Tesla's Aircraft of the Future Page 1

Much has been written about Tesla's work, especially about the discoveries of the polyphase system and high-frequency currents, which made him known worldwide. Few people know that Tesla also delved into some scientific fields not directly related to electrical engineering. Thus, he conducted research in mechanical engineering, geography, geology, chemistry, astronomy, and others.

The fact that Tesla was a witness, and even a participant, in the events at the beginning of this century that later led to the rapid development of aviation makes his work in this field particularly interesting. Tesla patented his little-known aviation discoveries in the 1920s, but his desire to contribute in his own way to solving the problem of human free flight is much older and takes us back to his childhood.

Even in Tesla's first pranks, we find a hint of that desire. As a five-year-old child, he jumped from the top of his family home in Smiljan, holding an open grandfather's umbrella which collapsed under air pressure, and this attempt at flight ended in a fall and injuries that forced him to lie in bed for six weeks.

He wrote about his flying experiences for Electrical Experimenter magazine in 1917: "Like many children, I loved to jump, and I desperately wanted to stay in the air. Occasionally, a strong, oxygen-filled wind would blow from the mountain, playing with my body like a cork, and then I would jump and float in space for a long time. It was a magical feeling, followed by disappointment when I realized it was a trick."

When the umbrella failed, Tesla continued his attempts with wings made of planks and canvas, strapped to his arms and shoulders, but even then he had no more success. Tesla was not discouraged; with the persistence characteristic of his later life, he continued his boyhood attempts.

The idea of flight evolved from the more primitive to the more perfect, and in the mind of twelve-year-old Tesla, the idea was born of an "ingenious" apparatus which, among other things, could power some flying machine. He described his first engine as follows: "Imagine a freely rotating cylinder on two bearings, partially enclosed by a rectangular groove into which it fits perfectly. A partition closes the free side of the groove, dividing the cylindrical section within the enclosed space into two parts, completely separated from each other by hermetic sliding joints. When one of these two parts is completely sealed and permanently evacuated, the other remains open, and we would have, at least so I thought, a constant rotation of the cylinder. When the wooden model was built and very carefully adjusted, I started a pump from one side and noticed a tendency to rotate. I was at the peak of enthusiasm. Mechanical flight was one of the things I wanted to achieve, although I was still discouraged by the memory of the heavy fall when I jumped from the top of the building with an open umbrella. Every day I used to travel in my imagination to distant lands, but I still didn't understand how I would achieve this. Now I had something tangible – a flying machine, which consisted only of a rotating axle, movable wings, and a vacuum of unlimited power!

From that day on, I took daily aerial excursions in a luxurious and comfortable vehicle, which even King Solomon himself would envy."

Only a few years later did Tesla realize that his device could not function because he assumed that air pressure acted normally on the surface of the cylinder and not tangentially, but this idea was still useful to him, and he returned to it many years later. In 1928, he patented an aircraft with vertical takeoff, equipped with a turbine engine. Tesla found inspiration for his turbine precisely in the engine described earlier, which he had conceived as a twelve-year-old boy.

As a student, he thought about the problem of flight, this time much more maturely than in his early childhood. With the considerable technical knowledge he had by then acquired at the Polytechnic School in Graz, Tesla made calculations for the construction of a flying machine. When he explained the concept to his professor of higher mathematics, Aleu, he was praised and encouraged to continue the work, which, according to the professor, had a realistic foundation.

With his departure to America in 1884, a particularly fruitful period began for Tesla. His discoveries of the rotating magnetic field, which creates alternating currents and the polyphase system, earned him the title of a leading world scientist and electrical engineering researcher. Around 1890, rich and famous, he began a series of new experiments in his famous laboratory, on the corner of 42nd Street and New York Avenue, the most significant of which were those he conducted with high-frequency currents. During his busiest period