This book clearly demonstrates the problems encountered by the personalities involved and their strengths in developing the helicopter for Coast Guard use. It shows how Erickson and his friend and mentor, Coast Guard captain William Kossler, undaunted by their lack of support, fought with single-minded intensity to establish the helicopter as a vital rescue tool in the service. Kossler died while the project was still in its infancy.
Painter, architect, scientist, inventor—Leonardo da Vinci ranks as history's consummate innovator. Consumed with a boundless desire for knowledge, he investigated technical challenges that were hundreds of years ahead of his time. The power of flight was a particular source of fascination for him, and his close studies of bird anatomy and movement informed his development of the ornithopter — a winged, human-powered aircraft. With Leonardo's da Vinci's Flying Machine, you can create a fully working model of the inventor's amazing creation. This self-contained model kit features a 48-page book with details from Leonardo's notebooks plus full-color, easily joined components. Once assembled, the wings flap by turning a crank. Like the prototype, your model won't actually fly, but you'll have an amazing replica of one of the Renaissance genius's most famous futuristic inventions.
Modelling and Control of Mini-Flying Machines is an exposition of models developed to assist in the motion control of various types of mini-aircraft: • Planar Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft; • helicopters; • quadrotor mini-rotorcraft; • other fixed-wing aircraft; • blimps. For each of these it propounds: • detailed models derived from Euler-Lagrange methods; • appropriate nonlinear control strategies and convergence properties; • real-time experimental comparisons of the performance of control algorithms; • review of the principal sensors, on-board electronics, real-time architecture and communications systems for mini-flying machine control, including discussion of their performance; • detailed explanation of the use of the Kalman filter to flying machine localization. To researchers and students in nonlinear control and its applications Modelling and Control of Mini-Flying Machines provides valuable insights to the application of real-time nonlinear techniques in an always challenging area.
"If man were meant to fly, he'd have wings." Luckily, the intrepid pioneers of aviation didn't let that little detail stop them. Dedicated to the history of human flight, this richly illustrated retrospective spans centuries of innovation from the drawings of DaVinci to the daring deeds of John Glenn. Strap yourself in for a thrilling, sometimes bumpy ride as the uncertain attempts of the medieval period give way to the excitement of the Wright Brothers' advances and eventually the sophistication of the Space Shuttle. Whether warplanes, transport and tourism crafts, acrobatic machines, seaplanes or helicopters capture your imagination, you'll find every type of aircraft described in vivid detail. Marvel as technology leads to the development of convertiplanes, 21st century superfighters, and the controversial Concorde. You'll even glimpse the future of air travel with prototypes of commercial airliners yet to be produced by Airbus and Boeing.
Calling all future Amelia Earharts and Chuck Yeagers—there's more than one way to get off the ground. Author and physics teacher Bobby Mercer will show readers 35 easy-to-build and fun-to-fly contraptions that can be used indoors or out. Better still, each of these rockets, gliders, boomerangs, launchers, and helicopters are constructed for little or no cost using recycled materials. The Flying Machine Book will show readers how to turn rubber bands, paper clips, straws, plastic bottles, and index cards into amazing, gravity-defying flyers. Learn how to turn a drinking straw, rubber band, and index card into a Straw Rocket, or convert a paper towel tube into a Grape Bazooka. Empty water bottles can be transformed into Plastic Zippers and Bottle Rockets, and ordinary paper can be cut and folded to make a Fingerrangs—a small boomerang—or a Maple Key Helicopter. Each project contains a material list and detailed step-by-step instructions with photos. Mercer also includes explanations of the science behind each flyer, including concepts such as lift, thrust, and drag, the Bernoulli effect, and more. Readers can use this information to modify and improve their flyers, or explain to their teachers why throwing a paper airplane is a mini science lesson. Bobby Mercer has been sharing the fun of free flight for over two decades as a high school physics teacher. He is the author of several books and lives with his family outside of Asheville, North Carolina.
"Flying Machines: Construction and Operation: A Practical Book Which Shows, in Illustrations, Working Plans and Text, How to Build and Navigate the Modern Airship" by Thomas Herbert Russell, William J. Jackman, and Octave Chanute was written as a history and technical manual to teach readers about the different flying machines and their engineering. From the evolution of these machines to the different components that define them, this book was and continues to be a fascinating book for anyone who has ever had an interest in planes and the history of flight.
