As flying machines go, the collection of box kites looked as flimsy as all those cranky creations built by over-optimistic would-be aeronauts in the late 19th century. But in 1894, these four box kites coupled together lifted Lawrence Hargrave 4.8 metres into the air at Stanwell Park beach near Sydney, Australia. Hargrave wasn鈥檛 in the air long and he didn鈥檛 travel far: he had tethered his kite to the ground to avoid the sort of accidents that cut short the careers of other aspiring fliers. But his kite-lift experiment showed that it was possible to build a stable lifting device-an essential step on the road to powered flight.
Although Hargrave was once touted as the man most likely to make the first flight under power, he never got higher than on that windy day at Stanwell Park. But his ideas and designs were incorporated into the first European aeroplane and probably influenced the design of the Wright brothers鈥� Flyer, which made the world鈥檚 first powered flight in December 1903.
THERE was definitely something a bit different about Lawrence Hargrave. For one thing, he could walk on water-wearing floating boots of his own design. So perhaps it鈥檚 not surprising that he survived the worst shipwreck in Australia鈥檚 history, in 1872. A little later, his engineering skills brought unusual rewards: a Motu tribesman from New Guinea offered him a wife in exchange for a niftily machined arm ornament. Hargrave was ingenious or eccentric, depending on your point of view-just the sort of man you might expect to build and fly the world鈥檚 first powered aeroplane. In the event he failed, but he prepared the way for others.
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The story of Lawrence鈥檚 early life reads like something from a Boy鈥檚 Own comic. In 1856, his father John-a lawyer-left the family home in England and sailed to Australia. Nine years later, when he had become a judge, John sent for his 15-year-old son. He hoped Lawrence would follow him into the law, but almost as soon as he arrived the boy was invited to join an expedition to circumnavigate Australia. Judge Hargrave agreed to the venture on condition that Lawrence studied hard during the voyage. Predictably, when the exams came around, Lawrence failed. With a career in law ruled out, he joined the Australian Steam Navigation Company as an apprentice engineer.
Lawrence learnt fast, but he had acquired a taste for exploration and in 1872 he joined an expedition to New Guinea in a leaky old brig called the Maria. The ship was rotten, the captain a liability and the weather terrible. The Maria ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. As the ship sank, Hargrave climbed into the rigging and smoked his pipe. Unlike most of his shipmates, he was rescued.
The Maria disaster, the worst in Australia鈥檚 maritime history, didn鈥檛 dampen Hargrave鈥檚 desire to see New Guinea-which he eventually did in the company of a crazed Italian called Luigi d鈥橝lbertis, who shot and dynamited his way around the country in pursuit of biological specimens and local artefacts.
Back in Sydney, life was quieter. After a brief career as an astronomer at the Sydney Observatory, Hargrave threw himself into the study of flight. In 1885 his father died, leaving Lawrence wealthy enough to pursue his research full-time. He studied the motion of birds and insects, built model aircraft powered by elastic bands, and designed a variety of engines. He experimented with flapping machines, or ornithopters, but in 1892, after discovering that curved wing surfaces provided twice the lift of flat ones, he set his flappers to one side and began to experiment with kites.
In 1893 Hargrave built his first cellular box kite, made of two sets of 16 open-ended boxes attached to the ends of a wooden spar. 鈥淪he is a beauty, as steady as possible,鈥� he wrote. On 12 November 1894, he headed off to Stanwell Park where he strung together four box kites, added a sling seat, and with the help of James Swain, a part-time caretaker on his estate, he readied himself for take-off. 鈥淎 long and strong puff then sent me up like a shot and I got a wind reading of 21 mph . . . Angle of the kite string with the horizon about 60 degrees, my height above ground 16 feet.鈥� This experiment showed that a cellular kite was remarkably stable in the air, a phenomenon that had great appeal to aviation experimenters of the day. With an engine added, it would make a practical flying machine.
So why wasn鈥檛 Hargrave the first man to fly under power? Hargrave was hampered by his tendency to switch from one problem to another before he had solved the first. One moment he was working on flapping wings, the next he had moved on to engines, before switching to soaring machines-and then to kites. When he couldn鈥檛 build himself a powerful enough engine or an efficient propeller he reverted to experimenting with flappers.
To make matters worse, he was continually diverted from fruitful research by an obsession with the 鈥渢rochoidal plane theory鈥�, an idea he had first proposed in 1882. The idea was that waves or circular air movements could be harnessed to propel a ship or a flying machine. The motion of water or air in one direction, he believed, would generate a 鈥渞eactive motion鈥� in the opposite direction. It was a red herring, but he could never bring himself to abandon it. Every now and then, he stopped what he was doing to pursue more experiments to bolster his theory. But while he was easily distracted, others realised the advantages of the box kite as a stable lifting structure, stuck several together and produced the basic structure of a biplane.
Hargrave鈥檚 contribution to the first powered aeroplane built in Europe is clear. When Alberto Santos-Dumont took off in the 14bis in 1906, his aircraft was little more than a collection of box kites flying in formation. Wilbur and Orville Wright鈥檚 Flyer, which unknown to the Europeans had flown three years earlier, also owed something to Hargrave鈥檚 ideas. The Wright brothers were well aware of his experiments and regarded him as one of aviation鈥檚 great pioneers. But they had patents to protect and never acknowledged those who had influenced their designs.
Ironically, Hargrave鈥檚 loathing of patents helped other aviation pioneers to scoop the prize. Hargrave believed passionately in the idea of the aeroplane and argued that success would come faster if everyone shared their results. 鈥淯nited effort and the free use of all knowledge as soon as it is acquired is better than the work of isolated individuals whose greed makes them prefer delay to the possibility of competition,鈥� he wrote to the journal Engineering. He made sure that anyone who was interested had free access to his results and calculations. Ultimately, then, Hargrave did achieve his ambition-to see a machine conquer the air. It wasn鈥檛 his, but he had helped to make it possible.