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Oct 8, 2016 · Decades before the Wright brothers achieved takeoff at Kitty Hawk, Parisian designer Alphonse Pénaud launched an innovative model airplane on an 11-second flight through the Jardin des...
A flying wing, it also featured such astonishingly advanced concepts as retractable landing gear, enclosed cockpit, extensive instrumentation, and automatic pilot. Pénaud made frequent use of models in his aerodynamic experiments and conclusively proved
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- Penaud's Planophore
- A Revolutionary Era
- An Aviation Legacy
Length: 50cmWingspan: 45cmWing area: 492 cm2Weight 15.8gPénaud’s work was integral to the rapidly developing mechanics of aviation in the late 19th Century. Inspired by revolutionary new designs such as George Cayley’s Coachmanglider, Henson and Stringfellow’s steam-powered monoplanes and Félix du Temple’s clockwork and steam-powered craft, engineers, inventors and enthusiasts bred and shared ideas as t...
Still brimming with ideas, Pénaud continued to research and create aircraft: the ornithopter became a successful toy, and in collaboration with engineer Paul Gauchot, designs for a full-size aeroplane took shape, with innovative features such as a retractable undercarriage, centralised controls, electrically operated elevators and a pair of propell...
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Pénaud produced a design for a full-size people-carrying aircraft, a streamlined amphibious "flying wing" seaplane , but his lack of funding and failing health led to him becoming so dejected that he committed suicide at the age of thirty.
Nov 30, 2009 · The model flew 131 feet, setting a new record for a flying toy—proving that heavier-than-air flight was possible. 3 Discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century by George Cayley, but not quite understood, Pénaud was the first to theorize and demonstrate the principle of Inherent Stability.
Penaud was 21 when he finally perfected a rubber-band-driven model airplane. It had a wing, a tail, and a propeller in the rear. It was very close to the models kids like me were building 70 years later.
Alphonse Pénaud: 150 Years of Aeromodelling Part 1. On 18th August, 1871, 150 years ago, Alphonse Pénaud launched the first model aeroplane in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. The model flew over a distance of 40 m in 11 sec in front of members of the French aeronautical society.
