John William Dunne
John William Dunne (born December 2, 1875 in County Kildare , † August 24, 1949 in Oxfordshire ) was an Irish inventor and aircraft pioneer. He served in the British Army . Dunne was the first to build arrow-shaped flying wing aircraft .
Life
John William Dunne was born in Ireland and lived most of his life in England. As a young man, Dunne fought in the Second Boer War before turning to aircraft development. Dunne was stationed as a simple soldier in South Africa until he was withdrawn from there for health reasons.
aviation
During his illness, Dunne began to deal systematically with the problems of aviation. For this purpose he built models and used them to research the flight behavior of heavily swept wings, which would later become his trademark.
On the recommendation of Colonel John Capper, he was assigned to the Army Balloon Factory , which was newly established in Farnborough , and a glider was built there under strict secrecy, which had its first test flight in the Scottish Highlands in July 1907 . Two more gliders followed and then the still severely underpowered Dunne D4. Military support was withdrawn and Dunne left the balloon factory in 1909, but became a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society .
With the financial support of friends, he founded the Blair Atholl Airplane Syndicate , a small company that should enable him to build the next model. The Dunne D5 had a more powerful engine than its predecessor with 35 hp and was flown successfully. On December 20, he demonstrated the amazing flight stability of the machine in front of a large audience, including Orville Wright . With the rudder released and the pilot waving both hands, the machine was flown forward.
Dunne's next design was a monoplane (D6) with drooping wing tips, but it never flew. This was followed by the Dunne D7, a further development of the D5, which turned out to be a very successful model and which flew from 1911 to 1913. Several copies of this design variant were created.
The Dunne D8 was developed in parallel. One of them was flown over the English Channel to France in 1913 , where Nieuport wanted to manufacture the machine under license. The yacht yard Burgess also acquired license rights and primarily built float planes and flying boats under the name Burgess-Dunne .
Between 1913 and 1914, Dunne's health continued to deteriorate and he retired from the aviation industry. For military use, Dunne's constructions turned out to be too flight-stable, at that time more maneuverable constructions were in demand.
After the First World War , interest in flying wing aircraft reawakened and numerous designs were built in France, Germany, England, the USA and the Soviet Union.
literature
- Stephen Ransom, Hans-Hermann Cammann: Me 163 Rocket Interceptor Volume 1. ISBN 1-903223-13-X . Chapter 1 “A Seed named Zanonia Macrocarpa”.
Web links
- ET Wooldridge: Early Flying Wings (1870-1920) . century-of-flight.net (English)
- The Blair Atholl Experiments . In: Flight . Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom, Vol. 2 (1910), No. 88, September 3, 1910 (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dunne, John William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British aircraft pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 2, 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | County Kildare |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 24, 1949 |
| Place of death | Oxfordshire |