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Alphonse Pénaud (31 May 1850 – 22 October 1880), was a 19th-century French pioneer of aviation design and engineering. He was the originator of the use of twisted rubber to power model aircraft , and his 1871 model airplane, which he called the Planophore , was the first aerodynamically stable flying model.
- 22 October 1880 (aged 30)
- Aeronautical inventor and engineer
- French
- 31 May 1850, Paris
The story of Charles Alphonse Pénaud (pronounced pay-know), an early pioneer of model airplanes, deserves to be better known. In fact, this 19th century Frenchman may have been the most influential modeler of all time. Born in 1850 in Paris, Pénaud expected to carry on the family tradition of career maritime service.
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Apr 29, 2024 · Alphonse Pénaud (born 1850, Paris, France—died October 1880, Paris) was a French aeronautical pioneer. Pénaud was the son of an admiral but suffered from a degenerative hip condition that prevented his following a family tradition of service in the French navy. As early as 1870 he began to demonstrate the discoveries that would eventually ...
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 Tuileries ...
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.
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May 31, 2019 · Pénaud’s ornithopter or model flying bird, 1872, from Octave Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines, 1894 (Linda Hall Library) Pénaud drew up plans for full-sized flying machines, but he was unable to secure either interest or funding. In despair, and having suffered for some years from osteotuberculosis, Penaud took his own life on Oct. 22 ...
Alphonse Pénaud was born in 1850 in Paris. Pénaud planned to join the Navy. Then he suffered a disabling illness. .... So he turned to inventing a flying machine. He was no idle dreamer. He worked methodically. He thought through questions of stability and propulsion. Pénaud was 21 when he finally perfected a rubber-band-driven model airplane.
