Did anyone know the box kite was invented in Australia in 1890?!?!
yep lawrance hargrave {the guy on the old $20 bill}
stanwell park -NE seabreeze
first guy to get air time ...read on
On November 12, 1894, Lawrence Hargrave, the Australian inventor of the box kite, linked four of his kites together, added a sling seat, and flew 16 feet. By demonstrating to a sceptical public that it was possible to build a safe and stable flying machine, Hargrave opened the door to other inventors and pioneers. The Hargrave-designed box kite, with its improved lift-to-drag ratio, was to provide the theoretical wing model that allowed the development of the first generation of European (and American) airplanes.
In the 1890s a small number of inventive technologists were working to translate infant aviation theory into airplanes. Leading the race was Hargrave, a quintessential nineteenth-century gentleman scientist of independent means. A gifted explorer, astronomer, amateur historian, and practical inventor, Hargrave devoted most of his life to constructing a machine that would fly. He believed passionately in open communication within the scientific community and would not patent his inventions. Instead, he scrupulously published the results of his experiments.
The first successful aircraft incorporated three crucial aeronautical concepts developed by Hargrave: the cellular box-kite wing, the curved wing surface, and the thick leading wing edge (aerofoil). The Wright brothers had access to Hargrave's work through the aviation annuals published by James Means, and Octave Chanute's Progress in Flying Machines. Chanute, who corresponded with the Wright brothers, devoted a section of his book to Hargrave's experiments. But the Wright brothers, constrained by politics and patent problems of their time, admitted no influences.
The direct line of Hargrave's influence on the evolution of flying is more discernible in Europe. The French (who thought that France was the cradle of aviation) freely acknowledged Hargrave's influence: Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first European to fly a heavier-than-air machine constructed of Hargrave box kites in 1906. When Gabriel Voisin built the first commercially available aircraft, based on the stable lifting surfaces of Hargrave's box kites, he called them "Hargraves."
In 1889 Hargrave revolutionised engine technology by inventing the radial rotary engine, which reappeared (unacknowledged) in modified form in 1908 as the French Gnome engine. Although as early as 1892 Hargrave had voiced his opposition to the idea of the "connection of the flying machine with dynamite missiles," the rotating radial engine was extensively used in military aircraft until it was superseded by new engine technologies many years later.
Hargrave's concern for the peaceful promulgation of knowledge was evidenced in his concern for the safe placement of his working models in an environment open to the public. The only museum that would meet his terms was the Deutsches Technological Museum in Munich. It is ironic that most of Hargrave's 176 working models were destroyed in the Allied aerial bombardment of Germany during World War II. The 25 surviving models were restored in the 1960s to Sydney, Australia's Powerhouse Museum, which is staging an exhibition to mark the centennial of Hargrave's first flight.
Octave Chanute wrote in 1893 that "If there be one man more than another who deserves to succeed in flying, that man is Mister Lawrence Hargrave of Sydney." But Hargrave never did solve the power-to-weight ratio problem. His 1902 design was put to the test in 1992 when students at the University of Sydney rebuilt his aircraft from the original blueprint, replacing Hargrave's power plant with a modern one. ...It flew.
Gotta Love WA !!!!!!
