In terms of what technology would allow, what is the earliest possible point in time that manned powered flight could have been successfully developed?
Neolithic. Stone airplanes flying across the Atlantic. Cavemen in jets. Coconut-milk-powered bombers, dropping logs with the word BOOM carved on them.
Yeah, because all of that requires a revolution in stone tools?![]()
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Neolithic. Stone airplanes flying across the Atlantic. Cavemen in jets. Coconut-milk-powered bombers, dropping logs with the word BOOM carved on them.
This.
Marginally more usefully, with what as a POD?
You're not going to see airplanes alongside the Crusaders, but a 800 Before Calvin (c. 1179 AD) airplane with a POD before Augustus might be possible.
Agree, I mean when the PODs are that early it is always hard to know how stuff will develop and how fast. Sure OTL is a good thing to go by, but there are certainly setbacks, misses, and bumps that can be avoided and thus tech can develop at different pace in different areas.
TL that comes to mind is MNP's Raptor of Spain where a POD sometime 800sAD leads to caravel-like ships by the late 1100s. Thus exploration and world-trade are given a tremendous head start kickstarting other tech ahead of its time.
Neolithic. Stone airplanes flying across the Atlantic. Cavemen in jets. Coconut-milk-powered bombers, dropping logs with the word BOOM carved on them.
Neolithic. Stone airplanes flying across the Atlantic. Cavemen in jets. Coconut-milk-powered bombers, dropping logs with the word BOOM carved on them.
Actually an internal combustion engine is not necessary at all costs. It is possible to get a working steam-powered aircraft. There have been several attempts iotl (and at least one working model) and not all of them did fail due to the engine. Some failed due to faulty aerodynamics or because they did not manage a good compromise between weight and power (at least one steam-powered plane in the 1920s did not take off because the engine was too strong for the frame). Once steam engines reach a certain efficency it could be possible. Though the problems are probably greater than with internal combustion motors, it offers another way it might be achieved several decades earlier.If you want earlier powered flight, your best bet is probably to find a way speed up the development of internal combustion engines.
The OP asks for manned, powered flight. It does not require heavier-than-air flight.
A dirigible lighter-than-air vehicle could carry a significantly heavier engine, and since it does not need to expend power keeping itself airborne, the power requirements would be less as well. So I would expect that a manned lighter-than-air vehicle could have been flown shortly after the first relatively efficient high-pressure steam engines were developed around 1800, 17 years after the first manned hot-air balloons were flown.
The Wright brothers may be the most famous people in the history of aviation for the first aeroplane flight in 1903, but the first ever powered and controlled flights were carried out in lighter-than-air craft before either of the Wright brothers was even born. Jules Henri Giffard was a Frenchman who made his fortune by inventing the steam injector (a device to prevent steam engine boilers running out of water whilst they were stationary, patented in 1858), but before that in 1852, he built the world's first passenger airship.
Other people had previously built and flown balloons filled with hydrogen, but in order to make the jump from ballon to being a true airship there needed to be both a source of propulsion and a means of changing direction so that there was the control to choose to fly where one wished. The first airships were known as "dirigible balloons" from the French "dirigeable", meaning "steerable". Later they were simply refered to as "dirigibles".
In 1850 Giffard helped fellow French engineer Jullien to build an airship with a propeller driven by clockwork, but it was to be Giffard's knowlege of steam power that would place his own airship in the history books and in 1851 he patented the "application of steam in the airship travel". He managed to build a small and light steam engine weighing just 250 pounds and despite the added weight of the boiler and coke bringing it to over 400 pounds, it was still light enough for his hydrogen filled balloon to lift. The engine drove a large (3.3 metre) rear-facing three-bladed propeller, and although only producing a power of 2,200 watts (three horsepower), it would prove to be enough to demonstrate that controlled flight was possible. The funnel pointed downwards and the exhaust stream was mixed with the combustion gasses to try and prevent sparks which might ignite the highly flammable hydrogen gas in the balloon. The balloon itself was 43 metres (144 foot) long and pointed at both ends. Below it at the rear was mounted a sail-like triangular vertical rudder.
The airship successfully flew on the 24th of September 1852, launching from the Paris Hippodrome and flying 27km (17 miles) to Elancourt, near Trappes. Because the small engine was not very powerful it could not overcome the prevailing winds to allow Giffard to make the return flight (the top speed of Giffard's airship was just six miles per hour). However, he did manage to turn the airship in slow circles, proving that in calm conditions controlled flight was possible.