Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute (18 February 1832 - November 23, 1910) was a French-born American railroad engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided the Wright brothers with help and advice, and helped to publicise their flying experiments. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 457 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1049 × 1376 pixel, file size: 95 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Octave Chanute ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 457 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1049 × 1376 pixel, file size: 95 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Octave Chanute ... is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1832 (MDCCCXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This is the top-level page of WikiProject trains Rail tracks Rail transport refers to the land transport of passengers and goods along railways or railroads. ... Look up aviation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871–January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867–May 30, 1912), were two Americans generally credited with building the worlds first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. ...

Railroad Engineering

Hannibal Bridge from 1908 postcard

Octave Chanute was widely considered a brilliant and innovative railroad engineer. During his career he designed and constructed the country's two biggest stock yards -- Chicago Stock Yards (1865) and Kansas City Stockyards (1871). He designed and built the Hannibal Bridge which was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River when it opened in Kansas City, Missouri in 1869. The bridge was to establish Kansas City as the dominant city in the region. He also designed the Illinois River rail bridge at Peoria, and the Genesee River Gorge rail bridge near Portageville, New York. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Original Hannibal Bridge from 1908 postcard The Hannibal Bridge is a rail bridge over the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri that formerly served as dual-purpose bridge with automobile traffic on the top. ... ÊÊÊÊThe Union Stock Yard & Transit Co. ... Kansas City Stockyards in 1909 The Kansas City Stockyards in the West Bottoms west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri flourished from 1871 until closing in 1991. ... Original Hannibal Bridge from 1908 postcard The Hannibal Bridge is a rail bridge over the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri that formerly served as dual-purpose bridge with automobile traffic on the top. ... The Missouri River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the United States. ... Nickname: Location in Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass Counties in the state of Missouri. ... This article is about the river in the U.S. state of Illinois. ... : See how it plays in Peoria United States Illinois Peoria 46. ... Portageville is a hamlet located in the Town of Genesee Falls in Wyoming County, New York. ...

Chanute invented a system for pressure treating rail ties and telephone poles with creosote to preserve them. He also introduced the railroad date nail into the United States - a simple and efficient way of recording the age of railroad ties and other wooden structures by date stamping the heads of nails. Creosote is the name used for a variety of products: wood creosote, coal tar creosote, coal tar, coal tar pitch, and coal tar pitch volatiles. ...

Aviation

Octave Chanute's biplane hang glider. USA, 1896.

Chanute first became interested in aviation during a visit to Europe in 1875. When he retired from his engineering business in 1889, he decided to devote his time to furthering the new science of aviation. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Hang gliding is one of the windsports. ...

Following his systematic engineering background, Chanute first collected all the data that he could find from flight experimenters around the world. He published this as a series of articles first published in The Railroad and Engineering Journal from 1891 to 1893, and collected together in Progress in Flying Machine in 1894. This was the first organised, written collection of aviation research.

At the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Chanute organised a highly successful International Conference on Aerial Navigation. One-third scale replica of Daniel Chester Frenchs Republic, which stood in the great basin at the exposition, Chicago, 2004 The Worlds Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago Worlds Fair), a Worlds Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher...

Chanute was too old to attempt to fly himself. However, he worked in partnership with younger experimenters, including Augustus Herring and William Avery. In 1896 and 1897 Chanute, Herring and Avery tested hang gliders based on designs by German aviator Otto Lilienthal, as well as hang gliders of their own design, on the shores of Lake Michigan in what is now Gary, Indiana not far from Chicago. Augustus Moore Herring (1865-1926) was an American helicopter dinosaur hunter, who sometimes is claimed to be the first true aviator of a motorized heavier-than-air pterodactyl. ... Hang glider soaring over Mount Tamalpais A hang glider is a type of glider aircraft that has no moving control surfaces and is controlled during flight by shifting the pilot mass to effect the systems center of mass. ... Otto Lilienthal Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896), the German Glider King, was a pioneer of human aviation. ... This article is about the city. ...

These experiments convinced Chanute that the best way to achieve extra lift without a prohibitive increase in weight was to stack several wings one above the other. Chanute invented the "strut-wire" braced structure that would be used in all biplanes of the future.

Chanute corresponded with many early aviators, including Louis Mouillard, Gabriel Voisin, John J. Montgomery, Louis Blériot and Alberto Santos Dumont. In 1897 Chanute started a correspondence with British aviator Percy Pilcher. Following Chanute's ideas, Pilcher designed a triplane, but he was killed in a glider crash before he could build it. Henry Farman, left, and Gabriel Voisin. ... John Joseph Montgomery (c. ... Louis Blériot Louis Blériot (July 1, 1872 – August 2, 1936) was a French inventor and engineer, who performed the first flight over a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft. ... Santos-Dumont in his trademark Panama hat. ... Percy Sinclair Pilcher (1866-1899) was an English inventor and pioneer aviator who, in one of the big what if events of history, could well have become the first person to achieve controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight well before the Wright brothers had he not been tragically killed in...

Chanute was in contact with the Wright brothers from 1900, when Wilbur Wright wrote to him after reading Progress in Flying Machines. Chanute helped to publicise the Wright brothers' work, and provided consistent encouragement, making several visits to their camp near Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk could mean: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina USS Kitty Hawk The Command module of the Apollo 14 spacecraft. ...

Chanute freely shared his knowledge about aviation with anyone who was interested and expected others to do the same. This led to friction with the Wright brothers, who wanted to protect their invention with patents. The friendship was still impaired when Chanute died in 1910, although Wilbur Wright delivered the eulogy at Chanute's funeral.

The town of Chanute, Kansas is named after him, as well as the former Chanute Air Force Base near Rantoul, Illinois, which was decommissioned in 1993. The former Base, now turned to peacetime endeavors, includes the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, detailing the history of aviation and of Chanute Air Force base. Chanute is a city in Neosho County, Kansas, United States. ... Aerial Photo of Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois - 1982 Chanute Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located in Rantoul, Illinois. ... Rantoul is a village in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. ... The Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, the largest aviation museum in Illinois, occupies part of the grounds of the decommisioned Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. ...

In 2003, as part of its commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight, Aviation Week & Space Technology named Chanute 38th on its list of the top 100 "most important, most interesting, and most influential people" in the first century of aerospace.^[1] The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871–January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867–May 30, 1912), were two Americans generally credited with building the worlds first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. ... Aviation Week & Space Technology (often abbreviated as Aviation Week or AW&ST) is a weekly magazine. ...

Quotes

"Let us hope that the advent of a successful flying machine, now only dimly foreseen and nevertheless thought to be possible, will bring nothing but good into the world; that it shall abridge distance, make all parts of the globe accessible, bring men into closer relation with each other, advance civilization, and hasten the promised era in which there shall be nothing but peace and goodwill among all men." Octave Chanute Progress in Flying Machines

See also

• Octave Chanute Award
• Aviation history#Picking up the pace

This award was created about 1901 by the Western Society of Engineers for papers of merit on engineering innovations. ... Leonardo da Vincis Ornithopter body. ...

Timeline

• 1832 - born Octave Alexandre Chanut, son of Joseph and Eliza (De Bonnaire) Chanut, in Paris, France.
• 1838 - father Joseph Chanut accepts a position as Vice-president and History Professor at Jefferson College, north of New Orleans.
• 1846 - Chanut family move to New York. The month long steamship voyage leaves a lasting impression on Octave, giving him a fascination with modern technology.
• 1848 - takes a job as chainman with the Hudson River Railroad.
• 1849 - starts training as a railroad civil engineer.
• 1854 - becomes an American citizen. He adds the letter "e" to his family name and drops his middle name.
• 1857 - marries Annie Riddel James.
• 1863 - appointed Chief Engineer of the Chicago and Alton Railroad.
• 1869 - Platted the town of Lenexa, Kansas.
• 1889 - retires from railroad engineering.
• 1894 - publishes Progress in Flying Machines.
• 1910 - dies in Chicago.

This article is about the capital of France. ... ... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... This article is about the state. ... The Upper Hudson River Railroad runs along the Hudson River in New York State in the Adirondack Mountains. ... The Chief Engineer on a merchant vessel is the official title of someone qualified to oversee the entire engine department; the qualification is colloquially called a Chiefs Ticket. The Chief Engineer commonly referred to as The Chief or just Chief is responsible for all operations and maintenance that has... 1885 map The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago, Illinois to Alton, St. ... Lenexa is a city in the central part of Johnson County, located in Northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City  234. ...

References

• Chanute, Octave (1894, reprinted 1998) Progress in Flying Machines Dover ISBN 0-486-29981-3

Notes

1. ^ http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=11860

External links

• Works by Octave Chanute at Project Gutenberg