The Airplane - Jay Spenser [139]
6. Rotary engines were generally not equipped with throttles because the cylinders had to keep spinning fast for adequate cooling. However, some rotaries did have a split air/fuel throttle that was tricky to use. Others had provision for shutting off the ignition to certain cylinders for partial power reduction as an aid to landing. Even when these provisions were available, pilots often ignored them in favor of the all-or-nothing blip switch.
11 LANDING GEAR: Shoes, Canoes, and Carriage Wheels
1. James Tobin, To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight (New York: Free Press, 2003), 355.
2. Martin’s was one of many early patents awarded by the U.S. government for gear-retraction concepts. The first ever issued to an American was granted to F. McCarroll on November 7, 1915, four years after he applied for it. Another in 1917 went to Princeton student Charles Hampton Grant for what he ineptly termed a “collapsible gear.” Grant later participated in the design of the Dayton-Wright XPS-1.
12 PASSENGER CABIN: Voyaging Aloft
1. “Jane Eads Lands on Coast, First Air Passenger: Girl Reporter Tells Story of Crossing Continent in Boeing Plane,” Chicago Herald and Examiner, July 2, 1927.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
13 SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: Making Flying Safer
1. Raymonde de Laroche was the world’s first licensed woman pilot.
14 TODAY’S STATE OF THE ART: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner
1. James Burke, Connections (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), xii.
2. As quoted by Boeing Historical Archives, Bellevue, Washington.
POSTSCRIPT: Tomorrow’s Wings
1. While most military aircraft also use kerosene, turbine engines can burn a broad range of fuels, and the military sometimes uses higher distillates.
2. Commercial jets operate at the top of the troposphere and into the stratosphere. The former extends from ground level to about 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the earth’s surface, where the latter begins.
3. Niels Bohr as quoted in James Burke, Connections (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), xii.
4. Bohr is alluding to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, a quantum mechanics verity.
5. Henry S. Villard, Contact! The Story of the Early Birds (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968), 3.
6. Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 228.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is first and foremost indebted to Elisabeth Dyssegaard, executive editor of Smithsonian Books/HarperCollins and a good friend, for initiating this project. After our previous enjoyable collaboration, Elisabeth asked me what I wanted to write for her next. To my surprise, I heard myself describing this book, a project I didn’t know was within me. Without her belief, guidance, and encouragement, this tale might not have been told.
Many individuals have helped me with this unconventional look at flight. Valuable insights and corrections were generously provided by Ph.D. historians Tom Crouch, Bob van der Linden, Peter L. Jakab, and Dick Hallion of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. NASM curator Dorothy Cochrane likewise provided expert assistance at every turn.
For insights about the future of commercial aviation in general and the blended-wing body in particular, I owe thanks to Dr. Thurai Rahulan of the University of Salford, United Kingdom, for his generous and very patient explanations. Dr. John McMasters, Boeing technical fellow and affiliate professor of aeronautics at the University of Washington, likewise shared helpful insights about the past, present, and future of airplane design.
Fortunately for aviation researchers like me, the Boeing Company maintains the largest corporate archives in the aerospace industry. Boeing Historical Services professionals Michael Lombardi and Thomas Lubbesmeyer in Seattle, Washington, and Pat McGinnis at the former Douglas Aircraft archives in Southern California, provided ongoing research help. Mike Lombardi, a fine historian in his