Percy Pilcher
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Percy Sinclair Pilcher (16 January 1866 — 2 October 1899) was a British inventor and pioneer aviator who, in one of the big "what if" events of history, could well have become the first person to achieve controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight well before the Wright brothers had he not been tragically killed in a glider accident.
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[edit] Early life
Pilcher was born in Bath in 1866 to a Scottish mother, and served in the Royal Navy for seven years from 1880. Thereafter he became an apprentice with the shipbuilders, Randolph, Elder and Company, of Govan in Glasgow.
[edit] Career
In 1891 Pilcher began work as assistant lecturer at Glasgow University and took a growing interest in aviation. He built a hang glider called The Bat which he flew for the first time in 1895; the Bat had a double use of the triangle control frame (TCF) (or A-frame for hang gliders, trikes, and ultralights) as both a piloting device as well as an airframe part that doubled in kinposting utility. Later that year Pilcher met Otto Lilienthal, who was the leading expert in gliding in Germany. These discussions led to Pilcher building two more gliders, The Beetle and The Gull. Based on the work of his mentor Otto Lilienthal, in 1897 Pilcher built a glider called The Hawk with which he broke the world distance record when he flew 250 m (820 feet) at the grounds of Stanford Hall near Lutterworth in Leicestershire, England.
Pilcher set his sights upon powered flight: he developed a triplane that was to be powered by a 4 hp (3 kW) engine; however, construction of the triplane put him heavily into debt, and Pilcher needed sponsorship to complete his work.
[edit] Death
On 30 September 1899, having completed his triplane, he had intended to demonstrate it to a group of onlookers and potential sponsors in a field near Stanford Hall. However, days before, the engine crankshaft had broken and, so as not to disappoint his guests, he decided to fly the Hawk instead. The weather was stormy and rainy, but by 4pm Pilcher decided the weather was good enough to fly[1]. Whilst flying, the tail snapped and Pilcher plunged 10 metres (30 feet) to the ground: he died two days later from his injuries with his triplane having never been publicly flown.
He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.[1]
[edit] Legacy
A stone monument to him stands in the field near Stanford Hall at the point where he crashed, and a full sized replica of his "The Hawk" glider is also displayed at Stanford Hall.
[edit] Renewal of interest
Pilcher's plans were lost for many years, and his name was also long forgotten except by a few enthusiasts. With the upcoming centenary of flight, 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. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pilcher had worked out 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 BBC2 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 likely he would have succeeded in being the first to fly a heavier-than-air, powered aircraft under control. A replica of Pilcher's aircraft was built, and after some problems, achieved a sustained controlled flight of 1 minute and 26 seconds, significantly longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight. In addition, this was achieved under dead calm conditions, whereas the Wrights needed a steady 25 knot+ wind to achieve enough airspeed on their early attempts.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Lots of info about Pilcher
- More info about Pilcher
- Guardian story about Pilcher
- The BBC Horizon programme's website about Pilcher
[edit] References
- ^ 'Mr Leicester'. 2008. The Rise and fall of Percy Pilcher. Leicester Mercury Saturday 2 Feb. pp 16-17.)
