Eiffel and Aviation
by Professor Larraine Lavorata
After the debacle of the Panama Canal with Ferdinand De
Lessups, Gustave Eiffel began to experiment with enterprises to prove
the usefulness of his tower. He had begun to develop a passionate
interest in that which, at the turn of the century, was considered
avant-garde science: meteorology, radiotelegraphy and aerodynamics.
In 1889, M. Eiffel began to fit the peak of the tower as an observation
station to measure the speed of wind. He also encouraged several
scientific experiments including Foucault's giant pendulum, a mercury
barometer and the first experiment of radio transmission. In 1898,
Eugene Ducretet at the Pantheon, received signals from the tower.
After M. Eiffel had experimented in the field of meterology, he begun
to look at the effects of wind and air resistance, the science
that would later be termed aerodynamics, which has become a large part
of both military and commerical aviation as well as rocket
technology. Gustave Eiffel imagined an automatic device sliding along
a cable that was stretched between the ground and the second floor of
the Eiffel Tower.
The limited capacity of the available measuring instruments, led M.
Eiffel to a more sophisticated knowledge in aviation and, eventually, to
wind tunnel experiments. He built a wind tunnel on the Champ de
Mars, which was in use from 1909-1911. The tunnel was sufficient for
lab experiments bit inadequate for the study of airplanes. However,
with the help of several other engineers, Leon Rith, Lapresle, and
Eiffel made over 5,000 tests in this lab. Almost all the pioneers of
aviation tested in this wind tunnel.
In 1911, a better wind tunnel which is still in use was built and between
1912-1914, Eiffel began experiments with military equipment for WWI
fighter planes. In 1917, the Eiffel Laboratory designed a very advanced
monoplane chaser of which two prototypes were built in Breguet. One
crashed due to pilot error.
M. Eiffel was a contemporary of Samuel Langeley, the president of the
Smithstonian Institute, for whom the NASA field center Langely
Research Center was named. Much of Eiffel's work had gone on to help
expand the science of aerodynamics. NASA used many propeller and
wind tunnel experiments in their trainer planes for astronauts.
Sources:
- Betrand Lemoine: Gustave Eiffel, Constructor Impimerie Alenconnaise 2 rue Edouard-Belin, 1988
- Joseph Harriss, The Tallest Tower: Eiffel & The Belle Epoque Regnery Gateway (Washington, 1975).
- Aviation Economics course: SUNY Farmingdale, taught by Professor Lavorata, 1994.
Safety during the Construction of the Eiffel Tower
From "The Tallest Tower" by Joseph Harriss:
"Eiffel's execution had been marked by a deftness unique in the annals of
great engineering projects. His clockwork precision had enabled him not
only to meet his deadline, but to build the vertiguous structure with the
loss of only one life, that of a worker who fell from the first platform
while apparently showing off for his girlfriend after the bell had sounded
ending the working day."
Eiffel, Alexandre Gustave
1832–1923, French engineer. A noted constructor of bridges and viaducts, he also designed
the Eiffel Tower and the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty.
He was initially charged with corruption in the 1888 scandal of Ferdinand de Lesseps's
failed Panama Canal project. Lesseps (1805-1894), the successful promoter and construction
supervisor for the Suez Canal (1859–69), later assumed presidency of the French company
building the Panama Canal starting in 1881. Eiffel was hired to provide engineering
services for the project. Seven year later the project was forced into bankruptcy
amid charges of corruption. Lesseps was sentenced to prison for misappropriation of funds,
but the sentence was not carried out. Eiffel was cleared of all wrongdoing by a French
appeals court in 1893. Nonetheless, he withdrew from commercial life and spent the rest
of his years studying aerodynamics.
Eiffel History from the Australian Embassy
The New Seven Wonders Website
Vote for the Eiffel Tower
The Seven Wonders of Today
(compiled in 1931 after the completion of the Empire State Building):
The Great Pyramids (Egypt)
Hagia Sophia (Turkey)
Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy)
Washington Monument (U.S.)
Eiffel Tower (France)
Taj Mahal (India)
Empire State Building (U.S.)
