Percy Pilcher

Percy Sinclair Pilcher ( born January 16, 1866 in Bath, † October 2, 1899 in London ) was an English inventor and a pioneer of aviation, it could have created, even before the Wright brothers to complete the first powered flight.

Pilcher was the son of a former curator of the British Museum Thomas Webb Pilcher and his second wife Sophia Robinson. When in 1874 the father died, the widow left with her children down with relatives in Celle ( Germany ). When the mother died there in 1877, the eldest brother, Thomas, Percy Pilcher went with his brothers and sisters back to England.

After a rather short school days Pilcher came forward voluntarily in 1880 as a cadet in the Royal Navy. In 1887 he left the Navy to work in Glasgow in a shipyard.

1899 Pilcher built his " The Hawk " above glider, which he constructed after designs and studies of his mentor Otto Lilienthal. On the grounds of Stately Manor Stanford Hall in Leicestershire England his glider successfully completed the first flight. Encouraged by this success, Pilcher was planning on the basis of its Hawk - glider to construct a motorized aircraft. Since he did not have enough financial resources to build a suitable motor, he tried to interest -funded sponsors for his dream. This he did by undertook further public flight demonstrations with the Hawk.

In one of these demonstrations, on September 30, 1899 at Stanford Hall ( Market Harborough ), he crashed his Hawk. Very seriously injured, he did not regain consciousness and died two days later on October 2, 1899 in Stanford Hall. His final resting place he found on the Brompton Cemetery, London.

His plans and his name came over the years into oblivion. Only a small group of enthusiasts held on to his ideas and collected everything that had to do with Pilcher, including previously unpublished notes and plans Pilcher. In these he had described how a wing design would look to raise his aircraft along with engine and pilots in the air. Through correspondence with Octave Chanute, another pioneer of aviation, he came out that this would only be possible if he were above the existing wing attach another pair of wings. Thus his calculations would be produced by sufficient buoyancy to lift the flight apparatus, including pilots and motor in the air. This concept has now been realized as a biplane or multiplane long time. His concept described a three-decker, which would generate significantly more lift without causing much more weight.

A recently published study by the School of Aeronautics at Cranfield University showed that the plans Pilcher were more or less functional. Since he had already been created before this turn of the century, many specialists agree that it would Pilcher can certainly succeed to carry out the first powered flight in the world even before the Wright brothers.