Horatio Frederick Phillips
1845 Born in London on 2 February
1926 Died in Hampshire on 15 July
1893 Phillips' 'whirling arm' and flying machine.
See illustrations. The whirling arm in the upper illustration was used in
the course of his numerous experiments in order to ascertain the best form of 'slat' or 'sustainer'. The lower images show the machine at speed, having lifted 2 - 3 ft off the track. The propeller was turning at about 600 rpm. 'Although the engine is a very nice specimen of mechanical work, much might be done in lightening this part of the apparatus, especially in regard to the boiler.' The whirling machine 'consists of a spar pivoted near one end, the balance being obtained by a locomotive boiler of
about 10 horse-power, which is mounted on the short arm of the spar. The engine which drives the apparatus is on a two-wheeled carriage running on rails. The engine, which is attached to the long arm of the spar, not far from the pivot, runs round on a circular rail, and carries the spar with it, the steam being conveyed from the boiler to the engine by a pipe running on the
spar. Beyond the carriage there projects a long arm, the end of which sweeps through a large circle; by this a rapid motion is obtained. The circle is 323 ft. in circumference, and a speed of 70 miles an hour is thus often obtained. The slats or sustainer surfaces to be experimented on are, of course, placed at the end of the spar, and connected to an apparatus by which
the weight lifted and the power required to tow the surfaces through the air are automatically registered.'[1]
Two weeks later Engineering reported that 'A few evenings ago the machine was run, and completed a flight of over H turns round the track, or a little above 1000 ft., without touching. The speed on this occasion was timed almost exactly at 40 miles an hour. There was a dead weight of 55 lb., and the machine weighing itself 330lb., the total weight lifted was 385lb. A new set of sustainer surfaces had been substituted for those originally used, and the pitch of the propeller was somewhat reduced in order to get a higher speed, for which the sustainer surfaces were suited. The slats in this case are not quite horizontal when the machine is at rest, but when in the flying position the surfaces are nearly horizontal. We understand that on another occasion three complete rounds of the track were made, the machine being in the air the whole time ; that was on a perfectly calm evening. The difficulty of working what is practically a model machine will be appreciated by all those who have made experiments with very small steam engines and boilers. In the present case there is no more than two or three double handfuls of coal on the grate at one time. Another difficulty arises from the centrifugal action due to the machine being confined to the circular track. This is more especially apparent at the higher speeds, when the fire is apt to get all thrown to the outer side of the grate bars, thus letting cold air through and reducing the pressure. The present sustainer surfaces are only supporting about 2 1/2 lb. per square foot, but the next step Mr. Phillips proposes is to carry double this weight, i.e., 5 lb. to the square foot. This, naturally, will require a greater speed of travel. The object of carrying heavier weights with a given area of sustainer surface is, of course, to keep the machine within manageable limits with the larger apparatus that is to be constructed for the purpose of carrying a human being.'[2]
Phillips developed an early interest in flight and devoted much time and money to the study of aerodynamics. In the early 1880s he built a wind tunnel to test aerofoils, and took out patents for aerofoils in 1884 and 1891. He also built a 15 ft radius rotating arm to test wing sections. In 1893 he built a tethered steam-powered model aircraft, and eventually he built full size aircraft with numerous wings of narrow chord, and with one of these he managed to make a flight of about 500 ft. in 1907.[3]. Clearly he was going down a 'venetian' blind alley with his favoured profusion of wings, but his aerofoil research did make a useful contribution in the field of flight development.
An interesting summary of Phillips' work may be found here, where we learn that 'Phillips' designs demonstrated the first truly modern airfoils. His findings were widely disseminated, and thereafter all serious flying-machine developers used cambered airfoils.'
Harald Penrose described Phillips as 'a somewhat dogmatic but clever engineer, who devised a steam injector system of producing, in a square section tunnel, a high-speed air current of improved steadiness compared with Wenham's method of fan-generated wind.' Following experiments with this tunnel and with a 50 ft rotating arm driven by a 6 HP steam engine of his own design, he patented wing sections with a 'dipping leading edge'. He had also obtained a patent for hydrofoils in 1875, and he built four helicopters.[4]
1897 Lambert's Gliding Boat
Description and engravings in Engineering of Count Lambert's hydrofoil-type boat, made and tested by Horatio Phillips [5].
Correspondence followed in Engineering, with letters from Thomas Moy, the Comte de Lambert, and Horatio Phillips. The Comte added 'Mr. Horatio Phillips, to whose kind assistance I owe the success of this boat, says there is no doubt a very great analogy between flying in air and flying on water.'. Moy referred to several experiments and patents, including his own experiments in 1860: 'My planes, in each of the experiments, automatically assumed the required angle, which became reduced as the speed increased, sometimes appearing to be quite horizontal.'[6]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Engineering 1893/05/05
- ↑ Engineering 1893/05/19
- ↑ Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology, edited by Lance Day and Ian McNeil, Routledge, 1996
- ↑ 'British Aviation - The Pioneer Years 1903-1914' by Harald Penrose, Putnam, 1967
- ↑ Engineering 1897/10/01
- ↑ Engineering 1897/11/12