Stanley Spencer (balloonist)
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Stanley Spencer (* 1868 ; † January 27, 1906 in Malta ) was the first English airship to conduct a guided flight with a hydrogen balloon over Great Britain . He came from a family of flight designers, ran the Spencer Bros. company together with his brother and achieved such popularity with his test flights over London in 1902/03 that his name became synonymous with the future of aviation in England .
Life
All five of the Stanley siblings were airshipmen, with Arthur and Percival in particular achieving a certain prominence. Her father Charles Green Spencer founded the CG Spencer and Sons balloon factory in London; his father Edward Spencer was an experienced balloon driver and flew in 1836. On September 15, 1898, Stanley Spencer, with the German meteorologist Arthur Berson on board, steered his Excelsior balloon , which reached a height of 8,320 meters.
The great (airship) flights over London in 1902 and 1903
Stanley Spencer lived at a time when the dream of flying was coming true and “impact airships” were enjoying success after another. In particular, news of sensational precision flights came from France: Alberto Santos-Dumont had circled the Eiffel Tower in Paris for the first time on November 13, 1899, won the highly endowed German Prize two years later and was thus named Man of the Year in the world in 1901 . Also in Germany operated researchers are the research flights ; they also briefly cooperated with Spencer in London.
Stanley Spencer first made a name for himself in the summer of 1902. The London Times wrote in its event section on June 25: " Crystal Palace - The Spencer Bros. will, if the weather permits, take their steerable airship up every day." Two weeks later, the Times devoted him to several successful takeoffs and landings the polo site in Crystal Palace, the first short article and spoke of a "highly successful" test of this "new British controllable balloon, the Mellin airship". After the positive test flights, “the aeronaut took his little nine-year-old niece, Miss Marie Spencer, on board” and flew a few laps over the meadow at a height of 70 meters.
On September 19, 1902 , Spencer achieved the flight that made him famous with the Mellin aircraft he himself constructed from bamboo, metal and silk . He had decided spontaneously in the late afternoon, because of the favorable south wind and the good visibility. At 4 pm he took off from Crystal Palace, climbed to 100 meters and “steered the device, which was completely under his control from start to finish, in the direction of London City. The 3 meter propeller, powered by a Simms gasoline engine, rotated gently at around 200 revolutions per minute. The rudder also responded well. ”A little later, Spencer got excited because the balloon rose too much. The aeronaut was about to intervene when the safety valve that he had built in for this purpose opened automatically and stopped the climb. Coming from the south, Spencer wanted to cross the Thames directly , which he did not do because of the sudden poor visibility and instead turned west towards Chelsea , where "several hundred onlookers" watched him from the bridges, for the sake of whom he made a few laps across the river. before he flew over Earl's Court and Acton at 7½ miles per hour (12 km / h) to Eastcote in north-west London because of the running out of fuel and the onset of dusk and landed there, continuously releasing hydrogen from the cigar-shaped balloon. "Mr. Spencer completed this remarkable journey without the slightest mishap or any problem with the fragile-looking propulsion mechanism. ”The Times reported a day later that the aircraft would now be transported back to the Crystal Palace Aerodrome and re-inflated with hydrogen in front of an audience.
The success remained an isolated event. It is true that Spencer took photos on his flights over London, which he sold as postcards, and advertising was printed on his balloon. However, he never reached his destination on longer flights. Probably because of the insufficiently designed engine (4 HP) and tail unit, Stanley Spencer's aircraft was at the mercy of the wind and could only steer against it with difficulty. A year later, with the new Excelsior airship and new propulsion (1000 revolutions and 24 hp), Spencer's much-heralded undertaking failed to circling St. Paul's Cathedral on September 17, 1903 and to fly back to the starting point.
World fame and death
Stanley Spencer's fame as a flight ship and parachute designer and jumper (his aircraft were characterized, among other things, by the fact that the airbag can be used as a parachute) takes him to many countries, including China. On the way back from India to England by ship he fell ill with typhus and died in an emergency stop on January 27, 1906 on the island of Malta.
Individual evidence
- ^ Charles Spencer: Can I rise to the heights my ancestors did? . In: Culture . The Telegraph. November 8, 2010. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
- ↑ Stephen Wainwright: The Flying Pharmacist of Junction Lane . In: An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St Helens . 2011. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
- ↑ Richard Assmann and Arthur Berson (eds.): Scientific aviation . Volume 2, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1900, pp. 591-610
- ↑ Five miles up in a balloon . In: The New York Times , September 26, 1898, p. 4. Retrieved May 2, 2011. "From The London Telegraph"
- ↑ The London Times, September 22, 1902, p. 8
- ↑ The London Times, September 18, 1903, p. 8
- ^ Death of a famous aeronaut . In: Otago Witness , April 4, 1906, p. 14. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
- ^ Ways of Airships . In: The Star , December 31, 1903, p. 2. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Spencer, Stanley |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British balloonist and aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1868 |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1906 |
| Place of death | Malta |