Flight by Steam

Flight by Steam

Two young men climbed into the open cockpit of a Travelair biplane one day last week at Oakland Municipal Airport. After a minute or so the propeller began to turn. The plane started down the runway, gathered speed, soared into the air, its propeller beating a loud tattoo but without any noise of engine exhaust. After circling the airport at 1,000 ft. for about 15 minutes the plane glided to a landing and out jumped the two young men, grinning broadly. Thus unpretentiously, aeronautic history was made. For the first time, a steam-powered airplane had flown.

The Engine consists of two cylinders developing 90 h.p. in the air, 150 h.p. in block tests. It weighs 500 Ib.--considerably more per horsepower than gasoline airplane engines. Steam is generated from water (not from any special chemical) by burning cheap crude-oil. Sealed condensers return the steam from the cylinders to the boiler with only 1% loss. Constant pressure in the boilers is maintained by electric gauges which automatically ignite the burners when pressure begins to fall. Take-off pressure can be generated in one minute. The engine is reversible in flight, effecting a short, slow landing.

The Inventors are George D. Besler, 31, and his brother William J., 29, sons of Board Chairman George William Besler of Central Railroad of New Jersey. Associated with them was their Princeton classmate (class of 1926) Clement Bates Ellery Harts, son of Brigadier-General null Wright Harts, onetime military attache of the U. S. Embassy in Paris.

As youngsters at Hun School in Princeton, N. J. the Besler boys were usually mistaken for twins. (Now William is dark, slender; George is blond, stocky, has a mustache.) As Princeton undergraduates they played polo, learned to fly, owned planes. As graduates they became steam-engine conscious, as are all Beslers because of the family's substantial interest in Davenport Locomotive Works. They went to California and got control of Doble Steam Motor Corp., which had been in difficulties, began producing steam automobiles, steam trucks and busses. About three years ago the Beslers and their friend Clement Harts began experiments on the steam airplane engine, simply to prove it could be done.

Significance. Aeronauts began 100 years ago to try to make steam engines fly, because no other motive power existed. The first successful dirigible, flown by Henri Giffard in 1852, was steam-propelled. Ten years before, W. H. Phillips had sent aloft a small model helicopter with a steam engine in it. Langley's first successful flying model, in 1896, was steam driven. Maxim worked on the idea. But no full size airplane flew. And before one did, Charles M. Manly had built a gasoline engine lighter per horsepower than any steam plant produced so far. When it was proven that gas engines would fly, there remained no reason for early aeronauts to bother with steam.

Reasons for a renaissance of interest in steam are the same as motivated the development of Diesel engines for airplanes: elimination of fire hazard by use of crude oil; elimination of ignition and hence of radio interference; simplification of mechanism; economy. Also the steam engine offers reduction of noise, of vibration, of complicated lubrication.

While the Besler flight was regarded as a significant as well as an historic experiment, few observers were prepared to guess whether the steam-engine idea will get farther than the Diesel, which has yet to be accepted by aviation.

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