Читать книгу The Rise of the Flying Machine - Hugo Byttebier - Страница 23

L. P. Mouillard

A few months after Pénaud had sent his resignation to the Société Française de Navigation Aérienne, they received a letter from Louis Pierre Mouillard who explained that in the flight of a flapping bird its tail was of no use. This was a rather unusual statement and Mouillard ended his letter by stating: “If I were rich, I would like to solve the aerial problem in three years.”

Mouillard had become a fanatical devotee of soaring flight as achieved by the big birds of prey, which he had studied first in Algeria and later in Egypt, where he worked in Cairo. During his stay in these subtropical countries he had assigned himself the formidable task of analysing, measuring and describing all the birds he could lay his hands on and had finally come to the same conclusion as d’Esterno, that man would be able to fly with the power of the wind.

In 1881, Mouillard published a remarkable book with the suggestive title of L’Empire de l’air, that caused quite a stir because his belief in the possibility of soaring flight was strongly expressed: “Ascension is the result of the skilful use of the power of the wind and no other force is required.”

Hureau de Villeneuve wrote a long appraisal of Mouillard’s book in the October 1881 issue of L’Aéronaute, analysing the concept of soaring flight which had baffled so many researchers. In his review he rejected Pénaud’s theories that explained soaring flight by “so-called” rising currents which Pénaud “supposed” to exist in the atmosphere.

Like Mouillard, Hureau de Villeneuve found Pénaud’s interpretation unacceptable and he gave two reasons for his inability to agree with Pénaud. The first was that, if these thermals existed, all objects — not only birds — would go up, and the second was that if these rising currents really existed, birds would presumably be able to soar but would not be able to come down again when they wanted to.

Continuing his analysis of Mouillard’s book, Hureau de Villeneuve stated that a soaring bird was nothing but a kite in which the line was replaced by a “continuous displacement of the centre of gravity” which was the result of “a great instinctive skill on the part of those birds”.

These premises were nonsensical and, coming as they did from the president of the French aeronautical society, they may give us an inkling of why Pénaud at times had great difficulty in keeping an even temper when discussing aeronautics with his colleagues at the society meetings.

It is difficult to assess the real importance of Mouillard’s ideas. His book was very well received on publication, and he certainly inspired several pioneers who worked during the last decade of the nineteenth century. His influence extended to the United States just at the crucial moment when human flight was nearing its realization.

But in the light of our present knowledge, his influence, oriented as it was in opposition to Pénaud’s theories, can hardly be termed to have been positive.