Many a time and oft have I walked Regent St. I kid you not, I’ve been living in Central
London and around for 40 yrs.
Every one of those countless times, I’ve walked past some educational institute
which has on the wall a plaque saying it was established by Sir George
Cayley. It’s not that I’ve noticed, it’s
just become embedded in my subconscious.
I always assumed he was some 19th Century philanthropist. I come from a culture where it was common for
someone of means, in that century, to establish a library or somesuch socially
benevolent institution for the benefit of the locals and to be remembered when
they’re gone.
Until .... one day in the library, a while before Lockdown (which is our
temporal signpost these days), I checked their book sale and saw “Sir George
Cayley’s Aeronautics 1796 – 1855.” My
curiosity was aroused.
It was a revelation. Cayley was the
originator of aeronautics !!
In the 18th Century the pursuit of knowledge was
a pastime of the wealthy and Cayley was one such.
His interest was flight and he studied what was known and observed what he
could from nature. Among what was known
were Newton’s Laws.
Cayley determined there were four forces for flight. Weight, lift, thrust and drag. He did experiments and came up with the aerofoil. He built and flew a glider.
In the search for lightness he designed the spoked wheel.
Why didn’t they teach us this stuff in school ?? Jeez, if you want to instil a sense of
national pride, why don’t they teach kids the Wright brothers read Cayley !!
Cayley’s flight plans were confounded by a lack of motive power. No practicable
engine to power the machine.
(Steam engines were in their infancy. In
1933 Bessler made a steam engined plane, it flew successfully and was very
quiet. There are videos :)
It wasn’t until the internal combustion engine that powered flight could be
made. Hence the Wright brothers.
Because all this experimental flight stuff was expensive, Cayley had a sponsor,
Lord Mahon.
When things were going swimmingly he and Mahon discussed the humanitarian
consequences of what they were up to.
The history of humanity has been the conquest of nature rather than adaptation
to it.
Would the benefits of air travel outweigh the costs in terms of warfare ??
The military uses were obvious. As
Wellington later observed, he was always trying to guess “what was on the other
side of the hill”. The view from the air
would solve that.
They decided between them that the social benefits outweighed the military
consequences. I’m not convinced they
weren’t trying to salve their consciences by the excitement of what they were
up to.
Plus there was a lot of international competition in the field.
Move forward 200 yrs.
Those of us who were playing FPS computer games at the turn of the century
were mocked “you’re being trained up for WW3”
Back in WWI, soldiers, fatalistic as front line soldiers are, would say “if the
bullet’s got your number on it that’s your lot”. Hence “your number’s up”. By 2020 “your number” had been replaced by
“your (GPS) coordinates”. Satellite
reconnaissance could spot you as a dot on the ground.
Today, we have mass public transport via airlines. We have missiles, that have replaced bombers
and are still subject to the forces of flight.
Weight, lift, thrust and drag.
We have UAVs, guided bombs, and we have drones. This latter is a
light, unmanned craft, little bigger than a kite and guided by a remote
controller on a pad like the one we were playing FPS games on at the turn of the
century.
Drones have replaced light artillery in infantry support. Over the battlefield
fly surveillance drones, looking for targets.
When they spot one, they call in an armed drone which, guided visually
by the guy with the gamepad, crashes explosively into the target or drops a
grenade on an individual. (depends who gets the call.)
No longer is a soldier’s number on a randomly fired bullet across an open
space.
Today, the battlefield is abuzz with the sounds of
drones. Cayley would recognise the shapes
and envy the propulsion.
He lived in a time beyond our imagination.
The main motive power was horse.
The Enclosure Acts were coming in,
open land was being turned into fields and the view changed. "As far as the eye can see" was getting nearer.
There was no electricity and no medicine as
we know it. It was still The Little Ice
Age for half his life.
We live in a time that would, reasonably, have been beyond his imagination.
Action:
This is what the only way out of the encircled town of Pokrovsk looks like
And here's the situation when you've sought refuge in a building and are attacked by drones. (they've obv small warheads. A 155mm shell would drop the whole building.)
