This piece has been sitting in the list as an unpublished draft for probably about ten years, I don't know how it acquired the origination date of 22nd October, which it has as i type this introduction. I'm publishing it now, in its unfinished state, because I'm clearing out the rubbish preparatory to reactivating the blog, which has been dormant since 2015. It needs finishing and is a work in progress.
Googling around a bit I see that none of the various web sites giving potted histories of military and naval kites that I've looked at gives precisely the same narrative account as any other, with sometimes wildly inconsistent dates and different names included or omitted in many of them. From various sources the following rough outline seems to be reasonably correct, although I wouldn't swear to it. Doubtless there are gaps and inaccuracies.
Put into chronological order, and omitting the ancient history, myth, legend and inevitable oriental tales, the significant personalities, events and dates in the development of man lifting kites are:
Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell
Brother of Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, later 1st Baron Baden-Powell (the father of the international scouting movement), Captain Baden-Powell devised a kite system in 1893 to lift a man that, according to 'Kites on the Winds of War' (by M Robinson) was successfully used in South Africa, during the Boer War, and then presumably abandoned, for the British army apparently made no further use of kite technology until S. F. Cody presented the War Office with his device, about ten years later. M. Robinson's narrative is incorrect, as Baden-Powell worked on a single large kite until some time after managing a successful flight, with a man in the basket, on 27th June, 1894, and his article 'Evolution of a Kite That Will Lift a Man', published in McClure's Magazine, in April, 1899 gives an account of his efforts.
The text, quoted here (1), presumably verbatim, explains the process of conception, construction, experiment and development by means of accident and design rather well and the significance of the article is that it gives Baden-Powell's own chronological record of the development of his system of man lifting kites, and must therefore be considered the most accurate, in the absence of any contradictory sources.
The first date given is March 1893, by which point he had developed a means of steering a single kite with two flying lines 'to a remarkable extent on either side of the wind course' and could 'by fastening the two lines at a distance apart, keep the kite floating perfectly steady' (sounds exactly like a stunt kite to me). He continued development work, constantly enlarging successive examples until by May 1894 he had built one of bamboo and light sail canvas that was 36' high with an area of approximately 500 square feet, which he had estimated was sufficient to lift a man. The process must have been laborious and expensive for Baden-Powell makes a point of describing the inevitable disappointments experienced and the expense involved in experiment and innovation, and the derision often heaped upon the innovator when success eludes him. By trial and error he strengthened the kite frame until it could fly and lift a wicker basket, which was suspended from the flying lines.
This drawing, given in a hyperlink at the not obviously named though all too obviously pre WYSIWYG web site Kites, Balloons, and Daredevils (sic) here, to illustrate a reference to Baden Powell's patent for the kite he named 'Levitor', in 1895, actually seems to show an earlier model, since it is quite clearly not the kite described by Baden Powell as 'Levitor' and illustrated in his patent application, perhaps a precursor of the 36' 1894 kite if not that kite itself:
On 27th June, 1894, the kite carried its first passenger (not its designer but Baden-Powell's 'youngest and lightest brother officer', who was allowed the honour, and the risk, of going first, which was very noble of Captain Baden-Powell, the builder taking his turn after the contraption had been shown to work as intended).
The kite worked although Baden-Powell makes clear that further work was necessary to improve its handling, during the course of which he grew more aware of something he'd known from very early in his experiments, if not from the start: the stronger the wind the more powerful the lift and therefore the less manageable the kite, in consequence of which he decided to use several smaller kites to achieve the same effect, the number according to the wind force. The design of the kites was changed to a simpler and much lighter form, consisting of a frame of three poles of equal length arranged as one spine with two cross members spaced symmetrically to give a rough hexagon. This was the design he called 'Levitor' and patented in 1895, a type later used by Marconi in his first experiments in transatlantic wireless telegraphy:
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Baden-Powell's first multiple kite rig consisted of a train of five kites, and after unsuccessful experiments in which he attempted to use the lowest kite as a parachute to save the observer in the event of a failure of the system, a parachute permanently 'distended' by a frame was fitted.
This uncaptioned photograph was taken from 'The War Kite' (at digital history project), the Baden-Powell article originally published in McClure's Magazine and reproduced in Appendix 1 (below):
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If this is the kite train that was demonstrated by Baden-Powell at Ipswich a fifth kite must be off camera to the left of the photograph, with, presumably, the permanently distended parachute. The assertion on the web page 'Kites on the Winds of War' that the Baden-Powell man lifting kite train consisted of six kites isn't supported by Baden Powell's article published in McClure's Magazine and it may be that some confusion has arisen because of the presence of the permanently distended parachute in a photograph I have yet to see, which might appear to show six kites.
Finally, here at least and for now, this uncaptioned and unattributed block print of a four kite train flying shows the dual flying lines and basket of a Baden-Powell man lifting kite train with too few kites and no parachute. That may be attributable more to a commercial artist's impression than actual documentary evidence, even if the artist was an eyewitness to the flight:
That's all I can discover about Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell's kites at present.
Robert Hargrave
While Baden-Powell was working on man lifting kites in England, Robert Hargrave, an Englishman, born in Greenwich and taken by his family to Australia at the age of fifteen, was working on the same idea there, using box kites rather than flat ones. Hargrave was to be far more influential than Baden-Powell, and not just in the field of man lifting kites; he provided the model for several others working in the field and did much important and influential research into powered aeroplanes.
This photograph shows a replica, presumably full sized, of the kite train built and used by Lawrence Hargrave hanging in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney:
It's not easy to see, in the photograph, how the lift was transferred from the kites to the line. The taut line above the kites seems to be merely the means by which they are displayed since, logically, lifting kites must be above the line they are lifting. Examination of the photograph shows lines between the kites, each apparently at a slightly different angle, which makes sense, and emanating from the centre of the kite, suggesting that the train was formed by attaching the kites to several sections of line. That seems to be an inherently flawed design, since several weak points are thereby created, with the strain on each point increasing progressively down the train. The failure of the lowest point, the one bearing the greatest strain, means the loss of three quarters of the lifting effort. The alternative, attaching the kites to a continuous line running through each of them, has the inherent problem of the line rubbing against the adjacent frame members of the kite, which seems to have happened according to this account (***Three***), in a letter written by Hargrave in December, 1894:
and a hand written annotation to a slightly different, perhaps earlier, version of this diagram which appears to state 'rope cut deeply into the lower member of the centre panel' (****Four**** That version of the drawing is available at ......... although the link 'Lawrence Hargrave', that lead to it no longer does so and shows instead a sketch of another form of kite. I have been unable to find the diagram elsewhere):
You can see the photograph here (3 - NOW *****FIVE*****), although the accompanying text gives little relevant information.
A posed photograph, taken the day after Hargrave made his first ascent, recording a re-enactment:
Hargrave's kites look small and fragile, and the 'horse' on which he sits looks far from substantial, it's easy to see that he might have been reluctant to go higher than sixteen feet.
There's an interesting difference in his approach from that of Baden-Powell: Baden-Powell took what can be thought of as of the the classic statist, managerial bureaucratic politican marketing military approach of if x can lift y then 10x can lift 10y so big is indisputably better, which simply led to unmanageably large kites, whereas Hargrave seems to have worked out from the start that many smaller elements working in harmony were more appropriate for the job. There is the added advantage that failure of one element does not lead to disaster. Hargrave worked on his kites and a sequence is discernible:
Hargrave's system was an excellent proof of concept (it worked, and well enough to inspire others) but it was not designed as a practical application. As his letter to ... makes clear, it was not intended as a useful device in its own right but as a means of testing lifting surfaces and was simply one of a number of experiments carried out with the intention of building a powered aeroplane eventually. Hargrave's work was used by the Wright brothers who it seems did not actually make the first powered flight in a man lifting aeroplane (but that's the subject of another post).
The Wikipedia biography of Hargrave can be found here, although a more complete, and more interesting, account is presented here (q.v. footnote 4 - NOW ******SIX******)
The War Office seems to have shown no interest in the work of Baden-Powell or Hargrave, except for the claim that the kite train developed by the former was used in the Boer War, and I've been unable to discover any account of official interest in kites as a weapon of war until an American showman took an interest in them.
S. F. Cody
Picture of Cody
Samuel Franklin Cody, not to be confused with (Buffalo Bill) Cody, ... who
Lawrence Hargrave's kites were used by the American
There was a good deal more to Cody than showmanship. He was definitely an innovator, even though his designs were modifications of the work of others, Hargrave and brogden
Here's Cody
In 1903
Cody was made a British subject in 1913.
Here's Brogden
Here's Sacconey Saconney seems to have built on the work of Madiot
Here's the American army officer -----------------------------------
Appendix 1
This is a copy of the article 'Evolution of a Kite That Will Lift a Man', by Captain B.F.S. Baden-Powell, originally published in McClure's Magazine in April, 1899. Apart from Anglicising a few spellings I have left it as presented at http://www.pinetreeweb.com/bp-baden-kites.htm, including the highly unlikely grammar, vocabulary and phrasing of some of what are allegedly Captain Baden-Powell's words, the work perhaps of a particularly clumsy local sub-editor. The copyright for the article is claimed by one Lewis P. Orans, although I suspect he thinks copyright can be applied to typescripts of others' original work, whether it is the late captain's, a contemporary journalist or ghost writer, or a second rate sub-editor. Whether or not, I reproduce the article attributed to Captain Baden-Powell and claimed by Mr Orans without his permission.
A Baden-Powell Man-Lifting System
It is very remarkable how people pass by good inventions and good ideas and won’t take to them. Kites, for instance, have been known for hundreds of years. Everyone knows of them the world over, yet till a few years ago no one thought of putting them to any use. When I say no one, I do not mean that exactly, for Franklin and others, of course, used kites for meteorological experiments; Pocock drew a little carriage along with them, and several others suggested their use for life-saving at sea. But it has been only during the last three or four years that inventors have taken up this long neglected contrivance, and now we hear of remarkable kite experiments in many different countries. It is, however, of my own particular improvements that I write.
That was one great result. I went on improving details, but made no important step until March 1893, when, after trying a great many unsatisfactory arrangements for steering the kite out of the wind course, I hit upon the plan of having two flying lines, one on each side of the center. In this way, I found, I could not only steer my kite to a remarkable extent on either side of the wind course; but in a gusty, variable wind, I could, by fastening the two lines at a distance apart, keep the kite floating perfectly steady. I then returned to weight-lifting. After many trials, I was one day delighted to get a kite of about 100 square feet to lift a weight of 56 pounds clear of the ground. I now made the kites bigger and bigger until, in May l894, I had a huge contrivance of bamboo and canvas, 36 feet high, with an area of about 500 square feet. To get a sailmaker to piece together the lightest canvas for the cover was easy enough, but how to make the frame was the difficulty. To calculate the strain would be the way to begin, but what wind was I to allow for? If I made provision for a gale, my apparatus would weigh so much that no light breeze could lift it. So I began the other way. I got some light bamboos, lashed them together, and stretched the canvas on the framework. It rose majestically, quietly doubled up and collapsed, and sank to the ground a wreck. So I made a stronger framework, and sent the kite up by two cords, with a basket suspended between them.
The result was satisfactory as far as it went, but that wasn’t far. I smashed dollars and dollars worth of bamboo. Again and again, when I thought I had made a really good piece of apparatus, some little detail would go wrong; the kite would rise up in the wind, turn sideways, and come plump down against the ground, smashing every bone in its body. To me it was heart-rending to see, but to mere spectators it proved most entertaining. They roared with laughter.
However we progressed; and so satisfactory did our work at last become that one day—it was June 27, l894—we decided on putting it to the crucial test. The question, not so much with me, for I was very confident, but with assistants and lookers, was, “Will it lift a man?” The weather was not favorable. The wind came and went: a strong puff, and then a lull. As he seemed so light, I was kind enough to allow my youngest and lightest brother officer to take the seat of honor in the basket, and see if he could be lifted. The kite was meanwhile flying perhaps 50 feet overhead.
Suddenly the wind freshened. There was a creak of the basket, and up it went, man and all, while we retained hold of the cords to prevent his being carried too high. My machine had really lifted a man. I then got into the basket. It lifted me, too! Again we persevered, and gradually the kite improved and grew more tractable. I now found that numerous difficulties arose from having so big an apparatus, not the least being that it proved much too powerful in a strong wind. So I returned to smaller kites, and fixed several together, their number depending on the wind force.
I had come to the conclusion that the best shape, considering lightness, convenience of folding up, power to lift, and ease of making was one in which the frame consisted of three poles of equal length, one placed upright and called the “backbone,” the other two put across the “backbone’ at right angles, at a distance from either end of it equal to about one-sixth of its length. The shape was thus nearly hexagonal. This form, for want of a better name, I christened “Levitor.” The most convenient size was that in which poles not more than 12 feet long were used. This made the area of the kite about 120 square feet.
From just lifting a man, I got to lifting him easily. Once a kite takes hold a man, it may lift him to any height. If it was capable of lifting a man during the puffs 10 or 12 feet (in the intervals letting him down with a bump), why not 300 or 400 feet? But what about that bump? At first I took care that no one should ascend to a greater height than he could safely fall, however much the kite might want to take him higher. I tried to arrange that the lowest kite should act as a parachute in the event of the wind dropping or the rope breaking. This I tested while a good fat sandbag was the occupant of the car. All I can say is that I am glad it was a sandbag and not a man. I thenceforward adopted a regular parachute, but the objection to this was that it wouldn’t open until it had fallen about 50 feet; so if my man chanced to be up no more than that height, and an accident occurred, the parachute was not of much use, and even such a detail as a drop of 50 feet I didn’t care to leave unprovided for. I next arranged a framework to the parachute to keep it permanently distended.
Things were now going so well I decided on a public exhibition, and I took the apparatus down to Ipswich to show to the savants of the British Association. There were many delays at starting. I had no experienced assistants. But when we got to the business, the five kites did their work well. With the parachute spread above my head and balloon-like car to stand in, I went up to the end of the tether, 100 feet. Numerous trips to this height were also made by others.
Anybody can understand a kite’s lifting in a strong wind, but to be really useful it ought to lift also in a calm. You may say that the whole principle of a kite depends upon wind; but does not the smallest schoolboy know otherwise? If he wants his kite to go up, what does he do? Why, he runs with it. So I got about 20 men, one very calm day, and set them to run, but the difficulty was that the men got out of breath and couldn’t go for more than a few seconds—though in this time a man was actually lifted off the ground. Then I tied the rope to the back of a cab, and set that going, but the old horse was too lazy to get up speed. Next I fixed a kite directly to a horse. This did very well for one kite, but one was not enough to lift a man; so one day we arranged a number of kites in tandem, laid them on the ground, fixed the car in place, and laid out a rope about 1,000 feet long, and attached it to the horse. In order to get the desired space, this rope was carried over an oak fence.
When all was ready, the signal was given, and off went the horse. Just as the kites were going to lift, I noticed something wrong with them. I shouted to stop the horse, but the groom did not hear. I ran forward to set the kite right if possible, but I only pulled it over so it turned turtle and scraped along the ground. The other kites followed. I yelled out to stop the horse, but he became frightened and went tearing across the field, the car dragging and bumping along, and the kites continually catching in the ground and breaking. Soon the car came to the fence. There was a crash and a bang, some yards of fencing were hurled to the ground, and the horse, thus suddenly checked, turned a somersault and threw his rider like an arrow from a bow.
Another day I very nearly experienced a new sensation. There was a set of kites flying low. A long light line was suspended from the cable, and the greater part of this lay entangled on the ground. I was busy trying to get it disentangled when, for some reason, up went the kites, and down I fell on my back. I had been dragged along thus for some yards, and was just about to be lifted a few hundred feet by my ankle, when a bystander rushed out and cut the cord.
To sum up, we have, as a result of our experiments thus far, an apparatus that can lift a man several hundred feet. This can be safely and surely, so as not to risk life or limb, and even without wind. As compared with a balloon equipment, this apparatus presents important advantages. My entire “kiteage,” with ropes and all, weighs only a little over 100 pounds, and can be carried by two men. When the order is given to ascend, I can unpack, set up, and send up the kites in about five minutes. I now require no manual labour to haul down, as the kites can be lowered by a gentle pull on the “regulating line,” which determines the angle they present to the wind. If the apparatus catches in a tree and gets torn, it makes but little difference, and the injury is easily remedied. If it were a balloon to which the mishap befell, the gas would be lost, three wagon loads more would be required to refill it, and it would need very careful patching before it could be used again. The same advantage would be held by the kite if a hostile bullet had penetrated either apparatus. And then, finally, the kite would involve, originally, probably not the 20th part of the cost of the balloon; perhaps not a 100th part.
Appendix 2
Transcription of Hargrave's Letter
Appendix 3
A Brief Kite Chronology
____________12
Footnotes:
(1) http://www.pinetreeweb.com/bp-baden-kites.htm
(2) The website of The South African Military History Society, at http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol112db.html.
(3) https://pruemason.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/the-great-aviation-pilgrimage-day-3-a-visit-to-the-memorial-for-lawrence-hargrave/ at, How Wings Work and Why Planes Fly: https://pruemason.wordpress.com/
(4) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, (MUP), 1983.
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