Clement
Adler was born in France in 1841. He became
an engineer in Toulouse and took a keen interest in aviation. He studied
the flight of birds and bats built small model flying machines. In
1872 he began experimenting with a flapping wing machine. However,
it failed because a man did not have the strength to operate it.
Adler was
also an inventor who worked on the development of the telephone. At
the 1881 Paris Expedition of Electricity he demonstrated stereophonic
sound transmission by telephone. Later that year he patented his invention.
In 1886
Adler began building a monoplane powered by a steam engine. It was
bat-shaped and had heavily cambered wings of 45.9 feet (14 m) span.
The Ecole was flown by Adler near
Gretz on 9th October, 1890. It rose about 6 inches off the ground
and travelled about 165 feet (50.29 m).
The French
War Ministry was impressed by Adler's achievement and commissioned
him to produce a new plane. It took him five years to build the Avion
III. Like the Ecole it had bat-shaped wings that
had a span of 52.5 feet (16 m). Powered by two steam engines it had
two tractor propellers.
The Avion
III underwent a secret test at the Sartory Military Base
on 12th October, 1897. The engines were too heavy and too weak to
lift the machine off the ground. However, Adler falsely claimed that
he had flown about 1,000 feet (300 m). It was not until 1910 that
the French War Ministry admitted that Adler had been lying about the
achievements of the Avion III.
Clement Adler died in 1925.
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