Patrick Young Alexander

Patrick Young Alexander ( born March 28 1867 in Erith, Kent, † July 7, 1943 in Windsor, Berkshire ) was a British pioneer and promoter of aviation.

Life

Patrick Alexander was the second son of the mechanical engineer Andrew Alexander, who was a founding member in 1866 of the Royal Aeronautical Society. 1878 both visited the World Exhibition in Paris, where the huge, 25,000 cubic meters of gas comprehensive balloon Henri Giffards who could lift 52 people at a time to a height of 500 m, the eleven year old Patrick impressed greatly.

At 18, he embarked on the Bark Minero, to begin a career as an officer in the merchant marine. On the 60 - day trip to Fremantle in Australia, he fell from the mast to the deck and broke his leg. Later, when he slipped a few weeks on the wet deck and the same leg broke again, he was taken to the Victoria Hospital in Geraldton. After his recovery, Alexander returned to England. He was unable to walk for the rest of his life.

While Alexander was in Australia, died in 1886, his older brother John, and a year later, his mother Emma. After his father's death in 1890, Alexander was on his own. He inherited a fortune of £ 60,000 ( around £ 4,730,000 today ), which allowed him to surrender fully to his interest in aviation. On 9 June 1891 he undertook with the aeronaut Griffith Brewer ( 1867-1941 ) his first balloon flight. The company Percival Spencer in 1892 got involved make the balloon Queen of the West, and in 1892 undertook a number of air journeys where he photographed and weather observations undertook. In 1893 he ordered from Percival Spencer another balloon, which he called Majestic. This was with a volume of 2,800 cubic meters one of the largest balloons that had been made ​​by then, and could carry up to twelve passengers. He rode his balloon to Berlin and led together with the meteorologists Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring September to December of 1894, three trips during the Berlin scientific air rides. Later, he supported the German Association for the Advancement of airships by the London high ride Berson funded in 1898 with the balloon Excelsior.

Alexander began to deal with the construction of airships, and has patented several of his ideas in the 1890s. He was present in 1900 at the maiden voyage of the first Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen. He then went to Berlin to take part in the attempt to set a new world record time for hot air ballooning. It was believed to be able to stay in the air with the huge, 8,600 cubic meters of gas -making balloon for a long time and had food rations for 20 days on board. The balloon took off shortly before 18 clock on 27 September 1900. In the night the tow caught in a treetop, and strong winds forced the balloon driver after a driving distance of just 20 km to the landing. The balloon was then donated to the Aeronautical Observatory Berlin- Tegel. Under the new name of Prussia valid until 1938 the world altitude record for free balloons with open basket rose on July 31, 1901 in an altitude of 10,800 m. This rise led to the discovery of the stratosphere in 1902.

Because of his interest in the flying machines used Alexander close and friendly relations with a number of aviation pioneers. In the early 1890s he visited Otto Lilienthal in his pioneering glider experiments. He was in contact with Hiram Stevens Maxim and Octave Chanute. In the USA he visited Samuel Pierpont Langley. Christmas 1902 he was with the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk as a guest. In 1904 he took up residence in the near Aldershot, where the aeronaut units of the British Army were stationed. He shared a house with Samuel Franklin Cody, who experimented on dragons and airplanes and later became the first Briton to fly an airplane.

Alexander was generous and unselfish. In 1905 he acquired for the Victoria and Albert Museum early aircraft models by John Stringfellow, who had performed an unmanned 25-meter flight in a factory building in 1848. 1905/ 06 he founded the British Army the Aldershot Observatory. The main instrument was a 200 -mm refractor, which he had purchased in 1891 and the 1939, the " great white spot" of Saturn was discovered. In 1910, he donated a prize for the development of a lightweight, suitable for aircraft engine. The prize money of £ 1000 went 1912 at Gustavus Green.

1922 Alexander was bankrupt. The prestigious Imperial Service College in Windsor, which he had considered in 1915 with a donation of £ 20,000, then hired him for life, and gave him instruction in the basics of aviation. On July 7, 1943, he died almost penniless at the age of 76 years.

Writings

• Patrick Young Alexander and Griffith Brewer: Aeronautics: An abridgment of Aeronautical Specifications Filed at the Patent Office from 1815-1891, 1893, Reprint: Kessinger, 2007 ISBN 978-0-548674468
• Patrick Young Alexander: Experiments on the Trust or Lifting Power of Aer propeller, Bath 1901