aeronautics

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This is from a government report – from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a precursor to NASA – on L’Oiseau Blanc, an aircraft used … Read the rest “Science Art: Fig. 2 from “Drawings, views and engine of the Levasseur transatlantic plane” in NACA Aircraft Circular #50, Levasseur 8 Transatlantic Airplane, 1927.”

From “Collection 476, 1re série” collector cards showing the history of ballooning. They were printed in France sometime before 1900. The Montgolfier Brothers flew their… Read the rest “Science Art: First test flight with an aerostat at Annonay”

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This may be an important historical record of the early days of aeronautics, or it may be a vivid fantasy by a lonely, old man.

Either way, it’s beautiful.

The notebooks… Read the rest “Science Art: Plate 2527 Guarda (a mechanism for protecting airships), by Charles A.A. Dellschau, 1912.”

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When you’re a pioneering aviator, it pays to have a brother who’s an illustrator.

From the Tissandier collection in the Library of Congress, a dream of the… Read the rest “Science Art: Paillettes de glace eclairées par les rayons du soleil observées en ballon, by M. Albert Tissandier”

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In 1912, aeronautics was a sport.

And the athletes had to start their engines somehow… so Bosch, now known mostly for their spark plugs, made magnetos. And summoned… Read the rest “Science Art: Bosch Magneto ad, Aeronautics, July, 1912”

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Harry Grant Dart was an illustrator, newspaperman and creator of “The Explorigator” comic strip… and a man in the suffragette era who evidently had… Read the rest “Science Art: Aerostatic Cabriolet of Tomorrow, by Harry Grant Dart, c. 1905.”