Horatio Frederick Phillips

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Horatio Frederick Phillips was an aero inventor and experimenter who used a wind tunnel of his own construction to test new types of airfoils.[1]

His apparatus used steam injections to form a pressure gradient in a tunnel—a significant adjustment from Francis Wenham's design. Phillips tested cambered (curved) airfoils, which achieved aerodynamic efficiency more than double that of flat plates.[2] The lower surface of the airfoil had a shallower curve than the upper, with a point of maximum thickness at between 1/3 and 1/2 of the distance from the front.[3]

He later developed flying machines which used numerous wings, including one which featured 50 of them, arranged vertically.[2]

Maxim reports experimenting with Phillips-type steam condensers which also produce lift.[4]

One one patent Phillips gave his occupation as Gunsmith, and his address as 131 High Street, Harlesden, County of Middlesex, England.[5]

Patents whose inventor or applicant is Horatio Frederick Phillips or Horatio Phillips


References

  1. w:Horatio Frederick Phillips
  2. 2.0 2.1 Hallion, 2003, pp. 118–119. "After Phillips, what might be termed the impact model of lift rapidly disappeared, and camber, in various forms, was king. Phillips recognized this, patenting a family of airfoils having pronounced camber. Above all, however, he firmly believed that the higher the aspect ratio, the better. He carried this to an extreme in 1893, constructing a tethered airplane test rig having a virtual Venetian blind for a wing; no less than 50 wings, one above the other, each having a span of 19 feet and a chord of only 1.5 inches, giving it the extraordinary aspect ratio of 152. Run around a circular track, this rig produced a lifting force of nearly 400 pounds at 40 miles per hour, proving the value of camber, though otherwise it was a completely impractical configuration."
  3. Crouch, 1981, p. 35.
  4. Maxim, 1909, Artificial and Natural Flight, p. 60.
  5. Patent GB-1897-1016 at espacenet

More good sources: https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/phillips/Tech4.htm, http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/phillips.html, https://patents.google.com/?inventor=horatio+phillips&oq=horatio+phillips


Names Horatio Frederick Phillips; Horatio Phillips; H. F. Phillips
Birth date 1845
Death date 1924
Countries GB
Locations Harlesden, County of Middlesex
Occupations gunsmith
Tech areas Camber, multiplane, aerofoil
Affiliations
Wikidata id