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48-536: Martin Caidin (September 14, 1927 – March 24, 1997) was an American author, screenwriter, and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin began writing fiction in 1957. In his career he authored more than 50 fiction and nonfiction books as well as more than 1,000 magazine articles. His best-known novel is Cyborg , which was the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man franchise. He also wrote numerous works of military history , especially concerning aviation. Caidin

96-419: A brief appearance as a reporter describing the arrival of the rescue vehicle at Cape Canaveral. The movie was based on Project Apollo and Caidin revised his novel in 1969, as a movie novelization, to reflect the change. World War Two books written by Caidin include Samurai! ; Black Thursday ; Thunderbolt! ; Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38 ; Flying Forts ; Zero! ; The Ragged, Rugged Warriors ; A Torch to

144-482: A controlled amount of the substance. Francesco Lana de Terzi measured the pressure of air at sea level and in 1670 proposed the first scientifically credible lifting medium in the form of hollow metal spheres from which all the air had been pumped out. These would be lighter than the displaced air and able to lift an airship . His proposed methods of controlling height are still in use today; by carrying ballast which may be dropped overboard to gain height, and by venting

192-606: A daredevil stunt in the aerial barnstorming shows of the 1920s, and became the subject of several Hollywood movies. An early exponent was Ormer Locklear , who was killed performing a dive on film. Charles Lindbergh began his aviation career as a wing walker. The earliest known instance of standing on the wing of a powered aircraft was an experimental flight in England involving a biplane built by Colonel Samuel Franklin Cody on 14 January 1911. At Laffan's Plain, Cody took his two stepsons for

240-447: A flight, with them standing on the lower wing. In August 1913, Commandant Felix locked the controls of his "Nieuport-Dunne" biplane over France and climbed out along the lower wing, leaving the plane to fly itself. An early wing walker who performed daring stunts was American Ormer Locklear . In November 1918, Locklear performed at Barron Field, Texas, with the first public performance of his daredevil wing-walking stunts. Wing walking

288-470: A four-person screw-type helicopter, have severe flaws. He did at least understand that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object." ( Newton would not publish the Third law of motion until 1687.) His analysis led to the realisation that manpower alone was not sufficient for sustained flight, and his later designs included a mechanical power source such as a spring. Da Vinci's work

336-445: A ground vehicle, such as a car, a boat, or a train, to the plane. Other variations included free-falls ending with a last-minute parachute opening. Charles Lindbergh , whose career in flight began with wing walking, was well known for stunts involving parachutes. The first African-American woman granted an international pilot license, Bessie Coleman , also engaged in stunts using parachutes. Another successful woman in this profession

384-584: A lifting gas, though practical demonstration awaited a gas-tight balloon material. On hearing of the Montgolfier Brothers' invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon. Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a gas-tight material of rubberised silk for the envelope. The hydrogen gas was to be generated by chemical reaction during

432-411: A relatively short period during the infancy of wing walking. Variations on wing walking became common, with such stunts as doing handstands, hanging by one's teeth, and transferring from one plane to another. A 1931 article on wing-walking on inverted aircraft touted the practical aspect of performing inflight landing-gear inspection or maintenance. Eventually wing walkers began making transfers between

480-418: Is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction . Rocket engines push rockets forwards simply by throwing their exhaust backwards extremely fast. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China . Significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry

528-415: Is given bionic parts after being revived from his centuries-long coma. Caidin's 1964 novel Marooned , about American astronauts who become stranded in space and NASA's subsequent attempt to rescue them, is based on Project Mercury . The book was adapted into a 1969 movie of the same name starring Gregory Peck , Richard Crenna , David Janssen , James Franciscus and Gene Hackman , with Caidin making

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576-421: Is the art or practice of aeronautics. Historically aviation meant only heavier-than-air flight, but nowadays it includes flying in balloons and airships. Aeronautical engineering covers the design and construction of aircraft, including how they are powered, how they are used and how they are controlled for safe operation. A major part of aeronautical engineering is aerodynamics , the science of passing through

624-462: Is widely acknowledged as the founder of modern aeronautics. He was first called the "father of the aeroplane" in 1846 and Henson called him the "father of aerial navigation." He was the first true scientific aerial investigator to publish his work, which included for the first time the underlying principles and forces of flight. In 1809 he began the publication of a landmark three-part treatise titled "On Aerial Navigation" (1809–1810). In it he wrote

672-669: The Gates Flying Circus folded. In 1936, the practice effectively ended in the United States when the U.S. government banned wing walking below 1,500 feet (460 m). People had difficulty seeing stunts above that height. In the 1970s, stunt men and women had restrictions that included being attached to the upper wing center section. Wing walking continues to be practiced by various performers. On November 14, 1981, in an event organized by Martin Caidin, nineteen skydivers set an unofficial wing-walking world record by standing on

720-602: The John Birch Society . Caidin was a friend of 1960s talk show host Joe Pyne , and used the same confrontational interview style, combined with research. Caidin also taught a progressive journalism course at the University of Florida in Gainesville, titled Caidin's Law. Caidin, known as a stickler for technical detail, incorporated supernatural elements in his Bermuda Triangle novel Three Corners To Nowhere (1975). During

768-813: The Messerschmitt Bf 108 , which has been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration as the standard manual for the plane, and twice won the Aviation/Space Writers Association award for the outstanding author on aviation. Caidin also established a company with the purpose of promoting aeronautics to young people. During the mid-1980s, Caidin hosted Face to Face , a confrontational television talk show in which he challenged representatives of many prominent American far-right organizations and hate groups. The one-hour broadcasts were co-written and produced by Bob Judson, and taped at

816-456: The Rozière. The principle was to use the hydrogen section for constant lift and to navigate vertically by heating and allowing to cool the hot air section, in order to catch the most favourable wind at whatever altitude it was blowing. The balloon envelope was made of goldbeater's skin . The first flight ended in disaster and the approach has seldom been used since. Sir George Cayley (1773–1857)

864-407: The "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders , therefore making the idea of " heavier than air " a reality. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favourably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. His work lead to him developing the concept of

912-556: The Enemy ; and The Last Dogfight . Caidin's books about space travel include No Man's World , in which the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon, and Four Came Back , about an ill-fated space station for eight crew members. Caidin's other books with movie tie-ins include The Final Countdown and novels featuring adventurer-archaeologist Indiana Jones . He also wrote the book Exit Earth , which

960-508: The Italian explorer Marco Polo described the Chinese techniques then current. The Chinese also constructed small hot air balloons, or lanterns, and rotary-wing toys. An early European to provide any scientific discussion of flight was Roger Bacon , who described principles of operation for the lighter-than-air balloon and the flapping-wing ornithopter , which he envisaged would be constructed in

1008-605: The Nautilus Television Studios outside of Orlando, Florida. Among those whom Caidin confronted on Face to Face were Rabbi Meir Kahane , head of the Jewish Defense League (who would be assassinated a year later in a New York hotel lobby), Matt Koehl , successor to George Lincoln Rockwell as head of the American Nazi Party , Dick Butler of Aryan Nations , journalist Charlie Reese, and John McMann of

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1056-550: The Steve Austin character than the less violent television series does.) Caidin was credited in episodes of the original Bionic Woman series, a Six Million Dollar Man spinoff, but not in the 2007 remake of The Bionic Woman . Years later, Caidin would reference bionics in a satirical manner in his novel Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future , an adaptation of the pulp fiction and comic strip character Buck Rogers in which Rogers

1104-405: The air becomes compressed, typically at speeds above Mach 1. Transonic flow occurs in the intermediate speed range around Mach 1, where the airflow over an object may be locally subsonic at one point and locally supersonic at another. A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile , spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine . In all rockets, the exhaust

1152-544: The air. With the increasing activity in space flight, nowadays aeronautics and astronautics are often combined as aerospace engineering . The science of aerodynamics deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft. The study of aerodynamics falls broadly into three areas: Incompressible flow occurs where the air simply moves to avoid objects, typically at subsonic speeds below that of sound (Mach 1). Compressible flow occurs where shock waves appear at points where

1200-606: The earliest times, typically by constructing wings and jumping from a tower with crippling or lethal results. Wiser investigators sought to gain some rational understanding through the study of bird flight. Medieval Islamic Golden Age scientists such as Abbas ibn Firnas also made such studies. The founders of modern aeronautics, Leonardo da Vinci in the Renaissance and Cayley in 1799, both began their investigations with studies of bird flight. Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China. In 1282

1248-475: The filling process. The Montgolfier designs had several shortcomings, not least the need for dry weather and a tendency for sparks from the fire to set light to the paper balloon. The manned design had a gallery around the base of the balloon rather than the hanging basket of the first, unmanned design, which brought the paper closer to the fire. On their free flight, De Rozier and d'Arlandes took buckets of water and sponges to douse these fires as they arose. On

1296-413: The first scientific statement of the problem, "The whole problem is confined within these limits, viz. to make a surface support a given weight by the application of power to the resistance of air." He identified the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: thrust , lift , drag and weight and distinguished stability and control in his designs. He developed the modern conventional form of

1344-476: The fixed-wing aeroplane having a stabilising tail with both horizontal and vertical surfaces, flying gliders both unmanned and manned. He introduced the use of the whirling arm test rig to investigate the aerodynamics of flight, using it to discover the benefits of the curved or cambered aerofoil over the flat wing he had used for his first glider. He also identified and described the importance of dihedral , diagonal bracing and drag reduction, and contributed to

1392-434: The future. The lifting medium for his balloon would be an "aether" whose composition he did not know. In the late fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci followed up his study of birds with designs for some of the earliest flying machines, including the flapping-wing ornithopter and the rotating-wing helicopter . Although his designs were rational, they were not based on particularly good science. Many of his designs, such as

1440-400: The gas contained in a second, inner ballonet. On 19 September 1784, it completed the first flight of over 100 km, between Paris and Beuvry , despite the man-powered propulsive devices proving useless. In an attempt the next year to provide both endurance and controllability, de Rozier developed a balloon having both hot air and hydrogen gas bags, a design which was soon named after him as

1488-512: The lifting containers to lose height. In practice de Terzi's spheres would have collapsed under air pressure, and further developments had to wait for more practicable lifting gases. From the mid-18th century the Montgolfier brothers in France began experimenting with balloons. Their balloons were made of paper, and early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on

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1536-562: The mid-1980s, Caidin began claiming to have the power of telekinesis , specifically, to be able to move one or more small devices called energy wheels or psi wheels . Parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach , a friend of Caidin's who sometimes appeared with him in demonstrations and workshops, reiterated a strong endorsement of him in his June 2004 Fate magazine column. The magician James Randi offered to test Caidin's claimed abilities during 1994. During September 2004, Randi wrote: "He frantically avoided accepting my challenge by refusing even

1584-743: The modern wing. His flight attempts in Berlin in the year 1891 are seen as the beginning of human flight and the " Lilienthal Normalsegelapparat " is considered to be the first air plane in series production, making the Maschinenfabrik Otto Lilienthal in Berlin the first air plane production company in the world. Otto Lilienthal is often referred to as either the "father of aviation" or "father of flight". Other important investigators included Horatio Phillips . Aeronautics may be divided into three main branches, Aviation , Aeronautical science and Aeronautical engineering . Aviation

1632-480: The most common type of rocket and they typically create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant . Chemical rockets store a large amount of energy in an easily released form, and can be very dangerous. However, careful design, testing, construction and use minimizes risks. Wing walking Wing walking is the act of moving along the wings of an aeroplane (most commonly a biplane ) during flight, sometimes transferring between planes. It originated as

1680-525: The other hand, the manned design of Charles was essentially modern. As a result of these exploits, the hot air balloon became known as the Montgolfière type and the gas balloon the Charlière . Charles and the Robert brothers' next balloon, La Caroline , was a Charlière that followed Jean Baptiste Meusnier 's proposals for an elongated dirigible balloon, and was notable for having an outer envelope with

1728-493: The paper as it condensed. Mistaking smoke for a kind of steam, they began filling their balloons with hot smoky air which they called "electric smoke" and, despite not fully understanding the principles at work, made some successful launches and in 1783 were invited to give a demonstration to the French Académie des Sciences . Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black in c.  1780 to propose its use as

1776-415: The pilots had a near-miss with a submarine. Caidin recounted this journey in his book Everything But The Flak . Caidin also worked as a pilot for the movie The War Lover , flew with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration squadron for several months, and was made an honorary member of the U.S. Army's Golden Knights parachute demonstration team . Additionally, Caidin wrote an aircraft manual for

1824-560: The restoration and further adventures of Iron Annie specifically in The Saga of Iron Annie . His novel Jericho 52 also incorporates many of his experiences with Iron Annie . During 1961, Caidin was one of the pilots of a formation flight of B-17s across the Atlantic Ocean, likely the last such flight, from the United States to England via Canada, the Azores, and Portugal. During the voyage,

1872-490: The simplest of proposed control protocols, but he never tired of running on about how I would not test him." Caidin died of thyroid cancer on March 25, 1997 at the age of 69. Aeronautics A significant part of aeronautical science is a branch of dynamics called aerodynamics , which deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft. Attempts to fly without any real aeronautical understanding have been made from

1920-410: The understanding and design of ornithopters and parachutes . Another significant invention was the tension-spoked wheel, which he devised in order to create a light, strong wheel for aircraft undercarriage. During the 19th century Cayley's ideas were refined, proved and expanded on, culminating in the works of Otto Lilienthal . Lilienthal was a German engineer and businessman who became known as

1968-409: Was Lillian Boyer , who performed hundreds of wing-walking exhibitions, automobile-to-plane changes, and parachute jumps. Eighteen-year-old Elrey Borge Jeppesen , known today for having developed air navigation manuals and charts, joined Tex Rankin 's Flying Circus around 1925; one of his jobs was wing walking. When the stock market crash of 1929 occurred, many prominent flying circuses such as

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2016-417: Was a Noah's Ark in space story; he said it was one of his favorite books and he always felt it would be an amazing motion picture. Caidin bought and restored to full airworthiness the oldest surviving Junkers Ju 52 aircraft, a Ju 52/3m, Serial № 5489, which he named Iron Annie . Caidin was pilot-in-command of Iron Annie on November 14, 1981, when 19 people walked on one of its wings , a world record. He

2064-481: Was adapted somewhat vaguely as the 1973 television movie The Six Million Dollar Man , the precursor of a television series of the same name. Caidin wrote three sequels to Cyborg : Operation Nuke , High Crystal , and Cyborg IV . These novels constitute a different continuity from that of The Six Million Dollar Man . ( Novelizations of several of the television episodes were written by other authors; these tend to imitate more closely Caidin's original version of

2112-560: Was also an airplane pilot. He bought and restored a 1936 Junkers Ju 52 airplane. Caidin's fiction incorporated future technological advances that were projected to occur, and examined the political and social repercussions of these innovations. In this respect, his work is similar to that of Michael Crichton . One recurring theme is that of cyborgs , meldings of man and machine, using replacement body parts known as bionics . Caidin references bionics in his novel The God Machine (1968) and in his most famous novel, Cyborg (1972). Cyborg

2160-443: Was lost after his death and did not reappear until it had been overtaken by the work of George Cayley . The modern era of lighter-than-air flight began early in the 17th century with Galileo 's experiments in which he showed that air has weight. Around 1650 Cyrano de Bergerac wrote some fantasy novels in which he described the principle of ascent using a substance (dew) he supposed to be lighter than air, and descending by releasing

2208-492: Was one of a small number of pilots to have successfully taken off a Junkers Ju 52 in less than 400 feet (120 meters). After touring extensively among shows of vintage military aircraft, or warbirds , Iron Annie was sold to Lufthansa during 1984. The airline renamed it Tempelhof , and continues to use it today, for charter and VIP flights. Caidin chronicled the warbird restoration movement generally in Ragwings and Heavy Iron , and

2256-669: Was seen as an extreme form of barnstorming , and wing walkers would regularly take up the challenge of outdoing one another. They admitted (or rather proclaimed proudly) that the point of their trade was to make money on the audience's prospect of seeing someone risk death. Among the many aerialists to become popular were Tiny Broderick, Gladys Ingle , Eddie Angel, Virginia Angel, Mayme Carson, Clyde Pangborn , Lillian Boyer , Jack Shack, Al Wilson, Fronty Nichols, Spider Matlock , Gladys Roy , Ivan Unger, Jessie Woods, Bonnie Rowe, Charles Lindbergh, and Mabel Cody (niece of Buffalo Bill Cody, no relation to S.F. Cody). Eight wing walkers died in

2304-577: Was the enabling technology of the Space Age , including setting foot on the Moon . Rockets are used for fireworks , weaponry, ejection seats , launch vehicles for artificial satellites , human spaceflight and exploration of other planets. While comparatively inefficient for low speed use, they are very lightweight and powerful, capable of generating large accelerations and of attaining extremely high speeds with reasonable efficiency. Chemical rockets are

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