Lawrence Hargrave Quotes & Sayings

Used as kites, these rigid stable aeroplanes are superior to the very best cellular kites I can make; they are lighter, pull harder per square foot, attain a greater angle of elevation, and have fewer parts. — Lawrence Hargrave

Common sense steps in here and says: Separate the parts you want to be mobile from the parts you want to be inert. You have seen the result, and I know many have the skill to apply it. — Lawrence Hargrave

My objective is and has been for years to make the lightest and most compact flying machine that would carry me at 25 or 30 miles per hour for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour. Current events show this is not at all an ambitious project. Want of an elementary knowledge of oil machines baulks me and causes much misdirected effort. I doubt my ability to acquire that knowledge, and feel like a fireman trying to hew out a donkey pump ... — Lawrence Hargrave

The most ordinary conditions for observing sailing birds are then the wind and sea are both aft. — Lawrence Hargrave

If you direct your attention to the position of a bird with regard to the wave surface, it will speedily be noticed to be nearly always on the rising side or face of the wave and moving apparently at right angles to the wave's course, but really diagonal to it. — Lawrence Hargrave

As to the effect of the wave on the air, we will suppose the water to be quite flat and the air motionless, a heavy undulation comes on the scene, it has to pass, so it pushes the air up with its face, letting it fall again as its back glides onwards. — Lawrence Hargrave

The closer the bird is to the surface of the water, the firmer and more inelastic is the uplift of the rising air. The bird appears to almost feel the surface with the tip of its weather wing. — Lawrence Hargrave

Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1,000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition. (1894) — Lawrence Hargrave

It becomes a giant's task to compute the result when the effect of cross seas, wind at all angles and ever varying force, arched surfaces, head resistance, ratio of weight to area, and the intelligence of the guiding power crop up. — Lawrence Hargrave

The wings are moved several times by hand to charge the crank chamber with mixture, which flows on through the external pipe and inlet valve to the compression space and cylinder. — Lawrence Hargrave

Bent metal is worse than bent wood and weight for weight is more flexible. — Lawrence Hargrave

And from a poise at this station the plane may swoop down, at great disadvantage if close to the back of the wave, at various slopes and directions till it cuts into the air that is being raised by the face of the following wave, which again enables it to resume its velocity. — Lawrence Hargrave

The plane is simply abstracting the power stored in the wave by a distant gale, and using it to counteract gravity. And if the work be continued long enough, or a multitude of planes be continually drawing on the reservoir of power, the wave must inevitably be flattened. — Lawrence Hargrave

To remove this obstacle I repeat or refer to such knowledge as has come under my notice, my own previously expressed views, and also describe and exhibit my last experiments and explain their novelty and utility. — Lawrence Hargrave

The people of Sydney who can speak of my work [on flying-machine models] without a smile are very scarce; it is doubtless the same with American workers. I know that success is dead sure to come, and therefore do not waste time and words in trying to convince unbelievers. — Lawrence Hargrave