Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (aka Nadar)
Nadar was an aero inventor, a painter and photographer, Paris (33, boulevard Saint-Martin, Seine). He was also a founder of the Society for Aerial Navigation (Provisional) and the Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Machines Heavier than Air.
As a child Nadar witnessed an aeronaut carried away in a ballooning mishap above the Champs-Élysées, an experience which, it is said, provoked him to contemplate heavier-than-air flight as the key to dirigibility in the air.[1]
Nadar commissioned the aeronautical services of the Godard family, first chartering a balloon and hiring them to operate it, then commissioning the construction of Le Géant in 1860.[2] With his heart set on heavier-than-air flight, he believed that his large balloon would draw attention and raise funds for his cause.[3]
At a public reading of his "Manifeste de l'Autolocomotion aérienne", given in 1863, he said, "To struggle against the air, one must be specifically heavier than it.".
His son, Paul Tournachon a.k.a. Paul Nadar went into the same line of work.
Patents whose inventor or applicant is Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (aka Nadar) or Nadar or Gaspard-Félix Tournachon
- Patent FR-1858-38509 (English title: Aerial photography, Filing date: 1858-10-23)
Publications by or about Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (aka Nadar) or Nadar or Gaspard-Félix Tournachon
- Begley, 2017, The Great Nadar (Simple title: The Great Nadar)
- Manifeste de l'autolocomotion aérienne, 1863 (Simple title: Aerial Autolocomotion Manifesto)
- Blerzy, 1863, Les aérostats et les aéronefs (Simple title: Aerostats and 'airships', Journal: Revue des Deux Mondes)
- Nadar, 1864, Cour impériale, 4e chambre. Audience du mardi. M. Tardif, président. Mémoire pour Félix Tournachon (Nadar) contre les frères Louis et Jules Godard (Simple title: Imperial Court, 4th bedroom. Tuesday hearing. Mr. Tardif, President. Memory for Felix Tournachon (Nadar) against brothers Louis and Jules Godard, Journal: Cour impériale)
- Ponton d'Amécourt, 1864, Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons (Simple title: Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons)
- Nadar, 1864, Mémoires du Géant (Simple title: A Terre & en l'air: Mémoires du Géant)
- Duchesne (jeune), 1864, Exposé de divers systèmes de navigation aérienne et réfutation de l'hélicoptère de Nadar, Ponton d'Amécourt et de la Landelle (Simple title: Presentation of various air navigation systems and refutation of the Nadar, Ponton d'Amécourt and La Landelle helicopter)
- Fantasio, 1864, Nadar et le ballon Géant (Simple title: Nadar and the giant ball)
- Nadar, 1865, A terre et en l'air . . . . Mémoires du Géant (Simple title: On the ground and in the air. . . . Memoirs of the Giant)
- Nadar, 1865, À terre & en l'air. Mémoires du Géant (Simple title: On the ground & in the air. Memoirs of the Giant)
- Pignoni, 1865, Lettre à Nadar sur la navigation aérienne (Simple title: Letter to Nadar on air navigation)
- Publication 8979, 1865, Nadar's gevaarlijke togt. Brief dien E. Arnoult, een der reisgenooten van Nadar, aen de 'Nation' van Parijs geschreven heeft (Simple title: Nadar's dangerous togt. Letter that E. Arnoult, one of Nadar's traveling companions, wrote the 'Nation' of Paris)
- Teerste, 1865, Wie is Nadar en wat wil hy? (Simple title: Who is Nadar and what does he want?)
- Nadar, 1865, Le droit au vol (Simple title: The right to flight)
- Nadar, 1866, The right to fly (translated to English) (Simple title: The right to fly (translated to English))
- Nadar, 1866, The right to fly (Simple title: The right to fly)
- Nadar, 1870, Les ballons en 1870. Ce qu'on aurait pu faire; ce qu'on a fait (Simple title: The balloons in 1870. What could have been done; what we did)
- Nadar, 1870, Protestation (Simple title: Protestation, Journal: L'Aéronaute)
- Caron, 1870, Observations sur la protestation de M. Nadar (Simple title: Observations on Mr Nadar's protest, Journal: L'Aéronaute)
- Nadar, 1871, Les ballons en 1870. Ce qu'ils ont été et ce qu'ils auraient pu être (Simple title: The balloons in 1870. What they were and what they could have been)
- Ballantyne, 1880, Up in the Clouds (Simple title: Up in the Clouds)
- Ballantyne, 1880, Up in the Clouds (Simple title: Up in the Clouds)
- Villeneuve, 1886, Gabriel de la Landelle (Simple title: Gabriel de La Landelle, Journal: L'Aéronaute)
- Fonvielle, 1889, L'aéronautique à l'exposition de 1889 (Simple title: Aeronautics at the 1889 exhibition, Journal: L'Aéronaute)
- Publication 9952e, 1909, Les précurseurs. Nadar (Simple title: The precursors. Nadar, Journal: L'Aéronaute)
- Nadar, 1910, Photograph and biography of Nadar (Simple title: Photograph and biography of Nadar, Journal: Aircraft)
- Besio Moreno, 1914, Historia de la Navegación Aérea (Simple title: History of Aerial Navigation, Journal: Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina)
Letters received by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (aka Nadar) or Nadar or Gaspard-Félix Tournachon
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (aka Nadar) (or Nadar or Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) participated in these events:
- International Aeronautical Congress of 1889 (Start date: 1889-07-31, Locations: Paris, Country: FR, Tech focus: • • )
References
- ↑ Begley, 2017, The Great Nadar, p. 124. "Felix's fixation was distinguished from the start by an urgent interest in the problem of how to steer an untethered, lighter-than-air balloon—that is, how to avoid the imagined fate of that aeronaut who had whisked over his eight- or nine-year-old head. Even before he made his first ascent (at the age of thirty-seven, at the Hippodrome, at the invitation of Eugène Godard's younger brother Louis), he's become convinced that only something heavier than air—such sa a bird—could navigate properly. He'd been only a few minutes in the basket, which had risen only a few yards, when he asked, "And you, do you believe in the possibility of steering your balloons?" Louis's succinct reply: 'Never!'"
- ↑ Gervais, 2001. Cites Dollfus & Bouché, 1932, Histoire de l'aéronautique.
- ↑ Begley, 2017, The Great Nadar, p. 138. "Why would a man dedicated to promoting heavier-than-air locomotion build a gigantic balloon—after calling for the abolition of all balloons? Because balloons draw crowds: the bigger the balloon, the bigger the crowd. Félix's idea was that the money raised by charging the public to witness the inflation and takeoff a balloon 'twenty times larger than the largest hitherto known' would fund the search for a practical motor to propel a helicopter, a motor powerful and light enough to allow for manual flight 'in our first true aerolocomotive.' A publicity stunt, Le Géant—'the last balloon,' as he liked to call it—was a strategic detour. As he put it, 'convinced of the impossibility of getting there by a straight line, I thought that a curved line could become, in the given case, the shortest path from one point to the other."
Links
| Names | Nadar; Gaspard-Félix Tournachon |
|---|---|
| Birth date | 1820-04-06 |
| Death date | 1910-03-21 |
| Countries | FR |
| Locations | Paris |
| Occupations | photographer |
| Tech areas | Heavier-than-air, Photography |
| Affiliations | Société d'encouragement pour la locomotion aérienne au moyen d'appareils plus lourds que l'air |
| Wikidata id |
