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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 operating skills. Kites may fly in air, water, or other fluids such as gas and other liquid gaining lift through deflection of the supporting medium. Variations in design of tethering systems and lifting surfaces are regularly introduced, with lifting surfaces varying in stiffness from limp sheet material to fully solid material. Manufacture Kites may be built by the flier or by a dedicated kite manufacturer, which may be a member of the Kite Trade Association International (KTAI), which also includes kite retailers. Materials Kites have been made from the following materials: *Plastic – for example, a Styrofoam-only kite *Organic materials – such as plant leaves and grass *Paper *Textiles such as rip-stop nylon, nylon, or Dacron Wing c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Lynn
Peter Lynn (born 1946) is a New Zealand kitemaker, engineer and inventor. He is notable for his construction of the world's largest kites (Guinness book of records holders), giant inflatable (sparless) display kites (the most widely known is the 27 m octopus kite), the popularisation of kite buggying and contributions to the development of power kiting and kitesurfing. He spends much of the year travelling worldwide and displaying his kites at International Kite Festivals. Lynn, together with his wife Elwyn, established a kite business at Ashburton, New Zealand, in 1971, producing single-line kites for children. In 1974 he developed the Peter Lynn Triangular box kite, a framed triangular form cellular single line kite. Beginning in 1984 with the Centipede design, he then developed large creature-themed display kites for the growing number of international kite festivals. These large-scale sparless kites include the manta ray, octopus, puffer-fish, gecko and trilobit In 1987 h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian Americans, Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Alexander Melville Bell, Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices, which eventually culminated in his being awarded the first United States patent law, U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including ground-breaking work in Free-space optical commun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiram Stevens Maxim
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American-born British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim laid claim to inventing the lightbulb. Maxim experimented with powered flight; his large aircraft designs were never successful. Circa 1904 he designed a highly successful amusement ride called the "Captive Flying Machine" to fund his research while generating public interest in flight. Maxim moved from the United States to the United Kingdom at the age of 41, and remained an American citizen until he became a naturalised British citizen in 1899, and received a knighthood in 1901. Birth and early life Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine on 5 February 1840, into a family of French Huguenot origin. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 and ten years later, took u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kytoon
A kytoon or kite balloon is a tethered aircraft which obtains some of its lift dynamically as a heavier-than-air kite and the rest aerostatically as a lighter-than-air balloon. The word is a portmanteau of kite and balloon. The primary advantage of a kytoon is that it remains in a reasonably stable position above the tether point, irrespective of the strength of wind, whereas ordinary balloons and kites are less stable. The kytoon has been used for many purposes, both civil and military. History In 1919, a handbook was published giving extensive details to support the kite balloon crafts being used in the military. Described is the first kite balloon made in 1893 by Captains Parseval and Sigsfeld at the Berlin works of the Prussian Balloon Battalion; theirs was the "predecessor of the ''Drachen'' balloon." "This was the first real kite balloon flying like a kite with a fairly constant angle and direction relative to the wind and remained practically unchanged until the beginni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autorotation (helicopter)
Autorotation is a state of flight in which the Helicopter rotor, main rotor system of a helicopter or other rotary-wing aircraft turns by the action of air moving up through the rotor, as with an autogyro, rather than engine power driving the rotor.Igor Bensen, Bensen, Igor.How they fly – Bensen explains all" ''Gyrocopters UK''. Accessed: 10 April 2014. Quote: "air.. (is) deflected downward"Charnov, Bruce HCierva, Pitcairn and the Legacy of Rotary-Wing Flight ''Hofstra University''. Accessed: 22 November 2011. The term ''autorotation'' dates to a period of early helicopter development between 1915 and 1920, and refers to the rotors turning without the engine."Autorotation", ''Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)''. Random House, Inc. 17 April 2007 It is analo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autogyro
An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-driven, except for initial starting, but are made to rotate by action of the air when the rotorcraft is moving; and whose means of propulsion, consisting usually of conventional propellers, is independent of the rotor system." While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro's unpowered rotor disc must have air flowing upward across it to make it rotate. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. It was originally named the ''autogiro'' by its Spanish inventor and engineer, Juan de la Cierva, in his attempt to create an aircraft that could fly safely at low speeds. He first flew one on January 1923, at Cuatro Vientos Airport in Madrid. The aircraft resembled the fixed-wing aircraft of the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Modern art, moderns. Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragon to a middle-class family in 1746. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán, José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style List of Francisco Goya's tapestry cartoons, tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace. Althoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archimedean Screw
The Archimedes' screw, also known as the Archimedean screw, hydrodynamic screw, water screw or Egyptian screw, is one of the earliest documented hydraulic machines. It was so-named after the Greek mathematician Archimedes who first described it around 234 BC, although the device had been developed in Egypt earlier in the century. It is a reversible hydraulic machine that can be operated both as a pump or a power generator. As a machine used for lifting water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches, water is lifted by turning a screw-shaped surface inside a pipe. In the modern world, Archimedes screw pumps are widely used in wastewater treatment plants and for dewatering low-lying regions. Run in reverse, Archimedes screw turbines act as a new form of small hydroelectric powerplant that can be applied even in low head sites. Such generators operate in a wide range of flows (0.01 m^3/s to 14.5 m^3/s) and heads (0.1 m to 10 m), including low heads and moderate flow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peel Glider Boat
The Peel Z-1 Glider Boat, also called the Peel Flying Boat, is an American biplane, two-seats-in-tandem, flying boat glider that was designed and produced by the Peel Glider Boat Company, starting in about 1930. Design and development The Glider Boat was intended as a strictly recreational aircraft, to be towed from the water surface by a powered boat. The company intended to produce a very inexpensive aircraft to cash in on the sudden popularity of aviation following Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The aircraft is of mixed construction. The span wing has a wooden spar, steel ribs and is covered in doped aircraft fabric covering. The two wings have a large total area of and combined with the light gross weight of give a very light wing loading of just 2.2 lb/sq ft (11 kg/m2). The lower wing tips feature wingtip floats. The hull is made from duralumin and features a stepped shape, similar to most powered flying boats. The aircraft has con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triangle Control Frame
Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised, fixed-wing heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame. Early hang gliders had a low lift-to-drag ratio, so pilots were restricted to gliding down small hills. By the 1980s this ratio significantly improved, and since then pilots have been able to soar for hours, gain thousands of meters of altitude in thermal updrafts, perform aerobatics, and glide cross-country for hundreds of kilometers. The Federation Aeronautique Internationale and national airspace governing organisations control some regulatory aspects of hang gliding. Obtaining the safety benefits of being instructed is highly recommended and inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
