IMPROVE- MENTS IN APPARATUS FOR CONVEYING PASSENGERS AND GOODS THROUGH THE AIR
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Edward Nelson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st August
1867..
I, JAMES EDWARD NELSON, of Brook House, West Drayton, in the County
of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN APPARATUS FOR CONVEYING PASSENGERS AND GOODS THROUGH THE AIR,"
to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in apparatus for conveying
passengers and goods through the air. For this purpose I employ a frame
in the form of a circular disc, from the centre of which a portion is removed;
this frame I by preference make hollow and fill with gas so as to give a certain
amount of buoyancy to the frame which is practically equivalent to lessening
its weight. To this frame a car for receiving the passengers and goods is
suspended, and below the car there is hung a weight which by tackle is capable
of-being-moved fore and aft so as to adjust the position of the centre of gravity
in such manner that when the apparatus has been carried up to a distance
from the earth, as herein-after described, and is then set free the apparatus as
soon as it commences to fall towards the earth may-assume a more or less

page_text: inclined position dependent on the distance of the centre of gravity from the
centre of the frame. The inclination thus given to the apparatus will cause
it as it descends to skim through the air, gathering lateral velocity instead of
falling directly to the earth. To prevent a too rapid descent of the apparatus
the frame is arranged to carry sails to hinder the passage of the air through
its central opening. These sails are made in the form of oval rings which
when the apparatus is in flight hang one below the other from the frame,
and they decrease in their fore and aft diameter from the top downwards,
thus each sail.acts separately on unbroken air. The plane of each sail is
parallel to the ring frame. These sails are capable of. closing up to the ring
frame so as to form with it approximately a flat plane, as is herein-after explained.
On the car at opposite extremities are two rudders, one turning on a
horizontal axis and the other on a vertical, the first serves when the apparatus
bas gathered speed horizontally to vary the inclination of the sails to the
horizon, and so to cause the apparatus to rise or fall; the other rudder serves to
change the course of the apparatus, horizontally turning it one way or the other
as required.
In order to check any tendency tlie apparatus might have to turn except
by the action of the last-mentioned rudder, there are other sails between the
parallel ring sails already mentioned, and the planes of these additional
sails run fore and aft of the apparatus.
The following are the means I prefer to adopt to raise the apparatus in the
first instance: I build a high cylindrical tower of brickwork or otherwise of such
a diameter internally that the apparatus is just able to enter within it; it is
run in at the bottom on suitable supporting rails, and at this time the annular
sails are shut up together so as with the ring frame to fit the cylindrical tower
like a piston; air under pressure is now admitted under the apparatus, which
is thus forced up to and out of the top of the tower. As the apparatus issues
into the air a latch is drawn by self-acting mechanism, or otherwise, which allows
the annular sails to open out as already described, the weight of the car drawing
them downwards; the apparatus then immediately assumes an inclined
position dependent on the previous adjustment of the moveable weight by
which the position of the centre of gravity is regulated as already mentioned,.
and the apparatus with its cargo then glides through the air in the direction.
required.
If desired the apparatus may be in part sustained in the air and propelled
by the reaction of air, vapour, or gas escaping by an orifice or orifices from a
reservoir or generator in, which it is contained under pressure. I prefer to

page_text: employ for this purpose gas generated by the burning of a composition in the
nature of rocket powder. Screen walls should be erected at the stopping and
starting stations to protect the apparatus from eddies whilst it rests on the
ground.