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Samuel Pierpont Langley (August 22, 1834 – February 27, 1906) was an American aviation pioneer, astronomer and physicist who invented the bolometer. He was the third secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a professor of astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh , where he was the director of the Allegheny Observatory .
Langley's first failure. Samuel Pierpont Langley was secretary to the Smithsonian Institution from 1887 until the year of his death in 1906. During this period, and in due course supported by the United States War Department, he conducted aeronautical experiments, culminating in his manned Aerodrome A.
Claims to the first powered flight: Shivkar Bapuji Talpade in the Marutsakhā (1895), [45] [46] [Note 1] Clément Ader in the Avion III (1897), [47] Gustave Whitehead in his No's. 21 and 22 aeroplanes (1901–1903), [48] [49] [50] [Note 2] Richard Pearse in his monoplane (1903–1904), [51] [52] Samuel Pierpont Langley's Aerodrome A (1903), [47 ...
The Langley Aerodrome is a pioneering but unsuccessful manned, tandem wing-configuration powered flying machine, designed at the close of the 19th century by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley. The U.S. Army paid $50,000 for the project in 1898 after Langley's successful flights with small-scale unmanned models two years earlier.
First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903. After a distinguished career in astronomy and shortly before becoming Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Samuel Pierpont Langley started a serious investigation into aerodynamics at what is today the University of Pittsburgh.
The first bolometers made by Langley consisted of two steel, platinum, or palladium foil strips covered with lampblack. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] One strip was shielded from radiation and one exposed to it. The strips formed two branches of a Wheatstone bridge which was fitted with a sensitive galvanometer and connected to a battery.
Manly helped Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley build The Great Aerodrome, which was intended to be a manned, powered, winged flying machine. Manly made major contributions to the development of the aircraft's revolutionary 52 hp gasoline-fueled radial engine, called the Manly–Balzer engine. Manly attempted to pilot the ...
Abbot would become acting director of SAO in 1906 [9] and in 1907, Abbot became the Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, following the death of Samuel P. Langley. [1] While Langley was still Director, he had visited Mount Whitney , and decided it would be a great place for an observatory.