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Early Balloon-Based Aerial Photography

Two Early Papers on Successful Free-Balloon Aerial Photography (1880 and 1886)

Desmarets, Paul. "Sur les moyens d'obtenir des epreuves photographiques en ballon libre. Note de P. Desmarets, presentee par M. Janssen (Extrait)", in  Comptes Rendus, vol  91 no. 4,  26 July 1880, the article on pp 246-7  in the issue of pp 187-250. This weekly issue is extracted from a larger bound volume, but it does come with the front wrapper, which is fairly scarce.  

Offered with:

Tissandier, Gaston (1843-1899). "Nouvelle experiences de photographie en ballon; ascension de Mm A. and G. Tissandier et P. Nadar", in Comptes Rendus 19 July 1886, vol 103 no 5, the article appearing on p 224-5 in the issue of pp 179-226. Offered with the original wrappers, extracted from a larger bound volume.  Good solid copy.  Tissandier discusses particulars of the work by photographer Jacques Ducom who took advantage of new photographic plate tech improvements to make a superb image of Paris in a free balloon at about 1200 metres.  ("Gaston Tissandier  was a French chemist, meteorologist, aviator and editor. Adventurer could be added to the list of his titles, as he managed to escape besieged Paris by balloon in September 1870. He founded and edited the scientific magazine La Nature and wrote several books."--Wiki)

The two papers: $400

“The history of aerial photography began in 1858, when the photographer Nadar took the first photographs from a balloon. His results were only partially successful, as were those of other experimenters who followed him, and it was not until 1878, when factory-made gelatin dry plates were introduced, that aerial photography came into its own. Using gelatin plates, which were twenty times faster than the old wet-collodion plates, the photographer Paul Desmarets obtained two birds-eye views of Rouen in 1880 from a balloon at 4,200 feet. [the first paper offered above]. However, Desmarets' results were surpassed five years later by Jacques Ducom, who, in a balloon navigated by Gaston Tissandier, was able to take superb aerial photographs of Paris from a height of 1,800 feet" [the second paper offered above]. --Jeremy Norman, from his excellent and highly useful History of Information site (section on Tissandier's book on aerial photography, which was the first of its kind, and issued in 1886.)

"Ducom's view of the Ile Saint-Louis, Paris from 1,800 ft leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. Through a magnifying glass people can be counted on the bridge. The exposure of this and the other photographs taken on this flight was 1/50 second, using a specially constructed guillotine shutter which was opened pneumatically and closed automatically with a rubber spring" (Gernsheim & Gernsheim, The History of Photography 1685-1914 p. 508)--again quoting the very resourceful Mr. Norman (above).

 

An Early Printing In English of Alexander Graham Bell's Account of the First Unmanned Heavier-than-Air Sustained Powered Flight, 1896

Langley, Samuel Pierpont and Alexander Graham Bell. “Experiments in Mechanical Flight”, in Nature, volume 54, May 28, 1896, page 80 in the issue of pp 73-96. Offered is the weekly issue in the original wrappers (cover plus 3pp of advertisements), removed from a larger bound volume. Provenance: this is a good association copy as it comes from the Langley's own Smithsonian Institutions' Astrophysical Observatory, via the Library of Congress. Condition: there are two vertical pressure marks that run through the volume—they are very light, but they are definitely visible. GOOD+ copy  $250

This is the first printing of the famous flight in English in Great Britain and Europe, appearing in Nature, May 28, 1896.

• The first report on the flight seems to have been in Science, May 22, 1896, according to Brockett's Bibliography of Aeronautics, #7160.
• The first report of the flight to appear in Europe appeared two days earlier in Comptes Rendus, vol 122, May 26, 1896, p 1179. The contents of the report is mostly the same, though there are differences, particularly in the second to last paragraph, speaking of the gentleness of the plane gliding after the engine terminated. The last few sentences, with Bell's famous statement, is pretty much the same. (“Il me semble que personne n'aurait pu assister à cet intéressant spectacle sans être convaincu que la possibilité de voler dans l'air à l'aide des moyens mécaniques venait d'être démontrée.”)

I think most people remember Langley as the (Third) Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and for his work in astrophysics and observational astronomy, but he was a significant figure in the history of aviation, publishing his first extended work in the field in Experiments in Aerodynamics in 1891, and became one of the first if not the first aerodynamics experimenter in the U.S. He was also the first government-sponsored in-house researcher in this field.

Langley's  historic experiments in May 1896 with his 13'-wide Aerodrome 5 took place on a makeshift "houseboat" ("...nothing more than a scow about 30 feet long by 12 feet wide, upon which a small house was erected, to be used for the occasional storing of the aerodromes...”)¹ moored in the Potomac River a few miles south of D.C. near Quanitco, Virginia. There was one witness to this affair, Langley being very concerned for privacy, particularly not wanting news of failures to reach a general audience. His guest observer was his old friend, Alexander Graham Bell, who had already witnessed some of Langley's earlier attempts with models and made monetary contributions to help fund the larger enterprises. Langley had no interest in making the report—though he did invite Bell to do so. And it is the second part of this short, two-part paper in which Bell's observations appear.

Langley's own description of the aircraft appeared in his Mechanical Flight² : "The aerodrome was built chiefly of steel, though lighter material entered into the construction, so that its density as a whole was a little below unity. No gas whatever entered into the construction of the machine, and the absolute weight, independent of fuel and water, was about 11 kilos (24 pounds). The width of the supporting surfaces was about 4 metres (13 feet), and the power was furnished by an extremely light engine of approximately one horse-power. There was no one to direct it on board, and the means for keeping it automatically in horizontal flight were not complete. It is important to remark that the small dimensions of the machine did not allow it to include any apparatus for condensing the steam, so that it could only carry water enough for a very brief course—a drawback which would not be encountered in one of a larger construction.”

Bell's description of the aircraft: “On the date named two ascensions were made by the aerodrome, or so-called “flying machine,” which I will not describe here further than to say that it appeared to me to be built almost entirely of metal, and driven by a steam engine which I have understood was carrying fuel and a water supply for a very brief period, and which was of an extraordinary lightness.” And “The method of propulsion was by aerial screw propellers, and there was no gas or other aid for lifting it in the air except its own internal energy...The absolute weight of the aerodrome, including that of the engine and all appurtenances, was, as I was told, about twenty-five pounds, and the distance from tip to tip of the supporting surfaces was, as I observed, about twelve or fourteen feet³.”

The flying experiment began, and much to the delight of Langley, Bell, and the men who fished previous flying efforts from the Potomac, the two Aerodrome 5 flights for the day were successful. The first flight brought the steam-driven, one-quarter-scale model made a half mile at altitudes of up to 100 feet, marking it the world's first flight of its type. The second flew longer, and faster, and Bell was much impressed by the serenity of the plane's descent once the engine exhausted its fuel, turning the plane into a glider that touched lightly down onto the Potomac.

Bell was thrilled with the display, and recorded what he felt:

• The flying machine "resembled an enormous bird, swooping steadily upward in a spiral path until it reached a height of about 100 feet in the air.”

And then, Bell famously observed:

• “It seems to me that no one who was present on this interesting occasion could have failed to recognize that the practicability of mechanical flight had been demonstrated.”

The once-reticent Langley himself writes an account of the event in “The Flying Machine” in the June 1897 issue of McClure's (vol IX/2)--this was a very public article in a very popular magazine that also featured a drawing of the aerodrome right on the front cover.  The article also includes the Bell observations as well as the first printing of the photograph that Bell made of the second flight, the first of its kind, though it is really a drawing after the photograph, the photo itself used as proof of the event and the drawing done to enhance that. The coverage of the event and the Bell statement also appears in the Smithsonian Reports for 1896 (published in 1897). Later, Scientific American Supplement #1404 , Nov 29, 1902, reprints the Bell observations and other historical statements in “The Langley Aerodrome”.  

The Aerodrome 5 in flight. Image via Langley's 1911 Experiments...(see below; the image is not in the Nature article)

Even in the face of support of U.S. presidents and stipends from the military, and with mounting successes, the public failures of his expanded, full-size Aerodrome 6 in 1903 proved to be too much for Langley and his supporters, and he retired from this field. Just two weeks later (December 17) the Wrights made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk--they were successful in many of the ways that Langley was not and made the first manned, powered, controlled, and sustained flight. Early aviation expert Tom Crouch of the National Air and Space Museum remarked that "The problem was the machine itself and Langley's approach...he did just about everything wrong that the Wright brothers did right. “⁴

That said, John D. Anderson Jr in the AIAA Journal states that it must not be overlooked that “[Langley] made extensive use of aerodynamic coeffcients and legitimately shares with Lilienthal the credit for introducing the concept of lift, drag, and resultant force coeffcients to the applied aerodynamics community. His data are the first substantive proof of the aerodynamic superiority of high-aspect-ratio wings over those with low aspect ratio; it is curious that Langley is not widely recognized for this important contribution."  And significantly, “the work did serve a very useful purpose. The fact that a man of Langley’s stature believed in the possibility of the flying machine was enough to convince most laymen that aeronautics was no longer the pastime of fools.”⁵

NOTES

1. Samuel P. Langley and Charles Manly (editor), Langley Memoir in Mechanical Flight, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Washington, D.C., 1911. Part I (Langley), 1887-1896; Part II (Manly), 1897-1903. 
2. _____. Langley, p. 123.
3. From the Nature article, quoted above.
4. Lee Wolff, "First in Flight (Almost)", http://www.chopawamsic.com/First%20Flight.htm
5. John D. Anderson Jr., “ Langley’s Aeronautical Research: A Modern Critique and Reassessment”, AIAA JOURNAL Vol. 35, No. 3, March 1997 Historical Review Paper.

The extended  quote by Bell in the last three paragraphs from the Comptes Rendus:

“La durée du vol, dans le second essai, fut d'une minute et trente-une secondes et la vitesse moyenne entre vingt et vingt-cinq milles à l'heure (soit dix mètres par seconde) sur un trajet qui fut constamment en pente ascendante.”

 “Je fus extrêmement frappé du vol aisé et régulier de la machine dans les deux essais, et du fait que lorsque l'appareil, privé de la force motrice de la vapeur au plus haut point de sa course, fut abandonné à lui-même, il descendit chaque fois avec une égalité d'allure qui rendrait tout choc ou tout danger impossibles.”

“Il me semble que personne n'aurait pu assister à cet intéressant spectacle sans être convaincu que la possibilité de voler dans l'air à l'aide de moyens mécaniques venait d'être démontrée. “

 

The "hosueboat", with launching apparatus and with the aerodrome in place (from Langley, 1911):   

Otto Lilienthal and his Fabulous Ornithopter

LILIENTHAL, Otto.  "Lilienthal's Experiments in Flying", in Nature, 12 December 1894, pp 177-179, with four photographic illustrations; offered in the weekly issue of pp 169-192.  Removed from a larger bound volume, with the scarce original printed wrappers (and ads).  Nice copy.  $150

Lilienthal was an international authority on human flight, and was known to many as The Flying Man, and The Father of Flight, because, well, he flew. And he flew more often and with more recorded/documented successes in his non-powered flying machines than any other aviation pioneer of the time. In fact, he had a major influence on the Wright brothers (though not necessarily for his experimental data, which they abandoned after a while to create their own in their wind tunnel), with Wilbur Wright saying: "Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important. ... It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted." (From the Wikipedia article on Lilienthal.)

Lilienthal was well into making successful jumps/flights by this time, but would suffer his fatal fall in about two more years, dying August 10, 1896, after a series of 850' flights.

This is an early appearance of Lilienthal in English, and also includes the famous picture of him with his ornithopter. 

Rare Early Paper on Instrument Flying (1931)

BEER, Kenneth V.  Instrument Flying.  (Pan American Airways System) March 1931, 11x8.5", 19 leaves, offset printing.  Two-hole punch at the left margin, bound with metal flexible clasps.   Between Good and Very Good condition.  Not located in the OCLC/WorldCat.  $750  

Beer was "First Pilot, Division Number Two, Pan American Airways System") and was evidently testing systems out for PanAm--and had in fact been doing so for two years at this point. He states in the introduction that "because (instrument flying) is important...and there doesn't seem much known about it, and still less written concerning it..." as the reasons why he undertook to gather his thoughts on the subject. He then gives a broad overview of the subject, looking at "technique" (including characteristics of instruments), "description of the process" ("each instrument separately", "reading instruments in groups", "synchronization", "rough air", "loss of one engine"), "meteorological considerations" ("ascending through clouds", "high altitude flying" for example). A third section is "tests with instrument flying/instruction plane", looking at the methods of conducting tests (for various types of turns and dives, glides, tight spiral, spins); a fourth on "psychology" ("at first pilot has erroneous feelings") and then a fifth and final section on dangers and advantages.  All in all a very interesting, concise, and broad review of the earliest days of instrument flying, and gives a real taste for the difficulties in flight when discussing how useful instrument flying would prove in conditions of low visibility/clouds/fogs and that sort of now-easily-surmountable early flight troubles.

It is interesting to note that Beer writes about seven instruments--one more than the RAF established as their basic instrumentation. Included in this report are the unnamed turn indicator, bank indicator, climb indicator, and then the airspeed meter, compass, and altimeter. (No mention of Jimmy Doolittle's historic first take/off and landing by instruments in 1929!) 

“CAPTAIN KENNETH V. BEER has flown 27 years for Pan American. He has 23,000 pilot hours and is PAA's senior captain in the Pacific Division. He was the 26th pilot to join Pan American.” --Pan American's “Meet Your Captain” brochure, 1952

“Forming the nucleus for expanded operations, veteran Pan American pilots piled up thousands of additional hours of wartime flying. Capt. Kenneth V. Beer now in charge of flight training, added some 1,340 hours of wartime flying to a 13,ooo-odd peacetime log which included the first passenger flight to New Zealand. Incidentally, he was one of three Coronado pilots who rushed :Marine torpedo bomber ground crews to Midway during the crucial hours of that decisive battle in 1942.”--Aircraft Yearbook, 1945

 

A Beautiful Aviation Parts Supply Catalog (1946)

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

[Images will become clearer when expanded]

I found this very fine aviation catalog today down in the studio--it seems to have everything you need to identify and replace or much of the small (and not so small +) bits in aircraft in 1946.  It comes to us from Air Associates, and is their Aviation Supply Catalog No. 19.  The first 66 pages or so are loaded with hardware, tubing, engine maintenance parts, and such. The there's a highly illustrated section: aircraft windshields, “blind flying equipment”, “quick attachable parachutes”, aircraft seat cushions, safety belts, inflatable rubber boats, aircraft landing flares, propellers (6pp), runway delineators, windcones, aircraft instrumentation (9pp), radio accessories, tools (6pp), navigational computers, pilot logs, flight clothing (2pp), goggles (2pp), communication bits (2pp). It is a gorgeous work, and I think I need one of those flight suits. SOLD

DIY Glider and Sail Plane Technology and How-To for the Garage, 1928

F. Stamer and A. Lippisch, 3 volumes. (1) Gleitflug und Gleitflugzeuge, I: Konstruktion und praktische Fluversuche,  1928. 61pp, 75 text illus, 1 folding plate. (2)  Gleitflug und Gleitflugzeuge,II: Bauanweisungen und Bauzeichnungen, 1928; 9pp, 8 text illus and five folding plates of plans, all folding, four of them large. (3) Handbuch fuer den Jungsegelflieger, I: Ausbildung, Maschinen, Wekzeuge Instrumente, 72pp, 84 text illus. All published by C.J.E. Volkmann, Berlin/CHarlottenburg, 1928. Part of the series, Flugzeugbau und Luftfahrt, heft 11-13.  9x6, bound in unfiorm yellow heavy wrappers.  GOOD+ copies  $125/all

"Alexander Martin Lippisch (November 2, 1894 – February 11, 1976) was a German aeronautical engineer, a pioneer of aerodynamics who made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect, and also worked in the U.S. His most famous designs are the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor 174 and the strange-looking Aerodyne..."--Wiki

"Friedrich "Fritz" Stamer, German pilot of first rocket-boosted glider. Stamer was the first soaring-teacher at the Wasserkuppe, flew the first rocket airplane and constructed a wide range of gliders. During World War II he was an instructor for military transport glider pilots.--Encyclopedia Astronautica.

 

Unusual Edition of a Russian Aerospace Classic (1958/9)

 JF Ptak Science Books  

Feodosiev, V.I. (Vsevelod Ivanovich, b 1916 ) and G.B. Siniarev, Introduction to Rocket Engineering. Defense Industry Publishing House, Moscow, 1958. 11x8.5", 2 volumes, printed on one side of the leaf only, 340pp.  Printed on an odd, faintly-lined/enumerated stock by some sort of photomechanical process; with paper wrapper covers and cloth-covered spines; and with the title for the cover of each volume cut-and-pasted. Very good condition overall.  There are no copies of this edition located in WorldCat.  SOLD

Provenance: Library of Congress, via NASA (Division of Research Information), with a rubber stamped receiving date of July 30 1959).

I assume that this is a translation-on-demand for federal use.

Abstract/summary of the work by the Academic Press 1959 version of this publication: 
"Introduction to Rocket Technology focuses on the dynamics, technologies, aerodynamics, ballistics, theory of servomechanisms, principles of navigation instruments, and electronics involved in rocket technology."

"The publication first takes a look at the basic relationships in the theory of reactive motion; types of jet propelled aircraft and their basic construction; and types of reaction motors and their construction. Discussions focus on air breathing motors, anti-aircraft rockets, long range bombardment rockets, surface to surface, short range bombardment missiles, thrust of a rocket motor, and operating efficiency of a rocket motor. The text then examines rocket motor fuels and processes in the combustion chamber of a rocket motor."

[V-1, from page 42]

A Beautiful Maintenance Manual--The Double Wasp Rotary Engine, 1946

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I just wanted to take a moment and compliment those responsible for crafting these fine engine catalogs for the famous Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines. The 46 liter twin-row, 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engines were among the finest of their kind ever constructed, and were flown in some of the greatest aircraft produced by the United States (including the A-36 Invader, P-61 Black Widow, P-47 Thunderbolt (!), F4U Corsair (!), DC-6, C-46 Commando, and others).

We're offering the following two catalogs

• Double Wasp R-2800 CA Engines Maintenance Manual. 1946  11x8 inches, 107pp (+3 leaves of appendix), 1 folding plate.  Bound int he original Pratt & Whitney 3-ring binder with embossed cover. 
• Twin Wasp  R-2000 2SD13-G anbd D5 Engines Maintenance Manual, 1949. 10x8 inches, 151pp (and 18pp appendix), and one folding plate.  Bound as above, though in brown.  Very good condition.  Each $125

The first of two catalogs here for the Double Wasp R-2800-CA was produced by Pratt & Whitney in 1946 and for its 112 pages looks like a superior maintenance catalog, with concise and well written explanations and clear illustrations.  It also has a great cross section which utilizes a black background, making the image jump from the page. (You can compare it with a similar image taken from a Twin Wasp catalog four years later; I'm not sure more use of the black background is not made.)

The second manual (Twin Wasp 2SD13-G and D5 Engines) was a restricted document when produced in 1949, and was much chunkier (170+pp), and somehow seems a lot more accessible to the not-a-mechanic writer.  There is even a six-page "Unpacking the Engine" chapter with many photo illustrations--now it seems like reading the table of contents and seeing the six pages dedicated to unpacking was a little over the top, it turns out when you read the section and see the gigantic wood en box it came in and the other packing bits around it, you actually could use an unpacking manual.  It is just an impressive document. 

The Air War Over Gallipoli, 1915

JF Ptak Science Books

• War Images “Almost as Tall as a Man!  Great Bomb Used by the Allies Airmen at Gallipoli”, as seen on the front cover of The Illustrated London News for 27 November 1915.

The campaign at Gallipoli was more than half done, more than half-way closer to the finish, which found the Allies retreating in the midst of high misery, gallant action, and broad death and destruction, with more than 390,000 soldiers from both sides being killed or wounded during the 10 months of the campaign. It was a miserable experience–hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with frostbite, rotting corpses, dysentery, bad food, poor sanitation, supply difficulty, and ultimately a costly stalemate which was supposed to have ended up in an Allied route to Russia.  


The use of bombs by aircraft was still in its infancy at this point, the idea coming into use just a few years before the beginning of the war in 1914–the practice was quickly adapted. This image shows the development of an enormous bomb, though its details and destruction force “are left to the imagination of the reader”

• Weekly issue of  27 November 1915 for The Illustrated London News. 14x10", 24pp, illustrated with photos throughout, plus ads.  Complete issue for the week, removed from larger bound volume.  Nice condition.  $125

Very Early Work on the Jet Engine by an Aeronautical Pioneer, 1945

Reissner,  Hans.  Jet Propulsion. A Systematic Analysis of Thermal Jet Propulsion. Written from January to October, 1945.  

1) original typed mimeographed sheets. 8vo, 36 leaves. In the original off-the-shelf binder, and titled in Reissner's hand. Dated October, 1945.  Stamped "Confidential".

2)  "Systematic Analysis of Thermal Jet Propulsion"   17 leaves (16 of text and 1 full-page illustration). Offset printed from typed originals.  Many mathematical notations in Reissner's hand.  SOLD

This is an extremely early American  analysis of a working jet engine.

Hans J. Reissner was a leading German pioneer in aeronautics and aeronautical engineering. He was appointed to the chair vacated by Arnold Sommerfeld at the Technische Hochschul at Aachen, where he established the aerodynamics laboratory. He also designed the great experimental wind tunnel at Aachen and was its second director (after T. von Karman). He went on to the University of Berlin where he remained until 1938, when he left Germany for the United States. Reissner held a chair at the Illinois Institute of Technology and in 1944 joined the faculty at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944. Van Karman spoke very highly of Reissner and attributed his work in aerodynamics to be as important as those advances made by Prandtl (see von Karman’s Wind and Beyond). Reissner was also celebrated with two anniversary volumes of Applied MAthematiics for his 60th and 75th birthdays (in 1934 and 1949).