Steampunk Aviation-2011/07

Left: Dumont #6 rounding
the Eiffel Tower in the
process of winning the
Deutsch Prize in 1901.
Photo courtesy the
Smithsonian Institution.
Above: William
and George
Besler with
their steampowered
airplane. Photo
courtesy the
Stanley
Steamers
website.
Left: The Besler
aircraft made a
lot of steam but
not so much
noise. Photo
courtesy the
Stanley
Steamers
website.
The Marquis d’Equevilly’s
1908 design, shown that
year, was described as
being extremely resilient,
light, solid, and cheap.
(No copyright—Brazilian
government.)
Above: Alberto Santos-Dumont
aboard one of his airships. (No
copyright—Brazilian government.)
SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR K.W. Jeter coined the
term “steampunk” in the 1980s to describe the works of
Tim Powers, but the genre goes back much further. When
we hear that word, we might equate it with fictional
technologies found in the stories of Jules Verne, H.G.
Wells, or the 1960s television series The Wild Wild West
and its 1999 movie of the same title.
More recently, the movie Sky Captain and The World
of Tomorrow and independent film The World of Jasper
Morello have brought Steampunk into the mainstream. In
those stories, steam- and clockwork-powered machines
have the ability to do things that are far beyond the realm
of the story’s time frame. These tales usually feature a mad
genius who has built a mechanical marvel to destroy his
foe or explore some unknown world.
Throughout the years, numerous science fiction works
ranging from books
to TV to movies
have included
Steampunk themes. But the idea has grown into a popculture
phenomenon of art, fashion, and culture.
So what does concept have to do with aviation? Much
more than I ever thought.
One of the most common inventions you will find in
Steam power still fascinates
July 2011 29
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 11:55 AM Page 29
30 MODEL AVIATION
The 14-bis was powered by petrol, and on October 23, 1906, Dumont
won the Deutsch-Archdeacon award (founded by Frenchman Ernest
Archdeacon) with its flight. He went on to attain the world record in
November that same year by flying the 14-bis 220 meters in 22 seconds.
Dumont’s designs and ingenuity are credited with advancements in
aviation. They are considered important building blocks for today’s airplane.
Before Dumont’s fascination with heavier-than-air aircraft, he was a
prolific builder of steam-powered dirigibles. He built 11 in all and described
himself as the first “sportsman of the air.”
Dumont lived in Paris, which he made his personal aeronautical
playground. He often rode through the city in his dirigibles and land for
lunch at a café or fly home to his apartment at 9-Rue Washington.
So you might see how he could inspire an author looking for a character
any Steampunk tale is a flying machine. Authors of the genre
love to make the impossible fly. Common centerpieces of such
stories include ships attached to balloons, with steam-powered
propellers that take their captains to the ends of the earth.
As I researched the genre, I continued to find more flying
machines. Was this only science fiction, or was there some
reality behind steam-powered aviation?
It made me wonder why these authors and so many of us
have such a fascination with mixing steam power and flight. I
cannot say that I have the real answer, but I have some theories
that led me to the beginning of aviation itself.
Often—especially here in the US—we begin thinking of
aviation with the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright and their
1903 Wright Flyer. However, aviation had a colorful and sordid
history long before the Wright brothers—particularly in the 100
years before they arrived on the scene and introduced controlled,
powered, man-carrying flight.
I could not possibly cover all of the aviation
pioneers in this article, or even those who
focused only on steam power. However, there
are a few characters with some incredible
histories that might have inspired our Steampunk
tales of today.
Inventors and pioneers such as Henri Dupuy
de Lôme, Sir George Cayley, William Samuel
Henson, Félix du Temple de la Croix, Alexander
F. Mozhaiski, Alberto Santos-Dumont, and
Samuel Langley make up a cast of characters that
could rival any fictional work.
Only a few aviation pioneers sought out steam
as the power of choice for their aircraft. Some
chose it because they lived in eras before the
gasoline engine, others selected it out of economic
necessity, and others were simply stubborn.
As you look through photos and sketches of
these inventors’ aeronautical inventions, you can
begin to see from where the inspiration for fictional
Steampunk aircraft could have evolved.
We might think of the Golden Age of Aviation as
exciting, but if we go back a hundred years earlier, to the 1750s-
1890s, we would see an age of wonder and almost limitless
imagination. No one knew the rules yet, so no one followed the
rules.
For those early pioneers, that may have been the problem.
They had more imagination than science in the creation of their
flying machines.
Often underpowered and not structurally sound, those early
aircraft had little chance for success—but they sure looked good
trying. A few pioneers made immense strides that became
building blocks for their successors. At the time, their inventions
were more than flying machines; they were magical machines,
which promised to take people to the ends of the earth.
Aviation history is sometimes a hotly debated topic even
today. Ask someone in Brazil who invented the modern airplane,
and he or she might point to Albert Santos-Dumont. If you
consulted the Smithsonian Institution before 1942, Samuel
Langley’s Aerodrome would have been the answer.
In fact, that slight by the Smithsonian so upset Orville Wright
that in 1928 he packed up the 1903 Wright Flyer and sent it to
the London Museum. It wasn’t until 1942 that the Smithsonian
cleared up the real history of the Langley Aerodrome and
credited the Wright brothers with inventing the airplane. There
was more drama in the early stages of aviation than in a soap
opera.
So who was Alberto Santos-Dumont? He’s a character who
cannot be ignored when it comes to powered aircraft.
Dumont is officially known in Brazil as the “Father of
Aviation.” He is credited internationally as the first person to fly
a heavier-than-air aircraft to take off with a nondetachable
landing gear: the Dumont 14-bis.
Above: Caricature
of Alberto Santos-
Dumont from Vanity
Fair magazine in 1899.
(No copyright—
Brazilian government.)
Right: Jules Verne
still inspires
today—more than
100 years after his
death. Photo
courtesy Jules
Verne Adventure
Film Festival.
Below: The Langley Aerodrome A on display at the Smithsonian
Institution’s Pre-1920 Aviation exhibition station at the Steven F.
Udvar-Hazy Center. Photo courtesy the Smithsonian Institution.
Photos as noted
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 11:59 AM Page 30
July 2011 31
and machine that are outside the realm of the ordinary. Dumont is the
one person who really did build balloons with “ships” attached to
them and use steam-powered propellers; he was a true-life Steampunk
character.
There’s another twist to the Dumont story. In an art-imitating-lifeimitating-
art sort of fashion, Dumont’s fascination with steampowered
dirigibles can be traced back to his origins in Brazil.
He was born in the town of Palmira, now called Santos
Dumont, where he learned to drive steam tractors and
locomotives on his family’s farm. That being before television
and the Internet, Dumont was an avid reader; by the time he was
10, he had read all of Jules Verne’s books.
In Dumont’s autobiography he wrote about these influences
and how the dream of flying came to him on that plantation.
So could we say that Steampunk was the grandfather of aviation?
With the advent of the gasoline engine and the 1903 Wright Flyer,
steam power almost died completely—almost. If we fast-forward to
1934, to Oakland, California, we would meet brothers William and
George Besler, who kept the dream of steam alive.
The Besler brothers introduced the first practical steam-powered
airplane: a converted Travel Air 2000 biplane. They touted steam as the
future of aviation, and they had cause to be excited; their steam engine
solved many problems that gasoline engines of the day had.
Their power plant was extremely quiet, it could not be stalled in
flight, it was easy to start, it was easy to maintain, and it was safer than
gasoline-powered engines of the time. They could even reverse the
engine direction midflight.
Left: Geoff Wolfe and
one of his steampowered
models.
Photo courtesy Geoff
Wolfe.
Below: Clément Ader’s l’Avion III prototype. Looking
more like a dragon ready to attack than an airplane,
this is where Steampunk and reality meet. Photo
courtesy Musée des Arts et Métiers de Paris.
Above: If you want your own
Steampunk airplane, the
Ukrainian Aeroprakt company
is selling this A-22. The
company is willing to paint it in
a wood and clockwork fashion.
Photo courtesy Aeroprakt, Inc.
Left: SpaceShipOne looks as if it’s
directly out of a futuristic
Steampunk storyline. Photo
courtesy Scaled Composites.
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 12:08 PM Page 31
32 MODEL AVIATION
The Beslers would go on piloting their
airplane in demonstrations, but it never got
far beyond the novelty phase. Boeing
worked with the brothers for a few years and
then ended development in 1936.
It was not really a bad ending, though.
William and George achieved what they
wanted: to create the most efficient and
powerful steam engine ever, and then tell
the world about it in the most fascinating
way—on an airplane.
As does any good Steampunk story, this
one has a twist, too. When Boeing dropped
the project, William Besler went to
Lockheed and took his experience with
compact steam boilers with him. He used
that experience to help develop Lockheed’s
first jet engine.
Steam-powered aircraft have not been
limited to full scale; steam-powered model
aviation is a reality. Its current caretaker is
Geoff Wolfe, who publishes his work on the
flysteam.co.uk website.
As are all who have been bitten by the
steam bug, Geoff is enamored with the
craftsmanship and workmanship that go into
putting together such a machine. He refers
admiringly to his visit to Musée des Arts et
Métiers in Paris, where he saw Clément
Ader’s flying machine with is nickel engine
and components made from forged steel and
copper.
If you ever consider building a steampowered
model, flysteam.co.uk is the place
to start. Geoff posts history, designs,
experiences, and everything one could hope
for in undertaking such an endeavor.
In my email correspondence with him,
something he pointed out that is not on the
website is the description of the sheer stress
involved with building and flying a steam
powered aircraft, even if it is a model.
Geoff’s first attempts were with David
Parker’s Comet design and included every
issue possible, even fire. Geoff has since
- SECURE SHOPPING WITH OUR ONLINE CATALOG -
www.fiberglassspecialtiesinc.com
[email protected]
Phone (479) 359-2429 Fax (479) 359-2259
Hours: Monday - Friday 9 to 5 CST
15715 Ashmore Dr., Garfield, Arkansas 72732
LARGEST
COLLECTION OF
EPOXY GLASS
COWLS & WHEEL
PANTS IN THE WORLD!
SINCE
1977!
Sources:
Steampunk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
K.W. Jeters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._W._Jeter
Tim Powers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Powers
H.G. Wells:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._
Wells#Works
Jules Verne:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
www.julesverne.org
The Wright Aeroplane Company:
www.wright-brothers.org/
Samuel Pierpoint Langley:
www.biy.ly/apg0BT
http://home.att.net/~dannysoar2/Langley.htm
Albert Santos-Dumont:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-
Dumont
Besler Brothers:
www.stanleysteamers.com/aviation.htm
www.flyingkettle.com/besler6.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6NFmcn
W-8
Steam Powered Model Airplanes
www.flysteam.co.uk
SpaceShipOne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ship_
For further information, details, and pricing, contact
Zurich International, 9418 Snow Lake Place, Elk Grove, CA 95758
www.extremeglaresunglasses.com • [email protected] • 1-800-533-5665 • 916-691-6467
International Place Grove
See Better, Fly Better
with No Sun Glare!
The Best Sun & U.V. Protection
in the World!
Available in “fi t over style”
and Fashion “Pilot” Style.
“Extreme Glare” Technology
now made in Prescription
Lenses with outstanding
glare protection
moved on to his own designs which he talks
about on the site.
According to Geoff, David Parker had
published his designs in a three-part series in
the UK magazine Model Engineer, but
outside of himself no one has successfully
duplicated the design. With Parker passed on,
that leaves Geoff to carry on the torch of
steam-powered model aviation.
Steampunk’s influence on aviation and
aviation’s influence on Steampunk may
become indistinguishable at times, but two
things are clear. Steampunk is cool. Aviation
is cool. Putting the two together is priceless.
I think we owe a lot to the authors who
dreamed it long before we were able to do it
in aviation. They inspired countless pioneers
and inventors. Sometimes in history we can
point to them like the Wright brothers or
Dumont. Other times perhaps the influence is
more subtle.
Looking to the future I see that the
influence of Steampunk and Jules Verne is not
lost in our technological advancements. One
needs to look not much further than
SpaceShipOne which seems to be Steampunk
inspired. Maybe all of this harkens back to a
more primal desire to fly. Either way, aviation
has surely been “punked” and I am glad.
In fiction, Steampunk creates limitless
technological boundaries that can draw you
into to a story. The best way to learn more
about Steampunk is to dive into some of its
best-known works. Follow the links and
discover authors and stories you may have
long forgotten.
As for aviation, we have TV channels
dedicated to just the past 75 or so years of
aviation; imagine how much happened in
the centuries before. The Internet offers its
own limitless exploration of the real and
fictional history of aviation and Steampunk.
Enjoy the links. MA
Paul Gentile
[email protected]
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 12:15 PM Page 32

Left: Dumont #6 rounding
the Eiffel Tower in the
process of winning the
Deutsch Prize in 1901.
Photo courtesy the
Smithsonian Institution.
Above: William
and George
Besler with
their steampowered
airplane. Photo
courtesy the
Stanley
Steamers
website.
Left: The Besler
aircraft made a
lot of steam but
not so much
noise. Photo
courtesy the
Stanley
Steamers
website.
The Marquis d’Equevilly’s
1908 design, shown that
year, was described as
being extremely resilient,
light, solid, and cheap.
(No copyright—Brazilian
government.)
Above: Alberto Santos-Dumont
aboard one of his airships. (No
copyright—Brazilian government.)
SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR K.W. Jeter coined the
term “steampunk” in the 1980s to describe the works of
Tim Powers, but the genre goes back much further. When
we hear that word, we might equate it with fictional
technologies found in the stories of Jules Verne, H.G.
Wells, or the 1960s television series The Wild Wild West
and its 1999 movie of the same title.
More recently, the movie Sky Captain and The World
of Tomorrow and independent film The World of Jasper
Morello have brought Steampunk into the mainstream. In
those stories, steam- and clockwork-powered machines
have the ability to do things that are far beyond the realm
of the story’s time frame. These tales usually feature a mad
genius who has built a mechanical marvel to destroy his
foe or explore some unknown world.
Throughout the years, numerous science fiction works
ranging from books
to TV to movies
have included
Steampunk themes. But the idea has grown into a popculture
phenomenon of art, fashion, and culture.
So what does concept have to do with aviation? Much
more than I ever thought.
One of the most common inventions you will find in
Steam power still fascinates
July 2011 29
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 11:55 AM Page 29
30 MODEL AVIATION
The 14-bis was powered by petrol, and on October 23, 1906, Dumont
won the Deutsch-Archdeacon award (founded by Frenchman Ernest
Archdeacon) with its flight. He went on to attain the world record in
November that same year by flying the 14-bis 220 meters in 22 seconds.
Dumont’s designs and ingenuity are credited with advancements in
aviation. They are considered important building blocks for today’s airplane.
Before Dumont’s fascination with heavier-than-air aircraft, he was a
prolific builder of steam-powered dirigibles. He built 11 in all and described
himself as the first “sportsman of the air.”
Dumont lived in Paris, which he made his personal aeronautical
playground. He often rode through the city in his dirigibles and land for
lunch at a café or fly home to his apartment at 9-Rue Washington.
So you might see how he could inspire an author looking for a character
any Steampunk tale is a flying machine. Authors of the genre
love to make the impossible fly. Common centerpieces of such
stories include ships attached to balloons, with steam-powered
propellers that take their captains to the ends of the earth.
As I researched the genre, I continued to find more flying
machines. Was this only science fiction, or was there some
reality behind steam-powered aviation?
It made me wonder why these authors and so many of us
have such a fascination with mixing steam power and flight. I
cannot say that I have the real answer, but I have some theories
that led me to the beginning of aviation itself.
Often—especially here in the US—we begin thinking of
aviation with the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright and their
1903 Wright Flyer. However, aviation had a colorful and sordid
history long before the Wright brothers—particularly in the 100
years before they arrived on the scene and introduced controlled,
powered, man-carrying flight.
I could not possibly cover all of the aviation
pioneers in this article, or even those who
focused only on steam power. However, there
are a few characters with some incredible
histories that might have inspired our Steampunk
tales of today.
Inventors and pioneers such as Henri Dupuy
de Lôme, Sir George Cayley, William Samuel
Henson, Félix du Temple de la Croix, Alexander
F. Mozhaiski, Alberto Santos-Dumont, and
Samuel Langley make up a cast of characters that
could rival any fictional work.
Only a few aviation pioneers sought out steam
as the power of choice for their aircraft. Some
chose it because they lived in eras before the
gasoline engine, others selected it out of economic
necessity, and others were simply stubborn.
As you look through photos and sketches of
these inventors’ aeronautical inventions, you can
begin to see from where the inspiration for fictional
Steampunk aircraft could have evolved.
We might think of the Golden Age of Aviation as
exciting, but if we go back a hundred years earlier, to the 1750s-
1890s, we would see an age of wonder and almost limitless
imagination. No one knew the rules yet, so no one followed the
rules.
For those early pioneers, that may have been the problem.
They had more imagination than science in the creation of their
flying machines.
Often underpowered and not structurally sound, those early
aircraft had little chance for success—but they sure looked good
trying. A few pioneers made immense strides that became
building blocks for their successors. At the time, their inventions
were more than flying machines; they were magical machines,
which promised to take people to the ends of the earth.
Aviation history is sometimes a hotly debated topic even
today. Ask someone in Brazil who invented the modern airplane,
and he or she might point to Albert Santos-Dumont. If you
consulted the Smithsonian Institution before 1942, Samuel
Langley’s Aerodrome would have been the answer.
In fact, that slight by the Smithsonian so upset Orville Wright
that in 1928 he packed up the 1903 Wright Flyer and sent it to
the London Museum. It wasn’t until 1942 that the Smithsonian
cleared up the real history of the Langley Aerodrome and
credited the Wright brothers with inventing the airplane. There
was more drama in the early stages of aviation than in a soap
opera.
So who was Alberto Santos-Dumont? He’s a character who
cannot be ignored when it comes to powered aircraft.
Dumont is officially known in Brazil as the “Father of
Aviation.” He is credited internationally as the first person to fly
a heavier-than-air aircraft to take off with a nondetachable
landing gear: the Dumont 14-bis.
Above: Caricature
of Alberto Santos-
Dumont from Vanity
Fair magazine in 1899.
(No copyright—
Brazilian government.)
Right: Jules Verne
still inspires
today—more than
100 years after his
death. Photo
courtesy Jules
Verne Adventure
Film Festival.
Below: The Langley Aerodrome A on display at the Smithsonian
Institution’s Pre-1920 Aviation exhibition station at the Steven F.
Udvar-Hazy Center. Photo courtesy the Smithsonian Institution.
Photos as noted
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 11:59 AM Page 30
July 2011 31
and machine that are outside the realm of the ordinary. Dumont is the
one person who really did build balloons with “ships” attached to
them and use steam-powered propellers; he was a true-life Steampunk
character.
There’s another twist to the Dumont story. In an art-imitating-lifeimitating-
art sort of fashion, Dumont’s fascination with steampowered
dirigibles can be traced back to his origins in Brazil.
He was born in the town of Palmira, now called Santos
Dumont, where he learned to drive steam tractors and
locomotives on his family’s farm. That being before television
and the Internet, Dumont was an avid reader; by the time he was
10, he had read all of Jules Verne’s books.
In Dumont’s autobiography he wrote about these influences
and how the dream of flying came to him on that plantation.
So could we say that Steampunk was the grandfather of aviation?
With the advent of the gasoline engine and the 1903 Wright Flyer,
steam power almost died completely—almost. If we fast-forward to
1934, to Oakland, California, we would meet brothers William and
George Besler, who kept the dream of steam alive.
The Besler brothers introduced the first practical steam-powered
airplane: a converted Travel Air 2000 biplane. They touted steam as the
future of aviation, and they had cause to be excited; their steam engine
solved many problems that gasoline engines of the day had.
Their power plant was extremely quiet, it could not be stalled in
flight, it was easy to start, it was easy to maintain, and it was safer than
gasoline-powered engines of the time. They could even reverse the
engine direction midflight.
Left: Geoff Wolfe and
one of his steampowered
models.
Photo courtesy Geoff
Wolfe.
Below: Clément Ader’s l’Avion III prototype. Looking
more like a dragon ready to attack than an airplane,
this is where Steampunk and reality meet. Photo
courtesy Musée des Arts et Métiers de Paris.
Above: If you want your own
Steampunk airplane, the
Ukrainian Aeroprakt company
is selling this A-22. The
company is willing to paint it in
a wood and clockwork fashion.
Photo courtesy Aeroprakt, Inc.
Left: SpaceShipOne looks as if it’s
directly out of a futuristic
Steampunk storyline. Photo
courtesy Scaled Composites.
07sig1.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 12:08 PM Page 31
32 MODEL AVIATION
The Beslers would go on piloting their
airplane in demonstrations, but it never got
far beyond the novelty phase. Boeing
worked with the brothers for a few years and
then ended development in 1936.
It was not really a bad ending, though.
William and George achieved what they
wanted: to create the most efficient and
powerful steam engine ever, and then tell
the world about it in the most fascinating
way—on an airplane.
As does any good Steampunk story, this
one has a twist, too. When Boeing dropped
the project, William Besler went to
Lockheed and took his experience with
compact steam boilers with him. He used
that experience to help develop Lockheed’s
first jet engine.
Steam-powered aircraft have not been
limited to full scale; steam-powered model
aviation is a reality. Its current caretaker is
Geoff Wolfe, who publishes his work on the
flysteam.co.uk website.
As are all who have been bitten by the
steam bug, Geoff is enamored with the
craftsmanship and workmanship that go into
putting together such a machine. He refers
admiringly to his visit to Musée des Arts et
Métiers in Paris, where he saw Clément
Ader’s flying machine with is nickel engine
and components made from forged steel and
copper.
If you ever consider building a steampowered
model, flysteam.co.uk is the place
to start. Geoff posts history, designs,
experiences, and everything one could hope
for in undertaking such an endeavor.
In my email correspondence with him,
something he pointed out that is not on the
website is the description of the sheer stress
involved with building and flying a steam
powered aircraft, even if it is a model.
Geoff’s first attempts were with David
Parker’s Comet design and included every
issue possible, even fire. Geoff has since
- SECURE SHOPPING WITH OUR ONLINE CATALOG -
www.fiberglassspecialtiesinc.com
[email protected]
Phone (479) 359-2429 Fax (479) 359-2259
Hours: Monday - Friday 9 to 5 CST
15715 Ashmore Dr., Garfield, Arkansas 72732
LARGEST
COLLECTION OF
EPOXY GLASS
COWLS & WHEEL
PANTS IN THE WORLD!
SINCE
1977!
Sources:
Steampunk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
K.W. Jeters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._W._Jeter
Tim Powers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Powers
H.G. Wells:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._
Wells#Works
Jules Verne:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
www.julesverne.org
The Wright Aeroplane Company:
www.wright-brothers.org/
Samuel Pierpoint Langley:
www.biy.ly/apg0BT
http://home.att.net/~dannysoar2/Langley.htm
Albert Santos-Dumont:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-
Dumont
Besler Brothers:
www.stanleysteamers.com/aviation.htm
www.flyingkettle.com/besler6.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6NFmcn
W-8
Steam Powered Model Airplanes
www.flysteam.co.uk
SpaceShipOne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ship_
For further information, details, and pricing, contact
Zurich International, 9418 Snow Lake Place, Elk Grove, CA 95758
www.extremeglaresunglasses.com • [email protected] • 1-800-533-5665 • 916-691-6467
International Place Grove
See Better, Fly Better
with No Sun Glare!
The Best Sun & U.V. Protection
in the World!
Available in “fi t over style”
and Fashion “Pilot” Style.
“Extreme Glare” Technology
now made in Prescription
Lenses with outstanding
glare protection
moved on to his own designs which he talks
about on the site.
According to Geoff, David Parker had
published his designs in a three-part series in
the UK magazine Model Engineer, but
outside of himself no one has successfully
duplicated the design. With Parker passed on,
that leaves Geoff to carry on the torch of
steam-powered model aviation.
Steampunk’s influence on aviation and
aviation’s influence on Steampunk may
become indistinguishable at times, but two
things are clear. Steampunk is cool. Aviation
is cool. Putting the two together is priceless.
I think we owe a lot to the authors who
dreamed it long before we were able to do it
in aviation. They inspired countless pioneers
and inventors. Sometimes in history we can
point to them like the Wright brothers or
Dumont. Other times perhaps the influence is
more subtle.
Looking to the future I see that the
influence of Steampunk and Jules Verne is not
lost in our technological advancements. One
needs to look not much further than
SpaceShipOne which seems to be Steampunk
inspired. Maybe all of this harkens back to a
more primal desire to fly. Either way, aviation
has surely been “punked” and I am glad.
In fiction, Steampunk creates limitless
technological boundaries that can draw you
into to a story. The best way to learn more
about Steampunk is to dive into some of its
best-known works. Follow the links and
discover authors and stories you may have
long forgotten.
As for aviation, we have TV channels
dedicated to just the past 75 or so years of
aviation; imagine how much happened in
the centuries before. The Internet offers its
own limitless exploration of the real and
fictional history of aviation and Steampunk.
Enjoy the links. MA
Paul Gentile
[email protected]
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