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Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was an English
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying principles and forces of flight and the first man to create the wire wheel. * * * In 1799, he set forth the concept of the modern aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. He was a pioneer of
aeronautical engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...
and is sometimes referred to as "the father of aviation." He identified the four forces which act on a heavier-than-air flying vehicle:
weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar qua ...
, lift, drag and
thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...
. Modern aeroplane design is based on those discoveries and on the importance of cambered wings, also proposed by Cayley. He constructed the first flying model aeroplane and also diagrammed the elements of vertical flight. He also designed the first glider reliably reported to carry a human aloft. He correctly predicted that sustained flight would not occur until a lightweight engine was developed to provide adequate thrust and lift. The Wright brothers acknowledged his importance to the development of aviation. Cayley represented the Whig party as
Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
for Scarborough from 1832 to 1835, and in 1838, helped found the UK's first Polytechnic Institute, the Royal Polytechnic Institution (now University of Westminster) and served as its chairman for many years. He was elected as a Vice-President of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1824. He was a founding member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was a distant cousin of the
mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...
Arthur Cayley Arthur Cayley (; 16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was a prolific British mathematician who worked mostly on algebra. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics. As a child, Cayley enjoyed solving complex maths problem ...
.


General engineering projects

Cayley, from Brompton-by-Sawdon, near Scarborough in
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
, inherited Brompton Hall and Wydale Hall and other estates on the death of his father, the 5th baronet. Captured by the optimism of the times, he engaged in a wide variety of
engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
projects. Among the many things that he developed are self-righting lifeboats, tension-spoke wheels, the "Universal Railway" (his term for
caterpillar tractors Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...
), automatic signals for railway crossings, seat belts, small scale
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...
s, and a kind of prototypical
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
fuelled by
gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
( Gunpowder engine). He suggested that a more practical engine might be made using gaseous vapours rather than gunpowder, thus foreseeing the modern internal combustion engine. He also contributed in the fields of prosthetics, air engines,
electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...
,
theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
, ballistics,
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...
and land reclamation, and held the belief that these advancements should be freely available.Ackroyd, J.A.D
Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics
''Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 56 (2), 167–181'' (2002). Retrieved: 29 May 2010.
According to the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 member ...
, George Cayley was the inventor of the hot air engine in 1807: "The first successfully working hot air engine was Cayley's, in which much ingenuity was displayed in overcoming practical difficulties arising from the high working temperature." His second hot air engine of 1837 was a forerunner of the
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
: "In 1837, Sir George Cayley, Bart., Assoc. Inst. C.E., applied the products of combustion from closed furnaces, so that they should act directly upon a piston in a cylinder. Plate No. 9 represents a pair of engines upon this principle, together equal to 8 HP, when the piston travels at the rate of 220 feet per minute."


Flying machines

Cayley is mainly remembered for his pioneering studies and experiments with
flying machine Early flying machines include all forms of aircraft studied or constructed before the development of the modern aeroplane by 1910. The story of modern flight begins more than a century before the first successful manned aeroplane, and the earl ...
s, including the working, piloted
glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding ...
that he designed and built. He wrote a landmark three-part treatise titled "On Aerial Navigation" (1809–1810),''Cayley, George''. "On Aerial Navigation
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
''Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy'', 1809–1810. (Via
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
)
Raw text
Retrieved: 30 May 2010.
which was published in Nicholson's ''Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts''. The 2007 discovery of sketches in Cayley's school notebooks (held in the archive of the Royal Aeronautical Society Library) revealed that even at school Cayley was developing his ideas on the theories of flight. It has been claimed that these images indicate that Cayley identified the principle of a lift-generating inclined plane as early as 1792. To measure the drag on objects at different speeds and angles of attack, he later built a "whirling-arm apparatus", a development of earlier work in ballistics and air resistance. He also experimented with rotating wing sections of various forms in the stairwells at Brompton Hall. These scientific experiments led him to develop an efficient cambered
airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbin ...
and to identify the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: ''thrust'', ''lift'', ''drag'', and ''weight''. He discovered the importance of the dihedral angle for lateral stability in flight, and deliberately set the
centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...
of many of his models well below the wings for this reason; these principles influenced the development of hang gliders. As a result of his investigations into many other theoretical aspects of flight, many now acknowledge him as the first aeronautical engineer. His emphasis on lightness led him to invent a new method of constructing lightweight wheels which is in common use today. For his landing wheels, he shifted the spoke's forces from compression to tension by making them from tightly-stretched string, in effect "reinventing the wheel".Pritchard, J. Laurence
Summary of First Cayley Memorial Lecture at the Brough Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society
'' Flight'' number 2390 volume 66 page 702, 12 November 1954. Retrieved: 29 May 2010"
Wire soon replaced the string in practical applications and over time the
wire wheel Wire wheels, wire-spoked wheels, tension-spoked wheels, or "suspension" wheels are wheels whose rims connect to their hubs by wire spokes. Although these wires are generally stiffer than a typical wire rope, they function mechanically the same ...
came into common use on bicycles, cars, aeroplanes and many other vehicles. The model glider successfully flown by Cayley in 1804 had the layout of a modern aircraft, with a kite-shaped wing towards the front and an adjustable tailplane at the back consisting of horizontal stabilisers and a vertical fin. A movable weight allowed adjustment of the model's
centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...
. Around 1843 he was the first to suggest the idea for a convertiplane, an idea which was published in a paper written that same year. At some time before 1849 he designed and built a biplane in which an unknown ten-year-old boy flew. Later, with the continued assistance of his grandson George John Cayley and his resident engineer Thomas Vick, he developed a larger scale glider (also probably fitted with "flappers") which flew across Brompton Dale in front of Wydale Hall in 1853. The first adult aviator has been claimed to be either Cayley's coachman, footman or butler. One source ( Gibbs-Smith) has suggested that it was John Appleby, a Cayley employee; however, there is no definitive evidence to fully identify the pilot. An entry in volume IX of the 8th Encyclopædia Britannica of 1855 is the most contemporaneous authoritative account regarding the event. A 2007 biography of Cayley (Richard Dee's ''The Man Who Discovered Flight: George Cayley and the First Airplane'') claims the first pilot was Cayley's grandson George John Cayley (1826–1878). A replica of the 1853 machine was flown at the original site in Brompton Dale by
Derek Piggott Alan Derek Piggott (27 December 1922 – 6 January 2019) was one of Britain's best known glider pilots and instructors. He had over 5,000 hours on over 153 types of powered aircraft and over 5,000 hours on over 184 types of glider. He was honou ...
in 1973Piggott, Derek
Gliding 1852 Style
''Gliding Magazine'' issue 10, 2003. Accessed 11 August 2008
for TV and in the mid-1980sShort, Simine
Stamps that tell a story
''Gliding Magazine'' issue 10, 2003. Retrieved: 29 May 2010
for the
IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme ...
film '' On the Wing''. The glider is currently on display at the
Yorkshire Air Museum The Yorkshire Air Museum & Allied Air Forces Memorial is an aviation museum in Elvington, York on the site of the former RAF Elvington airfield, a Second World War RAF Bomber Command station. The museum was founded, and first opened to the pu ...
. Another replica, piloted by Allan McWhirter,Cayley Flyer, oldest plane welcomes home Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer
''Virgin'', 4 March 2005. Retrieved: 29 May 2010.
flew in Salina, Kansas just before Steve Fossett landed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer there in March 2003, and later piloted by Richard Branson at Brompton in summer 2003.Duplicate better than the original
''
Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...
'' page 20, November 2003. Retrieved: 24 February 2017.


Memorial

Cayley died in 1857 and was buried in the graveyard of All Saints' Church in Brompton-by-Sawdon. He is commemorated in Scarborough at the University of Hull, Scarborough Campus, where a hall of residence and a teaching building are named after him. He is one of many scientists and engineers commemorated by having a hall of residence and a bar at Loughborough University named after him. The University of Westminster also honours Cayley's contribution to the formation of the institution with a gold plaque at the entrance of the Regent Street building. There are display boards and a video film at the Royal Air Force Museum London in Hendon honouring Cayley's achievements and a modern exhibition and film "Pioneers of Aviation" at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, York. The Sir George Cayley Sailwing Club is a North Yorkshire-based free flight club, affiliated to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, which has borne his name since its founding in 1975. In 1974, Cayley was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.


Family

On 3 July 1795 Cayley married Sarah Walker, daughter of his first tutor George Walker.J Laurence Pritchard. "Sir George Cayley", Max Parrish, 1961, p. 23 (J W Clay's expanded edition of Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire incorrectly gives the date as 9 July 1795,J W Clay. "Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, with Additions", Vol. III. J W Pollard, 1917, p. 299

/ref> as does George Cayley's entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.) They had ten children, of whom three died young. Sarah died on 8 December 1854.


See also

* Early flying machines * Matthew Piers Watt Boulton *
William Samuel Henson William Samuel Henson (3 May 1812 – 22 March 1888) was a British-born pre- Wright brothers aviation pioneer, engineer and inventor. He is best known for his work on the aerial steam carriage alongside John Stringfellow. Biography Henson ...
* Timeline of aviation – 18th century *
Timeline of aviation – 19th century This is a list of aviation-related events during the 19th century (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1900): 1800s - 1850s * 1802 ** 5 July – André-Jacques Garnerin and Edward Hawke Locker make a balloon flight from Lord's Crick ...
*
Kite types Kites are tethered flying objects which fly by using aerodynamic lift, requiring wind (or towing) for generation of airflow over the lifting surfaces. Various types of kites exist, depending on features such as material, shape, use, or operat ...


Notes


References

* Gibbs-Smith, Charles H. ''Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 17, No. 1 (May 1962), pp. 36–56 * Gibbs-Smith, C.H. ''Aviation''. London, NMSO, 2002 *
Gerard Fairlie Francis Gerard Luis Fairlie (1 November 1899 – 31 March 1983) was a Scottish writer and scriptwriter on whom Sapper ( H. C. McNeile) supposedly based the character of Bulldog Drummond. After Sapper's death in 1937, Fairlie continued the Bull ...
and Elizabeth Cayley, ''The Life of a Genius'',
Hodder and Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publish ...
, 1965.


External links

*
Cayley's principles of flight, models and gliders
a 1954 ''Flight'' article

a 1954 ''Flight'' art

a 1973 ''Flight'' article *Ackroyd, J.A.D. "Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 56 (2002
Part 1 (2), pp167–181Part 2 (3), pp333–348
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cayley, George Cayley, Sir George Cayley, Sir George 18th-century English people 19th-century English people Aerodynamicists Aviation inventors Aviation pioneers Cayley, George, 6th Baronet George English aviators English inventors English aerospace engineers Independent scientists Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies People from Brompton, Scarborough UK MPs 1832–1835 Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society