Talk:Aviation in the pioneer era

Whitehead's engines

It has been suggested that in the section on engines, Whitehead's work is not relevant. In particular, the following content has been deleted:

Whitehead's craft was powered by two engines of his design: a ground engine of 10 hp (7.5 kW) which drove the front wheels in an effort to reach takeoff speed and a 20 hp (15 kW) acetylene engine powering the propellers. Whitehead was an experienced machinist, and he is reported to have raised funds for his aircraft by making and selling engines to other aviators.<ref>Weissenborn, G.k.; "Did Whitehead Fly?", Air Enthusiast 35, Pilot Press, 1988.</ref>

The reference given, to Weissenborn, provides further information on this aspect of Whitehead's work, which appears to have been a good deal more successful than his experiments with airframes. The controversy over whether Whitehead himself actually flew has spilled over into whether or not he was a competent mechanic. Consequently, it is hard to find objective and reliable assessments of his engine work. Weissenborn is the best I have been able to find so far. Based on it, several of Whitehead's engines appear notable, for example he sold two engines to the respected aeronautical engineer Charles R. Wittemann, who reported they flew well. Given the lack of other specialist aero engine manufacturers of the period in America, I would see this engine work as notable its own right.

Was the editor who deleted the passage for being "not relevant in this context" (of pioneer engine development) right to do so? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I judged it not relevant since Whitehead's work is not covered in this article.TheLongTone (talk) 15:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Whitehead's work on engines was of course covered in this article - where it was relevant, in the section on engines. The fact that his aircraft are irrelevant is, err, irrelevant. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Whitehead's most notable claims come before 1903, so he is not really part of this article. His work making engines was apparently solid, but that does not him important to the topic. Did he design a novel engine that everybody copied? Did he produce engines that were widely used? No and no. Binksternet (talk) 16:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that's kinda loaded. First, I don't buy your argument about the pre-1903 stuff: by that argument Einstein's most notable discovery was relativity so he should be expunged from the article on the photoelectric effect, no, the pre-1903 stuff is, as I said above, irrelevant. Then, do you rebut my suggestion that the two good engines he sold to Wittemann were in some way notable or "important to the topic" as you put it? Copying and wide use, eh? Where did those criteria pop up from in an era when at the start nobody was yet doing either? Maybe other criteria might exist that didn't get a mention? But even accepting them: the Wrights' engine was also earlier and nobody else copied or used it at the time, but that got left in the article. The De Havilland Iris was not widely copied or used, but that didn't get deleted either. Why single out Whitehead for the censorship treatment? In the USA, Whitehead is the only one I know of who did make and sell purpose-designed aero engines right from the start - and, obviously, until well after 1903 because there were no planemakers to sell them to before that date, hence what I see as his notability within the context of post-1903 engine development. I really do not see your problem. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The Wright's engine is wort mentioning because it forms a good starting point for the point that satifactory (in terms of power/wt) engines were a problem. Whiteheads engines deserve mention in Early flying machines because they are part of that story but in terms of the big picture they are irrelevant to pioneer-era aviation. They were not, as Binksternet has said, copied, they did not powered any notable aircraft of the era, and therefore in terms of the article in question they both come from nowhere and lead nowhere. I can't make much of a case for retaining the stuff about the Iris, although it is another example (like the Wrights) of an aircraft designer needing to design his own engine to get something suitable.TheLongTone (talk) 22:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Still can't buy that opinion about leading nowhere. Firstly, dead ends can actually notable because they were part of the story of those times, a period of great innovation, everybody constantly taking two steps forward, one step back. The article agonises elsewhere over things like the useless efforts of Ferber to achieve anything. A ruck of failures by him and others fill whole paragraphs that took aviation nowhere. Bell's tetrahedral kites are another dead-end case in point. No, I'm sorry, but you appear to be pulling your strict criteria out of a hat solely to belittle Whitehead. How do you explain that apparent bias?

Even assuming you can justify those curiously strict criteria, they appear to conflict blatantly with the RS I gave. Charles R. Wittemann was the first commercial builder of aircraft in the US, was appointed to a committee by the President, yadda yadda. He bought two engines from Whitehead, specifically for his aircraft, and said they worked well. Stanley Beach, a journalist with the Scientific American (and, incidentally, one of those who denied the flight claims, so he certainly wasn't a fanboy) said that Whitehead "deserves a place in early aviation, due to his having gone ahead and built extremely light engines and aeroplanes." So I ask you again, do you refute that these reliable sources indicate any form of notability? I don't mean some Wikipedia editor's personal judgement like "they both come from nowhere and lead nowhere", I mean to actually say, "No, we can discount the likes of Weissenborn and Beach because of these following facts/policies ...".

Also, I am struggling with the "in Early flying machines but not in Aviation in the pioneer era" argument. I see the history of aviation as spawning a series of sub-articles for each period in history. At present Early flying machines covers prehistory to 1914 and is a bit too long to do any period justice. Aviation in the pioneer era is a necessary move to split off the latter part, so as to allow longer treatment of topics which get only short mention in Early flying machines. So I started copying/merging stuff from the shorter treatment into the more comprehensive, only to find material being cut from the more comprehensive treatment but left in the shorter. I find that "in Early flying machines but not in Aviation in the pioneer era" argument utterly back to front, to me any marginal material should go on the comprehensive treatment not the shorter. What is the reasoning behind that contrary argument? Do I need to point out that the engines sold to Wittemann for his flyable airframes must have been well into the pioneer era that is relevant to the present article? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

In 1909 An engine that could be run for around ten minutes is not of great significance. There are many other engine builders, such as Esnault-Pelterie or Edouard Nieuport, whose work was much more signifacant than Whitehead's TheLongTone (talk) 09:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. However I find your point debatable - reliable designs were still few and far between, especially in America, and Whitehead's engines had other important qualities: as Wittemann attests in that same affidavit, they were "well designed" and Whitehead "could well have been classed a genius in that art". Genius but not notable, eh? How does that work? Moreover, Wittemann appears to have bought his first engine around 1906, a time before even the Antoinette 8V and when 10 minutes was an excellent running time. So once again, I sense cherry-picking and slanting of the down side and zero recognition of the notable aspects. As for Esnault-Pelterie, Edouard Nieuport or any similarly reliable engines in American production at that time, if you know about them perhaps you could add something to the article section? Personally, I would love to know more. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Antoinette engines were running by 1905, although at that time they were being used in boats. One was used in the bot that towed Voisin's glider on its first trial. I mentioned Esnault-Pelterie& Nieuport just to make the point that there were many engineers working on engines (Anzani is another) & in this article surely only the most notable developments deserve mention.TheLongTone (talk) 11:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Clerget engines, and Grégoire engines were being widely used for aviation in France by 1910.[1] (The Grégoire was put into the Bristol trainer.) This article does not mention them, but it should hold them in higher regard than Whitehead's engines, since they were more widely used. Binksternet (talk) 16:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Nice tries but no bananas, none of all that is relevant. Although various marine, motorcycle and motor car engines were sometimes used in aircraft those first few years, they seldom had the necessary power-to-weight ratio for a successful flight. My understanding of Antoinette was that the 8V was the first that Levavasseur designed specifically for aero use and, according to Angelucci and Matricardi (Sampson Low Guide to Aircraft: Origins - World War I) it did not appear until 1906, and then only in Europe. ISTR it was late on in that year because in December Sam Cody went over to France and ordered one for Farnborough's new airship, and I recall thinking that it must have only just been announced by then. I just checked out R.E.P., Nieuport, Anzani, Clerget and Grégoire, and their aero engine activities don't seem to have got started before about 1907 or even later. So, for the initial period from 1903 to 1906, none of those people have the slightest relevance. Yet Whitehead does seem to have actively built and sold specifically aero engines during the 1903-06 period, and moreover he did so in America. Is there really no better anti-Whitehead case out there? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

In America during '03–06 there was no significant aviation except for the Wright brothers whose experiments were mostly private. Though Whitehead sold an engine or two in that time frame it did not amount to much. Binksternet (talk) 22:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That's what I thought, thanks for confirming it. And that's exactly my point: in the good few years from 1903 that saw great advances in Europe, about the best America had to offer was Whitehead's engines. According to the wiki page for Glenn Curtiss, he also sold a motorcycle engine in 1904 for use in America's first successful airship, Now, I am not an American, but if I were I would sure argue that makes Curtiss notable enough for a sentence or two. Would you agree? And if Curtiss, then why not Whitehead? How about something like this:

During the years following Kitty Hawk, advances in aero engine design took place mainly in Europe. The American Glenn Curtiss sold a motorcycle engine in 1904 for use in the California Arrow, America's first successful airship, and Gustave Whitehead continued to design and sell small numbers of aero engines of different types.<ref>Weissenborn, G.k.; "Did Whitehead Fly?", Air Enthusiast 35, Pilot Press, 1988.</ref> Meanwhile in Europe ...

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Makes more sense, but the problem with anything to do with Whitehead is lack of reliable sources. I see the wikipedia article claims that in 1908 he built an engine producing 75 hp & weighing 200 lbs (compare the Gnome Omega with a rated 50 hp from 165 lbs of metal): if true this is a truly remarkable output, particularly as it is described as a water cooled engine. One does wonder why he did not have more success if the claims are accurate.TheLongTone (talk) 14:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Engines ought to be involved in this question; it would be well to have the expert opinion of someone such as Nimbus227 who knows his spanner from his gap gauge. Binksternet (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

@TheLongTone: Whitehead's appears to have been a two-stroke type designed for motorcycle use, while the Gnome was an air-cooled four-stroke: both the water cooling and two-stroke cycle would tend to give a higher output for a given engine weight. His supporters claim that he only sold engines when he needed funds for his aeroplane activities, which would explain why he never made that many of any one type. But he seems to have jointly set up a company to sell the motorcycle type and others like it. Maybe we need to ask the motorcycle folks if any of them ever sold much? @Binksternet, now that is one good idea. If you know them/him better than I do, would you be willing to oblige? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:21, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Thought I'd better pipe up as I'm away for a week from tomorrow (got a notification that my user name had been linked from here). I seem to remember looking for Mr Whitehead before, I think it was related to the Coanda discussions. Afraid that I can find no references at all to him in my own library (which includes motorcycle history books). Probably the best source on this subject that I have is Bill Gunston's 'Development of piston aero engines', his 25 page chapter on 'the dawn of powered flight' seems to cover this period very well, as far as the American history goes he only mentions the rivalry between Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:15, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

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