Sir George Cayley

Sir George Cayley (December 27, 1773 – December 15. 1857) was the preeminent aeronautical engineer of his time. He was working on the concept of powered flight over a century before it was fully developed by the Wright brothers.

He was a prolific worker when it came to developing other ideas. He played parts in self righting life boats, automatic signals for railways, seat belts, small scale helicopters, a prototype of the internal combustion engine (using gun powder), prosthetics, electricity, land reclamation, tension-spoke wheels and other important inventions.

But it is the work in flight he is most remembered for.

This journey began with the principles of flight being developed as early as 1792. By 1796 he had developed a model helicopter so he could measure the drag on objects at different speeds. From these experiments he identified the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: thrust, lift, drag and weight.

In 1804 Cayley had reached the stage where he built a model monoplane glider that would be recognized even today. From this he learnt that dihedral (when the wings are set lower at the center and higher at the ends) wings improved flight and stability. From here he developed more models until, in 1807, he found that a curved lifting surface assisted with the lift more than a flat surface.

He went on to publish his famous three part series in 1810 called “On Aerial Navigation”, which stated that lift, propulsion and control were required for successful flight. He appears he was the first person to publish these findings.

In 1816 he designed a semi-rigid airship and by 1837 he had designed a streamlined airship to be powered by a steam engine.

But the real fun started in 1849, when he designed and made a large gliding machine based on his designs from 1799. He tested it by putting a 10 year old boy into the device and setting it to flight at least once.

1853 he developed an even large glider that was flown over Brompton Dale by his coachman who complained about this event because he felt airships had nothing to do with coach driving.