Read about early aviation

[old man emu]

I often lose myself reading old magazines on line. One of my favourite sites is Google books. There I found digitised copied of Popular Mechanics magazine going right back to 1900. Here's the link:

 

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=A9EDAAAAMBAJ&as_pt=MAGAZINES&source=gbs_other_issues

 

Not only do they contain interesting stuff about early aviation, they also contain items about inventions, and techniques for making all sorts of things.

 

Did you know that the hand drier using blown air were invented before WWl? Sucks to be you, Mr Dyson!

 

OME

 

 

[old man emu]

This copy has lots of aviation stuff.

 

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ueQDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

OME

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Glad you reminded me OME. I stored this link away for a rainy decade and forgot about it, I think it'd take at least a decade to absorb it all - here is 80 years of Popular Aviation and Flying Magazines from 1927 to 2008. Some of the early ones are absolute gold - enjoy!

 

 

[rankamateur]

Found the patent no. 1,692,108 in the February 1929 edition interesting. "Aeroplane safety device, Patented November 20, 1928, by Hermann Bergmann of a dual parachute recovery system. That idea could really take on.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

My oldest early book is one published in 1909 called 'Vehicles of the Air'....by Victor Lougheed......at the rear of the book in fine print that almost requires a magnifying glass to read, it lists all the flights made by man to that point. The Wright Bros first flights are listed on the second page !!.........Maj.......

 

 

[facthunter]

If you include kites, gliders and balloons there is a lot. Powered balloons were quite useful.( sausage shaped) I think it was Santos Dumont who used to fly across Paris for a cup of tea, (or something). The americans had a lot of powered possibilities about. Leonardo Da Vinci had some brilliant concepts which were not taken up so a gap in possible development there. A german chap (Lilienthal)? and Our Hargreaves did a lot of good aerodynamic theory that the Wrights drew from.( I think they acknowledged that) It's distinctly possible that the Wrights were not the first to do powered flight but their plane was definitely more manoeuverable than others due to effective roll control. The French were very active in the early part of the century with airplanes and engines..No doubt the ruskies were doing things too. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

My oldest early book is one published in 1909 called 'Vehicles of the Air'....by Victor Lougheed......at the rear of the book in fine print that almost requires a magnifying glass to read, it lists all the flights made by man to that point. The Wright Bros first flights are listed on the second page !!.........Maj.......

Can you scan that for us Maj?

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Be more than happy to Ok, the book is up at my country property so I 'll have to grab it next time I'm up there which will be sometime next week........If you google the book it also comes up on one of the book sites, and you may be able to look at it from there also................Maj.........