rotates rapidly, the upper wings one way and the lower wings the other way, these wings being arranged so that the horizontal percussions of the air neutralize each other, and the vertical percussions combine to raise the machine. It therefore rises and falls back afterward from its own weight.” Image: O. Chanute, http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Chanute/library/Prog_Contents.html Progress in Flying Machines credit Image: Wikipedia1799, Sir George Cayley, Father of Aviation, designs glider =description While reports of gliders appeared in China (fifth century B.C.) and Moorish Spain (A.D. 875 A.D.), Cayley is widely recognized for discovering the four principle forces of flight – weight, lift, drag and thrust – and their relationship. The baronet also designed a familiar-looking airplane – consisting of a single wing, rear stabilizers and a vertical fin. He used the design to create the first glider to have a well-documented manned flight. A full-scale model of the glider – or “governable parachute,” as it was called – carried one of Cayley’s employees aloft in 1853.

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credit Image: http://www.aviastar.org All the World’s Rotorcraft1843, Cayley’s “Aerial Carriage” Sir George Cayley searched for a way to propel his heavier-than-air vehicles. He tried to create a rudimentary engine fueled with gunpowder, but the invention did not work reliably. He decided to design around his lack of success with engine power by revisiting da Vinci’s ideas of a human-powered machines. He came up with the concept of the “Aerial Carriage” in 1843, consisting of four umbrella-like propellers that would rotate for lift, but it never successfully hovered or flew.

credit Image: http://www.famille-damecourt.com Famille d’Amécourt1863, Call them “Helicopteres” One vertical-flight enthusiast, Gustave Vicomte de Ponton d’Amécourt, designed a model flying machine using coaxial propellers and a coiled spring for propulsion. While that model could fly, another version using a steam engine had failed. Ponton d’Amecourt called his machines “helicopteres,” a word derived from the Greek adjective for “spiral” and the noun “pteron,” meaning “wing.” Ponton d’Amecourt and his group of enthusiasts inspired Jules Verne to add helicopters to his stories.credit Image: Stephen Pitcairn, Pitcairn Aircraft Company1880, Thomas Alva Edison Fails With Helicopters =description Inventors who focused on helicopters during the latter half of the 19th century were stymied by the lack of powerful, but lightweight, engines to turn their helicopters’ rotors. Among the early engineers, Thomas Edison was the first American to attempt to further the study of helicopters by focusing on the engines. The inventor – known for successfully creating the long-lasting light bulb and the phonograph – tried to power his models with an early internal-combustion engine that used guncotton for fuel, but an explosion in his lab convinced him to switch to an electric engine. He concluded, however, that the design required higher-performing rotors. Here, Edison (left) stands with test pilot James G. Ray in 1930, in front of an autogyro created by Pitcairn Aircraft. credit Image: Courtesy of Andrew Nash1886, Jules Verne Depicts the Albatross Flying Ship =description The push to create heavier-than-air vehicles caught the imagination of many 19th-century citizens, among them the famous writer Jules Verne. In his book, Robur-le-Conquérant (or Robur, the Conqueror), published in 1886, Verne envisioned a flying ship named the Albatross that could fly through the air by using 37 helicopter-like propellers. Robur uses the ship to launch attacks against his enemies. 1903, Wright Brothers Fly at Kitty Hawk =description Wilbur and Orville Wright designed and built the first airplane to attain powered flight, four years before the first helicopter inventors could claim such a feat for vertical flight. The self-trained engineers steadily improved the design, from a kite in 1899 to three gliders and then three powered airplanes in 1903, 1904 and 1905. By their final flight, they had improved the design to the point that extended flights, fully controlled by the pilot, were possible. credit Image: http://www.flying-bike.demon.co.uk FlyingBike

August 1907, The Bréguet-Richet Gyroplane No. 1 Brothers Louis and Jacques Bréguet began work on their version of a helicopter in 1905 under the tutelage of Professor Charles Richet. In late summer 1907 – sources vary on whether it was Aug. 24 or Sept. 29 – the machine achieved its first vertical ascent, hovering off the ground for two minutes. However, the craft – christened Gyroplane No. 1 – needed four men to steady it, as the primitive helicopter lacked any way to control its flight. The craft had a 45-horsepower engine, just powerful enough to hover.1907, Paul Cornu, inventor and engineer =description Like the Wright Brothers, Paul Cornu was a bicycle maker and engineer. Born in 1881 in Glos-la-Ferrière, France, to a family of 13 children, Cornu had an interest in inventing and drawing early in life. He worked with his father in the family transport company, but because of Cornu’s interests, the business eventually transitioned to bicycle design and repair. In the early 1900s, Cornu had his eye on winning the Deutsch-Archdeacon award – the X Prize of its day – a purse of 50,000 francs funded by two Parisians for the first heavier-than-air vehicle to complete a 1-kilometer circuit. While other inventors looked to win the prize with a primitive airplane, Cornu decided to focus on creating a helicopter capable of the flight. Yet he failed to develop a workable craft in time – the award was won on Jan. 13, 1908, by Henri Farman using one of the earliest airplanes. Cornu died on June 6, 1944, when his house was inadvertently bombed by Allied forces on D-Day.Photo: Getty Images credit Photo: Getty Images1907, Paul Cornu: First to Hover? =description Using 100 francs borrowed from friends, Cornu built a life-sized version of a 25-pound helicopter model that he successfully flew in 1906. On Nov. 13, 1907, Cornu’s twin-rotor craft flew for about 20 seconds, rising about one foot (0.3 meter) off the ground. The vehicle’s rotors were mounted outrigger-style on either side of the steel-frame-and-wire contraption. A 24-horsepower engine powered the propellers. Cornu’s helicopter had no effective way to control its flight, a fact that led engineers to abandon the design after a few flights. Whether Cornu’s helicopter flew as described is now doubted by many helicopter historians. An http://www.glue.umd.edu/~leishman/Aero/Cornu.pdf engineering analysis (.pdf) of Cornu’s helicopter has concluded that the machine could never have flown, even taking into account so-called ground effects, which give low-hovering craft an extra boost. “There is a discrepancy between what he claimed to have done and what was technically possible,” says Roger Connor, curator of the vertical-flight collection at the Smithsonian Institution and the chair of the American Helicopter Society’s history committee. 1908, First manned flight in the United States =description Emile Berliner, who created the gramophone (disc-record player) and founded the Victor Talking Machine Co., was also an avid helicopter inventor. Berliner created a 36-horsepower engine and used two of them on a platform designed by John Newton Williams. The craft reportedly lifted both men about 3 feet off the ground, but likely had to be steadied. Berliner, went on to build several other helicopters, and also suggested the use of an auxiliary tail rotor – a standard feature of helicopters today – to stabilize flight. Image: http://people.clarkson.edu/~ekatz/scientists/electrochemists.htm Evgeny Katz’s History of Science 1920s, Juan de la Cierva =description Born in 1895, Juan de la Cierva is credited with pioneering many of the necessary systems for controllable helicopter flight. In 1920, the 25-year-old Spanish engineer started work on a strange mechanical http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast177.htm manticore: an airplane with the wings replaced by a non-powered propeller. By 1923, his latest aircraft – called Autogiro No. 4 – flew a 4-kilometer circuit around Madrid. Ironically, the Spanish engineer questioned whether helicopters could ever be successful, as he believed they were too complicated to fly reliably. De la Cierva died on Dec. 9, 1936, when his plane crashed on takeoff from London. Photo: Bruce H. Charnov, From Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology

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