LNER's Mallard by Steve F E Cameron

The result of his trials was the A4 class. As well as a streamlined body shape, the A4 had improvements made to its valves and cylinders, an increased boiler pressure and subsequent changes to its exhaust and brakes. The first A4 locomotive reached a top speed of over 112mph in a demonstration between Kings Cross and Grantham on 27 September 1935.

Soon, other British railway companies were putting streamlined locomotives on the tracks, including the London Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway’s Coronation class. LMS and LNER drivers competed for the fastest speed record, often ignoring safety in pursuit of glory, until the directors of both companies stopped the rivalry. At that time the 114mph record was held by one of the LMS Coronations.

But there was to be one more attempt at breaking the record. On 3 July 1938 the A4 4468 Mallard pulled a train of seven vehicles, including a dynamometer car to measure its speed, with a total weight of 240 tons. The train, crewed by driver Joseph Duddington and fireman Thomas Bray, left Barkston, just north of Grantham, and headed south.

After passing through Grantham at 24mph, Mallard ascended an incline and had achieved 75mph by the time it reached Stoke Summit. From there it was all downhill. Mallard accelerated down from the summit and quickly exceeded the LMS record. Along one three-mile stretch of track the locomotive’s speed did not drop below 120mph, and for a very short distance the dynamometer car recorded a top speed of 126mph.

Shortly after the record was set, one of the locomotive’s three cylinders overheated and it had to return to Doncaster for repairs. Mallard continued in service after its repairs until 1963. It now has a permanent home at the National Railway Museum in York (although from 23 June 2010 it is on temporary loan to the National Railway Museum’s locomotion site in Shildon, County Durham). The record set by Mallard on 3 July 1938 for the fastest steam locomotive has remained unbroken for 72 years and looks set to endure.

LZ-1 (The First Zeppelin)

After retiring from the army at the age of 52 in 1890, Zeppelin devoted himself, and a large amount of his own money, to creating a working airship. The plans he drew up were submitted to a committee for review in 1894 and the designs were patented on 31 August 1895. US patents were filed on 14 March 1899.

Construction of Zeppelin’s first airship began in June 1898 and was completed in the winter of 1899. It was built in a floating hangar on Lake Constance in Southern Germany that could be aligned with the wind direction to make entry and exit simpler.

Designated LZ-1 (Luftschiff Zeppelin 1), the airship was 128 metres long and 12 metres in diameter. Within a rigid metal alloy skeleton were seventeen cells containing 11,298 cubic metres of hydrogen gas. The airship was powered by two Daimler engines suspended beneath it and connected to propellers. A sliding weight under the hull allowed the pitch of the airship to be altered but no other controls were provided.

Inflation of the gas cells took place in June 1900 with the maiden flight scheduled for 2 July over Lake Constance. The flight lasted just 17 minutes before technical problems forced a landing in the lake. The zeppelin reached a height of 390 metres during its 6-kilometre flight, which ended when the pitch control jammed. Also, a weakness in the metal alloy frame caused the airship to bend, with the centre rising higher than the bow or stern.

Although the first flight of a zeppelin was not a great success, the concept of the design was proved sound. Many other zeppelins were built for commercial and military purposes, some being used for bombing raids during the First World War with LZ-38 being the first to bomb London.

LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin began the first transatlantic flights in 1928 and was joined by LZ-129 Hindenburg in 1936. Confidence in the airships was damaged, however, after the Hindenburg caught fire as it landed at Lakehurst, New Jersey on 6 May 1937 causing the deaths of 36 passengers.

Pioneer 10

This speed enabled Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to use only nuclear electrical power, to pass the moon after 11 hours and cross the orbit of Mars just 12 weeks later. By 15 July the spacecraft had reached the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Safely emerging after 280 million kilometres it continued on to Jupiter, accelerating to a speed of 132,000 kph.

From 6 November 1973 Pioneer 10′s imaging equipment started recording the surface of Jupiter. The spacecraft transmitted over 300 photographs of Jupiter, its Great Red Spot and three of its moons, Callisto, Ganymede and Europa. On 3 December 1973 Pioneer 10 passed within 130,000 kilometres of the giant planet.

Just twenty months after its launch Pioneer 10′s original mission was over. It had already become the first spacecraft to fly through the orbit of Mars, the first to safely navigate the Asteroid Belt and the first to fly past and photograph Jupiter, but now it was instructed to attempt another first.

Pioneer 10 was sent on its way into the outer reaches of the solar system, collecting valuable scientific data as it went. By February 1976 it had passed the orbit of Saturn and then, on 13 June 1983, it passed the orbit of Neptune and became the first man-made object to leave the solar system.

Although its scientific mission officially ended on 31 March 1997, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft is still travelling towards the red star Aldebaran, in the constellation of Taurus, and should pass the star in about two million years. Unfortunately, contact with the spacecraft has been lost. The receipt of the last telemetric data occurred on 27 April 2002 and the final, faint signal was received on 23 January 2003.

Pioneer 10's Plaque

Gottlieb Daimler

The inventor of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine, Nikolaus A. Otto, employed Daimler as the technical director of his company, Deutz in Cologne, from 1872. Otto, Daimler and another engineer, Wilhelm Maybach, worked on refining the internal-combustion engine for use with road vehicles.

After a disagreement with Otto, Daimler left Deutz and was soon followed by Maybach. The two engineers set up their own company in 1882 and, by 1885, had patented a high-speed engine. That same year they attached their engine to a bicycle creating the world’s first motorcycle.

The following year Daimler and Maybach built a larger engine and used it to propel a four-wheeled carriage and, in 1887, used another engine in a boat. Then, in 1889, the pair placed an engine on the rear of a frame of light tubing and their first commercially viable automobile was born.

The Daimler Motor Company was formed in 1890 to sell the vehicles. They had a four-speed gearbox, wheels that were driven by belts and a top speed of 11 miles per hour. Daimler engines proved to be very reliable and production licences were granted to companies around the world, including Peugeot in France.

Daimler died in Cannstatt on 6 March 1900. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1978.

More Biographies

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Originally published at WebUpon.com, the article now has a permanent home on this site.

Another Seven Useful WordPress Plugins
As your blog grows you will find yourself thinking of many ideas to improve it. Before trying to tailor the code yourself, it is worth searching for a solution amongst the WordPress plugins. Here are another seven plugins that may be of use.

Once installed, you will be able to style your site with the use of themes and create additional static pages. There are also hundreds of plugins available that will extend the functionality of your site further. The seven described in the article below are all used on this website, but there are many others available that do the same, or similar, things. Achieving the right balance is just a matter of experimenting.

Originally published at WebUpon.com, the article now has a permanent home on this site.

Seven Useful WordPress Plugins
With the addition of a few plugins, your WordPress blog can be transformed from a list of text articles into useful, dynamic tool. These seven plugins will help in that process.

An AquaPenguin in action

One of the animals contributing to this new technology is the penguin. Although awkward on land, the penguin is graceful in water and is an energy efficient swimmer. Using the penguin as a model, and adding technology found in several other animals, engineers at the Festo Bionic Learning Network have created an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Let me introduce you to the AquaPenguin.

Originally published at Xomba.com, the article now has a permanent home on this site.

The Future of Industrial Robotics: Penguins
In the field of Biomimetics, the humble penguin has become the inspiration for an autonomous underwater vehicle.