Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: you should read TFA before you post it as support for what you have said.

About Newcomb and the flying machines.
Robert Clark — (archived)

You are correct that saying Newcomb argued that heavier than air flight was impossible is an overstatement.
However, in reading the cited article:

The Outlook for the Flying Machine.
by Professor Simon Newcomb
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v3p167y1977-78.pdf

he did make a rather annoying logical error in arguing that it could not be achieved *safely*. See page 4 of the PDF file.
First, he notes that Maxim had already made a steam-engine flying machine that lifted from the ground. Maxim's machine is describe here:

Hiram Stevens Maxim
1840 - 1916
http://www.flyingmachines.org/maxim.html

Maxim's machine weighed over 7,000 pounds and in a 1894 trial it lifted 2 to 3 feet off the ground over a track before it crashed. Maxim did not have sufficient funds to continue the experiments but is notable that the reason why it crashed was because it started to rise *higher* than the guard rails used allowed. Maxim had used restraints for safety reasons, which ironically resulted in the machine crashing.
Most reviewers of the history of flight do believe that Maxim's machine could indeed have taken flight.
Newcomb was aware that Maxim's machine was able to get off the ground so he surely could not have believed even steam-engine powered flight was literally impossible.
However, in this section discussing Maxims machine Newcomb states that to achieve flight such a machine would have to travel at speeds of hundreds of feet per second, equivalent to hundreds of miles per hour. But surely he must have been aware that Maxim's machine did not get anywhere near that. Actually it was only about 40 miles per hour. And the Wright brothers first flight only required a 30 mph airspeed.
But in arguing against such speeds Newcomb states that once the machine drops below its required flight speed (which afterall was much smaller than what Newcomb was arguing), it would immediately fall to the ground. Thus he argues such flights could not be achieved safely.
So then a key the fact he ignores is that though a smaller speed than the required flight speed would not allow you to get off the ground, smaller speeds once you are already aloft would allow you to descend at greatly reduced rates. This is of course how all planes now do land safely.

Bob Clark

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