Steam Powered Aircraft Many strange contraptions have been seen in the sky over the last couple of hundred years. If we go back far enough, hot air balloons were supposedly all that was flying. While the first hot air balloon flight was said to take place in the early 18th century, indirect evidence seems to indicate it actually could have taken place hundreds of years before in China. In the middle of the 19th century some people began to experiment with using steam power to create an airplane engine and others a steam powered dirigible. There was a big difference between these two methods. An airplane would need an engine to fly, but a dirigible used gas to stay aloft and used an engine to propel it. The first attempt might have been in 1841 when an inventor named William Samuel Henson developed a light weight steam engine and also designed a monoplane with John Stringfellow and along with D.E. Colombine they incorporated the Aerial Transit Company in 1843 in England. They even had a name for their plane, it was called the Aerial Steam Carriage. The steam engine was to power two propellers. The problem was they developed a small model for proof of concept, but it didn’t fly. They then built a bigger model and that also failed. After the last failure Henson became discouraged and moved to the United States. Henri Giffard decided to put a steam engine in something which could already float in the air and that was a dirigible. Giffard was born in Paris, France. His dirigible was filled with hydrogen gas. His steam engine weighed over 400 pounds. It was the very first passenger carrying airship. The steam engine was not very powerful being only three horse power, but it was enough to propel the airship. Hydrogen is extremely combustible and when the zeppelin Hindenburg blew up it was filled with hydrogen. To avoid an explosion Giffard put a downward facing funnel on the exhaust system so as not to ignite the gas with a spark. In 1852 Giffard traveled in his airship from Paris to Elancourt, a distance of about sixteen miles. The idea of putting steam engines into an airplane had several problems. As I said weight was a problem, but the biggest problem is we didn’t have an airplane which could fly. Felix du Temple de la Croix was born in 1823 and became interested in flight. Some people credit him with the first powered flight using a monoplane in 1874. He had built several large model planes. The first used a clockwork for power, but later on he used steam engines. The steam powered models were able to take off under their own power, fly and land safely. He needed to make his steam engine much lighter for manned flight and was able to create a light steam engine which put out one horse power for every 39 – 45 pounds of weight. It is said several people saw a full sized steam powered plane he built takeoff in 1874, go a short distance and land. Because of the short distance of the flight, it is debated whether or not this was truly a flight. We are talking about flying machines in this article so I have to include Enrico Forlanini. Forlanini was interested in steam engines and also helicopters among other aircraft. In 1877 he built a steam powered helicopter which he demonstrated. It rose to a height of about 14 yards, and hovered for 20 seconds. The basic principle of the helicopter was known for thousands of years because the Chinese had toys which you rotated the blades on and they rose up and flew a short distance. Other attempts at steam powered airplanes took place, but it wasn’t until Clement Ader built a steam powered plane name the Eole that steam powered flight in an airplane took place according to some people. Ader had built a sort of bat winged plane with a steam engine and flew it in 1890. The engine was very weak and the plane was said to have flown about 160 feet, but many credit him with the first powered flight in an airplane. It is thought he made three more flights but they were failures. Steam powered model airplanes became quite popular for a while. Several inventors were building them to test their ideas of what a steam powered plane should look like. I have to wonder if any of them survive today. Gustave Albin Whitehead was an early aviation pioneer. He had moved from Germany to the United States. He began by building and designing gliders. Many of the early aviation people did this. He claims to have achieved powered flight in 1901, but this is not accepted by many people. A newspaper article claims he did. The story soon spread to hundreds of other newspapers around the world. His plane was said to be powered by steam. There is an account backed up by an affidavit from 1934 by a friend of his who stated he did achieve it in 1899. It states he flew his plane for about a half mile then crashed into a building in Pittsburgh. He was not the only one to claim steam powered aircraft flight, there were others. One of the things I find strange was steam powered airplanes were still being thought about far after the internal combustion had taken over airplane flight. Some records of steam powered flight are either missing or the flights never took place. Because of this some of the claims have to be dismissed. In 1933 a successful steam powered airplane was not only built, but it was flown several times. It was a prototype which was said to be based on the Travel Air 2000. The steam engine produced 150 horse power and it was a short takeoff and landing plane, known as a STOL. The steam engine weighed 500 pounds. The designers were George D. Besler and William J. Besler. The idea of the steam powered plane never took root. Newspapers in 1934 reported the Germans had developed a steam powered airplane which could fly at 260 miles per hour. It was also said the plane could fly for 70 hours non-stop. The story got the reporter arrested and nothing else was ever heard about the plane. This didn’t stop the Germans from designing a steam powered version of the Messerschmitt Me 264A Amerika Bomber which was never built. As late as 1960, a designer was still thinking about creating a steam engine to be installed in a helicopter. It never was.
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