Alphonse Pénaud

Alphonse Pénaud
Born	31 May 1850 Paris
Died	22 October 1880(1880-10-22) (aged 30)
Nationality	French
Occupation(s)	Aeronautical inventor and engineer

Alphonse Pénaud (31 May 1850 – 22 October 1880), was a 19th-century

, and his 1871 model airplane, which he called the Planophore, was the first aerodynamically stable flying model. He went on to design a full-sized aircraft with many advanced features, but was unable to get any support for the project, and eventually committed suicide in 1880, aged 30.

Biography

Pénaud was born in Paris into a naval family, his father Charles Pénaud being an admiral in the French Navy. Because of a hip disease he walked with the aid of crutches and so was unable to attend the Naval School. At 20, he began studying aviation and joined the newly-founded Société Aéronautique de France. He became vice-president of the Society in 1876 and participated in the publication of the journal L'Aéronaute.

In 1870, Pénaud made the first of a series of successful model helicopters. The principle of this was not new, having been demonstrated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1784 by M. Launoy, a naturalist, and M. Bienvenu,

.

Planophore

The next year he built the Planophore, which was to be a major influence on early aircraft design. In addition to the use of a twisted rubber motor driving a

, although at the time Pénaud was not aware of Cayley's work. The principle of a difference in the angle of incidence between the main lifting surface and the stabiliser was worked out for the first time by Pénaud. The Planophore was successfully flown at the Tuileries Gardens in Paris in front of members of the Société Aéronautique on 18 August 1871, flying a distance of 131 feet (40 m) and staying in the air for 11 seconds.

The Planophore was 51 cm (20 in) long with a wingspan of 46 cm (18 in) and a wing area of 0.05 m² (0.53 ft²) with a two-bladed propeller 20 cm (8 in) in diameter. It weighed 16 g (0.56 oz), of which the rubber accounted for 5 g (0.17 oz).^[3]

Later work

The following year he produced a rubber-driven

reaction caused by a single propeller.

He also participated in lighter than air experimentation, and produced a number of ingenious devices, including a differential barometer to show the rate of ascent or descent.

Alphonse Pénaud was unable to obtain any financial backing for his ambitious design and committed suicide on 22 October 1880, aged 30.

Influence

• Pénaud's experiments were comprehensively described by Octave Chanute in his book Progress in Flying Machines.
• A helicopter of the Pénaud type was given to the
  Wright Brothers
  by their father in 1878. The Wright brothers would later mention it as an early inspiration for their interest in flight.
• Pénaud is one of the unsuccessful aviation pioneers mentioned in the
  The Airborne Symphony
  .

Notes

References

External links

• Archive of Monash University website page on Pénaud
• Article on Pénaud in the Encyclopédie Universalis
• Photo and biography of Alphonse Pénaud
• Alphonse Pénaud - Engines of Our Ingenuity