Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Confirmed users, Interface administrators, Rollbackers, Administrators
3,031
edits
Thomas Baldwin (Balloonist): Difference between revisions
→Baldwin's Flight
No edit summary |
|||
Line 17:
In 1785 Lunardi brought his “flying circus” to Chester with the intention of raising money for the spectacle of an ascent. Plans were laid but Lunardi managed to get serious acid burns from the vitriol being used, so his place was first taken by his assistant George Biggin, who also invented an early coffee-maker. A following ascent from Chester was made by a Lieutenant French of the Cheshire Militia, who is generally reported to have landed on the parade ground of the Militia at Macclesfield some 40 miles away – a somewhat unlikely tale. Then it was Baldwin's turn to rent the balloon. Like French he made a solo flight and had never ascended before. After the flight Baldwin wrote a detailed description in his remarkable book “Airopaidia”. There is little in the local press about his exploits, possibly due to the editor of the Chronicle being about to be slung into jail for writing the wrong thing about the Corporation.
[[File:BaldwinF4.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Baldwin's illustration of his flight.]]
Baldwin made extensive preparations for his flight, so as to make a number of experiments and be prepared for what might be encountered, taking up a barometer, needles already threaded, pencils sharpened at both ends, a “speaking trumpet” and brandy (“for experiments”). He describes his lift-off in dramatic terms:
Line 29 ⟶ 30:
He noted the pressure on his soles during rapid ascents and the shadow of his balloon on the clouds surrounded by a halo of light, both being the first record of these phenomena. He noted the atmospheric pressure and cast out feathers to determine whether he was rising or falling. Baldwin also had some problems with his valve, used to release gas and prevent too high an ascent. It appears that the string which operated the valve somehow became caught and Baldwin gives an account of how he struggled to reach it. Eventually, he had to clamber up the "rigging" of his balloon to reach the valve.
His first “landing” (at Kingsley) was dramatic with a desperate casting-out of weight, and he later flew on to return once and for all to terra firma at Rixton Moss, near Warrington. There he entertained local children by giving them ascents with the last of his lift and the balloon tethered by a rope, while he waited for his “chasers” to catch-up. He would never fly again, but he did go on to be involved with the early development of steam propulsion, encouraging and funding the now mostly forgotten “rude, uncultivated, and self-taught mechanic” John Smith, who took his first steamboat along the Sankey Canal in 1797.
==Sources and Links==
| |||