Patrick Young Alexander

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Patrick Young Alexander

Patrick Young Alexander (born March 28, 1867 in Erith , Kent , † July 7, 1943 in Windsor , Berkshire ) was a British pioneer and promoter of aviation .

Life

Patrick Alexander was the second son of mechanical engineer Andrew Alexander, who was a founding member of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1866 . In 1878 they both visited the Paris World Exhibition , where Henri Giffard's giant tethered balloon with a capacity of 25,000 m³ , which could lift 52 people to a height of 500 m at the same time, made a great impression on eleven-year-old Patrick.

At the age of 18 he embarked on the Bark Minero to begin an officer career in the merchant navy. On the 60-day trip to Fremantle , Australia, he fell from the mast onto the deck and broke his leg. When he slipped on the wet deck a few weeks later and broke the same leg again, he was taken to Victoria Hospital in Geraldton . After his recovery, Alexander returned to England. He was unable to walk for the rest of his life.

While Alexander was in Australia, his older brother John died in 1886 and his mother Emma died a year later. After his father's death in 1890, Alexander was left on his own. He inherited a fortune of £ 60,000 (around £ 6,610,000 today) which allowed him to fully devote himself to his interest in aviation. On June 9, 1891 he undertook his first balloon flight with the airship Griffith Brewer (1867-1941). At Percival Spencer, he had the Queen of the West balloon manufactured in 1892, and in 1892 he undertook several air trips, taking photos and observing the weather. In 1893 he ordered another balloon from Percival Spencer, which he named Majestic . With a volume of 2,800 m³, this was one of the largest balloons that had been manufactured up to that point and could carry up to twelve passengers. He took his balloon to Berlin and, together with the meteorologists Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring , made three journeys from September to December 1894 as part of the Berlin scientific aviation program . He later also supported the German Association for the Promotion of Airship Travel by financing Berson's London ascent with the Excelsior balloon in 1898 .

Alexander began building airships and patented several of his ideas in the 1890s . In 1900 he was present on the maiden voyage of the first Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen . He then went to Berlin to take part in an attempt to set a new permanent world record for balloon flights. It was believed that the giant 8,600 m³ gas balloon could stay in the air for a very long time and they had food rations on board for 20 days. The balloon took off shortly before 6 p.m. on September 27, 1900. During the night the tow got caught in a treetop and a strong wind forced the balloonists to land after a distance of only 20 km. The balloon was then given away to the Aeronautical Observatory Berlin-Tegel . Under the new name of Prussia , it rose to an altitude of 10,800 m on July 31, 1901, the world record for free balloons with an open basket, which was valid until 1938. This rise led to the discovery of the stratosphere in 1902.

Due to his interest in the flying machines, Alexander cultivated close friendly relations with a number of aviation pioneers. In the early 1890s he visited Otto Lilienthal for his pioneering gliding experiments . He was in contact with Hiram Stevens Maxim and Octave Chanute . In the USA he visited Samuel Pierpont Langley . At Christmas 1902 he was the guest of the Wright brothers in Kitty Hawk . In 1904 he moved his residence near Aldershot , where the airship units of the British Army were stationed. He shared a house with Samuel Franklin Cody , who experimented on kites and airplanes and later became the first Briton to fly an airplane.

Memorial plaque for Alexander at the Aldershot Observatory

Alexander was generous and unselfish. In 1905 he bought early aircraft models for the Victoria and Albert Museum from John Stringfellow , who had already carried out an unmanned 25-meter flight in a factory hall in 1848. In 1905/06 he donated the Aldershot Observatory to the British Army. The main instrument was a 200 mm refractor, which he had already purchased in 1891 and which was used in 1939 to discover the “great white spot” of Saturn . In 1910 he donated a prize for the development of a lightweight engine suitable for aircraft. The £ 1000 prize money went to Gustavus Green in 1912 . In 1911, Alexander provided 20,000 marks for the construction of the Rostock air station .

In 1922 Alexander was bankrupt. The renowned Imperial Service College in Windsor, to which he had donated £ 20,000 in 1915, then hired him for life and assigned him to teach the basics of aviation. On July 7, 1943, he died almost penniless at the age of 76.

Fonts

  • Patrick Young Alexander and Griffith Brewer: Aeronautics: An Abridgment of Aeronautical Specifications Filed at the Patent Office from 1815-1891 , 1893, Reprint: Kessinger, 2007, ISBN 978-0-548-67446-8
  • Patrick Young Alexander: Experiments on the Trust or Lifting Power of Aër Propellers , Bath 1901

literature

  • Gordon Cullingham: Patrick Young Alexander, 1867-1943. Patron and Pioneer of Aeronautics. A biography. Cross, Bath 1984, ISBN 0-9509196-0-8 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Assmann and Arthur Berson (eds.): Scientific aviation . Volume 1, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1899, pp. 98ff
  2. ↑ Richard Assmann and Arthur Berson (eds.): Scientific aviation . Volume 1, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1899, pp. 116f
  3. ^ Patrick Alexander Prize for Aero Engines . In: Flight , May 21, 1910, p. 395
  4. ^ Alexander Prize Competition for Aerial Motors . In: Flight , January 13, 1912, p. 38
  5. ^ Green Engine Co. (1913), Ltd. . In: Flight , September 20, 1913, p. 1054
  6. ↑ A. Hildebrandt, G. Kümmell: The work of the "Rostocker Luftwarte" in Friedrichshöhe near Rostock in 1913 . In: Meeting reports and treatises of the natural research society in Rostock. New episode . Volume 6, 1914/15 (published 1916), pp. 65-110. Digitized
  7. ↑ Mr. Patrick Alexander . In: Flight , August 10, 1922, p. 460
  8. ↑ A Handsome Gift by Mr. Patrick Alexander . In: Flight , December 24, 1915, p. 1020
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, Patrick Young
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Erith , Kent
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1943
Place of death Windsor , Berkshire