Creating, Promoting, and Sustaining Career Pathways in Aerospace
Making History
The Story of John J. Montgomery
First American to Build and Fly a Man-Carrying Glider
Reference:
Quest for Flight John J. Montgomery and the Dawn of Aviation in the West
by Craig S. Harwood and Gary B. Fogel 2012
About
(1858-1911) Early Pioneer; First American to Build and Fly a Man-Carrying Glider; Controlled Glider Flights 1884; Balloon Launches
Bio
John Montgomery was born in Yuba City, California and became interested in flight at a young age. He and his father Zachariah were special guests at the flight of America's first unmanned untethered dirigible - Frederick Marriott's "Avitor Hermes Jr." in 1869. John excelled in math and physics and he theorized that the physics of fluid dynamics developed for water-based systems could be applied to aerial navigation.
The Montgomery family relocated to Otay, California near San Diego in 1882. It was here that John began observing large soaring birds. He experimented with a series of three ornithopters and three manned, fixed-wing gliders in 1883-1886. The structure and control systems of the gliders were based on ornithology and controlled laboratory experiments. The first glider was flown under control in 1884. Each subsequent glider used different airfoils, control systems, and launching methods. Through these tests John became the first person in the Western Hemisphere to fly in a heavier-than-air flying machine in a controlled fashion. Through investigations with a whirling arm, water tank, and smoke chamber John was able to understand the distribution and movement of pressures on surfaces, and the importance of a cambered wing in obtaining lift.
In 1893, John attended the International Conference on Aerial Navigation in Chicago and presented lectures to the audience on his theories and the nature of soaring flight, as well as descriptions of his experiments. He befriended Octave Chanute and others. Subsequently John took a teaching position at Mt. St. Joseph's College in Rohnerville, California continuing his studies of aerodynamics through controlled experiments using a water current tank and crude wind tunnel. These experiments culminated in 1894 with a theory of how lift was generated on a cambered wing surface through a circulation of flow around the wing. READ MORE
