Ernest Archdeacon

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Ernest Archdeacon (1863–1950) was a prominent French aviation booster known especially as sponsor of the Archdeacon prize and Deutsch-Archdeacon prize for airplane flight. He was a founding member of both the Automobile Club de France and the Aéro-Club de France.[1]

Archdeacon, left, with Alberto Santos-Dumont in 1898.
Archdeacon, right, preparing to fly with Henry Farman in 1908.

Archdeacon came from an Irish family and initially began a career in law before getting involved in aeronautics. He set a balloon speed record in Paris in 1885.[1] He worked concurrently on motor-powered velocipedes and tricycles.

Following Octave Chanute's report on the Wright Brothers' airplane, Archdeacon announced the Archdeacon prize for a 25-meter flight.[2] At the same time he headed a committee of the Aéro-Club de France to investigate airplanes.[3]

A Scientific American article in 1904 refers to "M. Archdeacon's aeroplane", constructed by M. Dargent ...

built in Chalais and then taken to the Aerostatic Park at St. Cloud. It resembles the Wright (American) aeroplane in its general principles, but contains different modifications in detail which will no doubt make it an improvement over the former. It is built of an ash frame braced by steel piano wires of 0.06 inch diameter. The frame supports two superposed planes which are slightly convex from front to rear. The planes are formed of extra light French silk and measure 24 feet long and 4.5 feet wide. The planes are spaced 4.4 feet apart. The total surface is 25 square yards. The effective surface is slightly less, owing to the lower frame which supports the aeronaut in the position shown. The The aeroplane has a horizontal rudder in front and a vertical one in the rear. The whole apparatus weighs about 75 pounds and is very strong in spite of its light construction. M. Dargent, the constructor, has succeeded in building it so that it can be taken apart for transportation.[3]

In 1905 Archdeacon experimented with an unmanned airplane tethered to an automobile. "[...] the aeroplane rose gracefully to a height of about 100 feet, in three or four seconds, after which the rope was cut, and the aeroplane, on account of the breaking of one of the planes of its rudder, described several arcs in space, and suddenly fell, breaking itself in pieces [...]".[4]

In 1913 he predicted advances in rocketry which would render the airplane obsolete and enable humans to travel to the moon.[5] In the same year he predicted that aviation would bring about universal peace.[6]

In later life he became a prominent Esperanto advocate.

Publications

  • "Sixty Miles an Hour on the Water'. Scientific American, XCIV(9), 3 March 1906.


Publications by or about Ernest Archdeacon

Ernest Archdeacon participated in these events:

Links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "E. Archdeacon, 87, French Aeronaut: Lawyer, Esperantist, Who Set Balloon Record in '85, Dies—A Flying-Machine Pioneer", New York Times, 4 January 1950.
  2. ↑ Zahm, 1911, Aerial Navigation, pp. 256–258.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Aeroplanes in France and M. Archdeacon's Apparatus. — Rules for Concourses." Scientific American XCI(25), 17 December 1904.
  4. ↑ "Raising an Aeroplane with an Automobile", Scientific American XCII(18), 6 May 1905.
  5. ↑ "By Radium to the Moon; French Writer Predicts it May Be Accomplished: Declares Marvelous Progress of Aerial Science Is Such that in a Few Centuries Present Day System Will Be Forgotten and We Will Visit the Planets at Will." Los Angeles Times, 12 September 1913.
  6. ↑ "Aviation and Progress", Review of Reviews, 47(282), June 1913.
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