Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead

This is an internet based history encyclopedia and quite detailed. Look up Autumn and spring time in BC China

Note Wright brothers took of on 17 dec 1903 and flew 12 secs crossing 120 feet of ground. later in the day they achieved 852 ft. Compare that to he 10 KM of Gustave 1902.



********

Gustave Albin Whitehead, born Gustav Albin Weißkopf (January 1, 1874 - October 10, 1927), was a German-American aviation pioneer.

His first flight took place on August 14, 1901 in Connecticut when he flew his Number 21 three times, as reported by the Bridgeport Herald, the New York Herald and the Boston Transcript . The longest flight was 2.5km (1.5 miles) at a height of up to 60m (200ft): significantly better than the Wright brothers two years and four months later.

There are witness reports that he flew about 1km (half a mile) as early as 1899. In January 1902 he flew 10km (7 miles) over the Long Island strait in the improved Number 22.

It has been suggested that the reason his flights are so little known is that he was of German origin and that the Wright brothers donated their Wright flyer to the Smithsonian Institute on condition the institute did not recognize an earlier aeroplane.

Both Number 21 and Number 22 were monoplanes, the first powered by a 20hp (15kW) engine and the latter with a 40hp (30kW) engine. The engine accelerated the front wheels up to take-off speed and then the power was switched to the propeller. This meant he didn't have to use a catapult like the Wright brothers.

Roll was controlled by the pilot shifting his weight, much as on a glider. Pitch was controlled by a tail wing, and yaw was controlled by altering the thrust on each of the two propellers.

In 1985 some US enthusiasts began to construct a replica of Whitehead's machine. On December 29, 1986 Andrew Kosch made 20 flights and reached a maximum distance of 100 meters (330 feet). On February 18, 1998 a German replica flew distances up to 500 meters.

The Wright brothers visited Whitehead to discuss the purchase of one of his engines and exchanged ideas and discoveries regarding flight.

*******

Thanks for the peeve John, always fun to learn something new

most definatley

Are non stretchy sails getting too much credit again? I think the controllability of sails has come about from mast design/sail relationship. Stretchy mylar is in essence more controllable. However, before active mast tuning, sails stretched fuller in gusts - bad. Now sails can be stretched(less full) with outhaul and mainsheet etc, and mast bend can automatically flatten the sail in gusts (even if the sail stretches the wrong way). The jury is still out on the "benefit" in tunability of stretchless sails.
Mylar film is cheaper than Woven Dacron ....

/start threadjack

Wouter:


I was doing some Google'ing for something else and came across the Dubai '96 Hobie 16 Worlds Web site (still active). According to the numbers posted there, there were:

20 in the Women's event
191 in the qualifying event
112 in the open event
-33 that qualified to the opens from the qualifyer
----
290 total teams.

There was no separate Master's event - they were just scored separately from the qualifying / open events.

In Mexico of this year, there were:
58 in a separate Masters event
18 in the Women's event
32 in the Junior event
120 in the qualifying event (entry restricted)
121 in the open event (entry restricted)
-28 that qualified to the opens from the qualifyer
----
321 total teams

(You could argue that many of the Women's/Youth/Master's events also sailed in the qualifying / open round and you'd be right - there were 36 in the Master's event alone that sailed in the later events. But I choose to count them separately since they sailed in a separate event.)

/end threadjack

I had this funny feeling there was also a New Zealander who may have flown before the Wright Brothers..


Richard Pearse: "Mad Pearse", "Bamboo Dick", self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator and eccentric visionary. On or about 31st March 1903 a reclusive New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse climbed into a self-built monoplane and flew for about 140 metres before crashing into a gorse hedge on his Waitohi property . Even at half the distance Pearse must have felt the liberating but anxious exhilaration of flying. There is uncertainty about whether it met the definitions of sustained flight, but it came eight months before the Wright Brothers entered the record books at Kitty Hawk North Carolina on 17th December 1903.

from http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html

The catamaran (or as it was originally named Kaffamoran) is believed to have originated in the area of the Red Sea well before there were even peoples later to become known as "polynesians" It is believed that the "polynesians" (as they became known), adopted this style of transportation along with quite massive ocean traversing "rafts" of bound together logs steered by the use of multiple retractable "boards", in their trek throughout the Indian and pacific oceans.

I have always believed that "upturns" and "downturns" in the numbers of people sailing and its apparent popularity, has always been dependent on economics rather than "technology" or "innovative" designs of craft.
There was a massive upturn in numbers of people sailing "off the beach" craft throughout the 1950's when the economic resesive times of the second world war were finally at an end and people were seeing real "affluence" for the first time since before the depression of 1929. There was a big downturn in numbers sailing throughout the early to mid sixties due to a world mini recession. the mid to late sixties through the 70's, during the times of "flower power" carefree attitudes, full employment, abundance of "readies" and relatively "cheap" manufacturing costs, etc, saw the largest upturn in numbers of people taking up sailing than had ever been seen before in history (and never seen in those numbers since). This was the time that Hobie took off due (I feel) to their "differences" from other craft of the time, due to their color, which had never been seen before in sailing craft, but mainly due to their ready availability from retail outlets all around the world (thanks to the deal that saw Colman take over the responsibilitys of manufacture and marketting and leave Hobie Alter with a very comfortable "royalty" to sit back and enjoy life) although others tried to emulate "Hobie", none were as successful as the "first cab off the rank". There has been a major decline in numbers sailing from the mid 80's through to the mid to late 90's with "hard times" felt in most western countries during that time, ie high interest rates, poor balance of payments, social/political unrest, stockmarket crash, etc etc, but from the late 90's, as time have improved and money has become more available to a greater number of the "ordinary" people, we have seen a gradual upward turn around, up to and including the present, of people sailing. I only hope that this trend continues for many years to come. If one looks at a graph of the "activity" in the real estate market over the last 50 years and then compare it to a graph of the numbers of people sailing you will find that they are almost identical in their movements.

The Wright brothers and most previous flyers had some things in common: their flights were not witnessed by anyone, they did not take off by their own means, rather using catapults, so they were not airplanes, but 0engine-assisted gliders. They were also unable to manouver and return to the start point, depending entirely on wind.

The first controlled flight, taking of by its own means, returning to the starting point to compensate for wind, witnessed by hundreds of people and recorded on film was that of French/Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont who rounded the Eiffel tower. Ask anyone in France.

Afterwards, he designed a monoplane remarkably similar to today's ultralights ("La Demoiselle") of which more then 900 were built only for pleasure. Never patented anything.

The same guy also invented the wrist watch, when he couldn't see the time in his pocket watch with his hands on the commands.

But who cares? The technology was there for anyone with the money and guts to go for it.

Luiz

Darryl, where did you find this information?

Sr. Luiz -

Not to diminish Msr. Dumot's accomplishment, but his flight occurred in 1906, seven years after Hr. Whitehead's. The Whitehead planes were self powered (no catapault) on wheels. The flights were all witnessed by many, and he once flew out over Long Island Sound for quite a distance before becoming concerned about gusty winds and returning to shore. His 1902 plane was even amphibious.

There were a surprising number of people all over the world working on heavier-than-air flight at about the same time... kinda suspicious... alien technology??

Personally I think the catamaran craze of the 80"s, arguably the "Hobie Era" was in a time of less stress, less work obligations, more family and leisure time. When I was a kid in the early 70's there was baseball and football, not soccer, Tee Ball, or even Atari. Families today(including my own) are stretched to the max with public, private, school, intramural games and obligations that make it difficult for us to get away every other weekend to race. I would drop it all if my kids(age 5 and 2) could go race, camp, swim, sail, whatever with me as a family every other weekend. But the reality is they are in to all kind of sports and activities that stretches them thin too.
Technology has made a difference, and faster, more technical designs(the spin) have made cat sailing more appealing, but it sure hasnt given us more time to get out on the water.

David Mosley
NACRA F18

Back to the subject again.

What I am most interested in is hull shape. Why isn't anybody interested in coming up with a catamaran hull shape that will plane? (Richard Roque excepted.) Planing is a whole lot more fun and exciting than displacement sailing, but it is a thrill that is only available on some of the monohulls (and sailboards).

There was a good thread about planing a couple years ago on this forum, but I still don't see anything being done in the techno/design department.

Bill Roberts said he tried it with a version of the SC 17 and stated it bent the pins in the shrouds and jarred his teeth out in any chop. I dnt know how crude or refined the shape was, but he said he did it.

david

Actually,

Planing has been tried in several catamaran designs of the past.

In the 80's A-cat sailor really tried to get it working and it failed. Comment from Greg Goodall. As soon as the platform heeled the leeward hull would drop off the plane. Also around that time the wildthing manouvre was discovered and that slashed the projected speed advantage of the planing boats. Displacement boats tended to remain very competitive and so development was ended.

In the 90's I thing the worrell some some planing cat and Reg White in the UK made two commerically available designs on that principle. The Hurricane 500 and Hurricane 600. Neither became succesful. A friend of mine had a H500 and it had its good points but never broke through the sound barrier so to say. It performance was good but not special.

In 2002 the Italian catamaran builder in cooperation with Ventilo in Switserland tried it their Dynacat 16 and Dyncat F18. Both were never heard of again. Apparently the Dynacat F18 was unable to make any impression in the Italian F18 fleet.

Ventilo of course produced the same platform as the mattia Dynacat 16 under the name of Zip'o and it have not seen or heard anything in the way of race results. I only heard it did well in strong winds and on reaches and spi runs, but had to pay back in the lighter stuff. This is just a rumour but 3 year on we have yet to see it make an impact. The trip turbulator hulls were designed by some renowned hydrodynamics engineer. So they did put some effort into it.

What else do we have. Ohh, yeah Yves Parlier max cat with two wateraeroplane hulls. I think Yves is currently having his fillings refitted by a dentist after crossing the Atlantic twice on his planing boat and failing to make an impact on the fleet that was yet again dominated by the very fast displacement based open 60 trimarans. I do accept that he made an impact on the watersurface, eardrums and his dentist bill.

So what do you exactly mean by :

""Why isn't anybody interested in coming up with a catamaran hull shape that will plane? (Richard Roque excepted.) ""

Some bodies tried (Parlier, Favre of Ventilo, Reg White = not the smallest names in cat sailing) and failed in dethrowning the displacement boats.

Monohulls do have some planing designs although it may be good to remember that the Moths converted back to long slender hulls (like cats) before stumbling onto foiling. So apparently planing wasn't everything.

Then of course the other mono's that are the fatests among their breed are planing sailboats like the 49-er. However these babies with twice the sailarea of a hobie 16 have an Australian Yardstick rating that is actually slower than a H16 !

Humm !

Okay I admit that is because they are mostly upside down with the crew enjoying the spa so to say !

Clearly the planing boats also have a problem with the old addagio "No boat is as slow as the one that is upside down"


Ohh I totally forgot.

Yves parlier converted a Hobie Tiger F18 to a planing catamaran as a test platform for its much larger ocean going cat. It was identical to the Tiger except the bottom of the hulls was cut aways and replace by the seaplane shaped underbody. Parliers own comment was ;"It was a failed experiment as it failed to proof the concept" . Translated : It failed to beat a normal displacement Tiger.

Then in the confidentiallity corner I can vouch that some designers tried some other planing ideas and are now going, or have gone, back on their steps.

For now it appears that planing has trouble proving itself in sailboats. Sure laser 1's do fine and so to 49-ers but what would happen if they were fitted with long slender hulls like the pre foiling moths ? It looks like the boats would then be faster around the race course dispite the fact that their downwind speeds under spi would be slower.

Personally I sail 49-er, a bit on the side, and it is definately exiting, it is also a great workout. Fun ! That too although I wouldn't want to race that baby in races lasting longer then 20 minutes. You simple can not maintain the required attention span (and level) for much longer.

I think the tech corner has decided that there is not much to be gained from planing in catamaran designing. Parlier gives himself one more year to proof the concept and he too will let go.


Wouter

So that's it? Some people tried and gave up? Good thing that didn't happen with airplanes.

Put simply the shape and surface area that is required to achieve "plane" places great restrictions on other areas of the performance perimeters of a sailing craft, so that when comparing a planing hull to an efficient, light weight displacement (sailing) hull the trade offs and compromises between the two when all are considered tends to place the light weight displacement hull at the fore. Remember that to "plane" the hull has to reach a pre determined speed to generate the required "lift" to get up on plane, before it achieves that required speed it is acting as a less than efficient displacement hull, and if it is designed to be able to plane at very low speeds the hull shape is a very uncomfortable (non "sea kind") riding hull as its speed increases. A planing hull is best suited for boats that have relatively "large" amounts of "constant" power available to motivate them (ie power boats) and they suffers appreciably when their "power" supply is inconsistant and the attitude of the hull to the surface of the water varies dramatically with pitch and roll. Look at power boats that plane, a very flat bottomed "ski" boat performs extremely well on very flat protected waters with a relatively "small" amount of horse power. but put that same boat in an ocean swell with just moderate chop and it is a very uncomfortable (unsafe?) craft. To plane a boat safely and comfortaby in "sea" conditions require an entirely different shaped hull which require considerably more horse power (relative to its displacement) to be able to "handle those rougher conditions. Planing hulls sound great for sailing in theory but, for every type of water borne craft there are always compromises that have to be made between the theory and the practical. the theorically "best" shape tested in a controlled environment often neglects to (or is unable to) take into consideration fully the variations of the full range of actual wind and water conditions that it will be subjected to "in real life" and although it may appear "wonderful" in theory, when the practical trials occur different results are regularely encountered.

As to "Kaffamorans" Mary, there are many references to the "tribes bordering the Red sea" and twin hulled sailing craft predating the "polonesians" in various historical/geographical/social texts, and I have read several references in sociological texts on the peoples and cultures of the islander peoples of the pacific and indian oceans (Melenesians as well as Poloynsians) that refer directly to the Red sea as the origin of "multi hulled" sailing craft.

Interestingly enough. Brett Burvil (the guy who won a heat of the world Moth titles on the first foiled moth) told me his standard moth hull planed.

All those pioneers (Wright, Dumont, etc.) had two things in common:

1) It is unlikely that any of them knew about the others. If one aviation pioneer ever heard about the feats of another one, he certainly did not receive enough details to inspire his own attempt. The designs and engines used in each attempt ilustrate this point.

2) They had guts.

Luiz

Hi Mary,
I would say the decision to change the shape of the race course from the triangle to windward leeward has had the largest effect on beach cats. It opened the door for the unirig with spinnaker sailplan to be competitive and with this opportunity came a new family of boats, F18 classes etc. The adaptation and development of the spinnaker to the beach cat led to the decision to change the shape of the race course.
The race course shape change could have been to go to a square or rectangular geometry with approximately equal time or distance spent on each of the three basic points of sail. This would have left the high speed jib reach in the race and the unirig/spinnaker rig boat designs would likely have never happened.
Bill

Bill makes an outstanding point!

The Tornado class experimented with spinakers and short trapozoid courses (recomended by ISAF at the time to create a more visually appealing sport)in a trial held at the Miami Yacht Club. This must have been 15 years ago and well before the current rig and windward leeward courses were adopted by the class. What they found was that a classic sloop rig Tornado won almost every race. The reaching legs, shorter courses and the time involved in rasing and lowering the chute were too much for any other configuration to beat.

Racing is just a game.... and as with all games it's winners and loosers are defined by the rules... EG. the NFL's new rule this year about Cornerbacks and contact shifted the balance of power to Quarterbacks and recievers... Result... Lot of QB's are having record setting years.

Merry Christmas
Mark