When one looks at the progress we have made in flying since the first airplane took to the sky, the progress is overwhelming. Much of this progress was accomplished, because of pioneers who wouldn’t give up in their pursuit of improving the flying experience. Even the idea of flying was being pushed in the middle 19th century when suggestions were made and a patent was filed in 1842 for an aerial steam carriage by William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow. The plane was never built. One of the problems was the boiler was very heavy in a steam powered engine and before a steam plane could fly it would need a powerful engine which could overcome that weight. An early answer to the problem occurred in 1852 when a steam engine was joined to a dirigible and was flown over Paris. This was the first time in history any type of powered aircraft had been flown and you can imagine the wonder the people of Paris experienced when they saw this machine flying over their heads.

Various other steam powered aircraft were experimented with in the 1800s. There was a lot of interest in aircraft in that century and one tiny aircraft was created with a small steam engine and called a helicopter. This was in 1861. We tend to think the interest in aircraft really became intense after the Wright brothers made their first flight, but nothing could be further from the truth. A model steam powered helicopter was actually flown in 1877 by Enrico Forlanini in Malan. People were dying to get machines into the sky and they were doing everything possible using the technology they had at the time. It has been said by quite a few people if Leonardo da Vinci would’ve had an engine, he might have been able to construct an aircraft. There were many attempts to launch steam powered aircraft but getting them to accomplish sustained flight had not been achieved. One man named Clement Adler was in the middle of a controversy in 1890, because of a steam powered aircraft he had built. Supposedly he flew it for a distance of 160 feet. The controversy is if he attained control flight, because if he did he should get credit for the first one and not the Wright brothers.

Many inventors get involved with different types of inventions. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was famous for inventing the maximum machine gun. The gun went into service in 1886 and as incredible as this sounds it went out of service in 1959. The reason for this late date was the fact it had been put into service in many different countries. The gun was a game changer. Maxim decided if he could build a successful machine gun, he might be able to build a flying steam powered airplane. He constructed one which was extremely heavy for the times and weighed about 2 ½ tons and had a large wingspan of 110 feet. When it was tested it was able to fly off the track, but a pilot never tried to fly this plane. Maxim had been born in Maine, in the United States, but did much of his work in England. The Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers which was published in 1918 had this statement in it,” The first power[ed] flight of an Airplane was not, as many suppose, that made by Ader in France in 1897. [It was made in] the large steam-powered machine designed and built by Sir Hiram Maxim.” Maxim had built two planes and both of them got off the ground. The plane had two lightweight 180 hp steam engines. On its third try it achieved 40 mph flew 200 hundred feet and then crashed. Eventually Maxim lost interest in aircraft. I guess a couple of crashes can do this to you.

By now people were flying model planes. In 1896 Samuel Pierpont Langley was seen many times flying his model steam planes. There were those who continued to try and develop steam powered aircraft after the era of gasoline engines. I guess they just couldn’t see the steam engine was no longer a viable alternative to the much lighter gasoline powered engine. One of these people was call Richard Nyberg. He kept on trying to perfect steam powered aircraft until 1922. Nyberg was one of those guys who was working on many different inventions at the same time. Some are related to flying while many others weren’t. His pet plane was called the Flugan. It weighed about 200 pounds and had a 10 hp steam engine powered by four blowtorches. The airplane was a many winged affair. He only managed to get the plane to sort of hop.

There is a story which has been around for a long time claiming that in 1899 Gustave Whitehead built a steam powered plane in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was able to fly it. The story goes on to say the plane crashed into an apartment building and injured a passenger named Lewis Darvarich. Others say Darvarich was not a passenger, but was employed to stoke the boiler. Whitehead had made another claim that he had also flown a steam powered aircraft in Hartford, Connecticut and that the Wright brothers had visited him before their flight. The problem with the story is the flights have never been verified and there are no photos or news stories about them. The only proof the Wright brothers even visited Whitehead were made by an affidavit 30 years later.

There is some irony to the fact steam powered aircraft couldn’t be developed before the more efficient gasoline powered engines proved to be superior. Lest I leave you with the impression steam powered aircraft where never built and flown successfully I have to tell you about George and William Besler. They actually developed a steam powered aircraft which was a biplane and was powered by a two cylinder 150 hp steam engine. There was only one problem, it wasn’t developed until 1933 and by then it was far too late. The plane had some features that we weren’t able to duplicate until recently and one of them was the capability for short takeoff and landings. Other steam powered aircraft were being worked on during that period of time, but as I said it was just too little too late. After that time there were a couple of companies which fooled around with the idea of steam powered aircraft into the 1960s, but to no avail.