MAKE subscriber Will Pickering sent us a link to this fascinating video. Will writes:
This came through one of my steam email lists. Pretty cool plane modified with a 150hp flash boiler steam engine. Made for an almost silent airplane. And it can even go in reverse!
From the lengthy YouTube description:
A Travel Air 2000 biplane made the world’s first piloted flight under steam power over Oakland, California, on 12 April 1933. The strangest feature of the flight was its relative silence; spectators on the ground could hear the pilot when he called to them from mid-air. The aircraft, piloted by William Besler, had been fitted with a two-cylinder, 150 hp reciprocating engine.
[Thanks, Will!]
10 thoughts on “Steam-powered bi-plane, circa 1933”
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That wasn’t particularly impressive.
Quiet and 150hp are fantastic. Carrying enough water and fuel to make it a viable aircraft for any distance is the tough part, as both water and fuel are heavy.
And let us not forget John Hartford:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4WmeGEKjQE
“Take us home on the ol’ steam-powered airplane..”
it’s a life size airhogs model plane
Hail steam. Water (Hydrogen and Oxygen) and electricity the key to future energy generation and uses.