Steam Aeroplanes.

Updated: 26 Nov 2007

Plane pic from Clymer added
This gallery is in course of arrangement.

The very first successful aeroplanes were powered by internal-combustion engines. They were naturally inefficient and heavy by today's standards, but there was still no doubt at the time that they were a far more practical power-plant for aviation than the most sophisticated steam engine available.
However, there were a few later attempts to demonstrate that steam had something to offer the aeroplane. 1934 in particular seems to have been a propitious time. Now read on...

STEAM AEROPLANES BEFORE THE WRIGHT BROTHERS.

There were many earlier attempts to build steam powered aeroplanes; here are a few notes on some of them. Bear in mind that the Wright brothers were the first to really solve the problem of making an aeroplane controllable in three dimensions, and if any of the early attempts outline below had actually taken flight, their pilots would have lived to regret it. Though probably not for long.
THE MOSHIASKY STEAM PLANE: 1884
Alexandr Fyodorovich Mozhaisky, was a Russian naval officer, aviation pioneer, researcher and inventor. He was born in 1825 in Finland. He built a steam-powered plane in 1882, but it is generally agreed it did not achieve sustained flight. A correspondent sent me this: "The Moshaisky steam plane engine is in the aviation museum in Monino near Moscow and as far as I remember one or two other aviation steam engines."

STEAM AEROPLANES AFTER THE WRIGHT BROTHERS.

THE HUETTNER STEAM PLANE: 1934

Left: The Huettner Steam Plane.
Details from The Daily Telegraph for 16 April 1934, as reproduced in Steam Car Developments and Steam Aviation for June 1934.
I Am Not An Aircraft Expert, but to me these specifications seem highly optimistic.

Left: The Huettner Steam Plane.
More details from The Daily Telegraph for 16 April 1934; the second half of the extract.
The sad fate of the Berlin correspondent is probably explained by the following fact; in January 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor, ie head of the German government. Clearly his rearmament plans at that time included steam aviation...

Further details of the Huettner project are proving hard to find, and for that very reason I think it can be safely assumed it was not a success.
Some details of the revolving boiler power-plant can be found on The Rotary Boiler Page.

THE BESLER STEAM PLANE: 1934
This is probably the best-known of the steam aeroplanes. The extracts here are once more from Steam Car Developments and Steam Aviation for June 1934.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane being fuelled.

From "Floyd Clymer's Steam Car Scrapbook" Bonanza Books.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane.
From "Steam car Developments and Steam Aviation" No 28, June 1934.
Unfortunately this report is long on waffle but short on technical detail.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane.

Left: The Besler Steam Plane.
Somehow the idea of making a forced landing and chopping down trees for fuel does not seem too convincing to me. If there are lots of trees, isn't that going to make landing in one piece rather difficult?