The only reason I know anything at all about Octave Chanute is that I was stationed at Chanute Air Force Base for technical training in 1985. Chanute AFB opened as Chanute Field in 2017 and was closed in 1993.
Octave Chanute (1832-1910) was a railroad engineer who designed, among many other bridges, the Hannibal Bridge which crossed the Missouri River at Kansas City. After he retired in 1883, he directed efforts into aviation.
Chanute was too old to fly himself, so he partnered with younger experimenters, including Augustus M. Herring and William Avery. In 1896 Chanute, Herring, and Avery tested a design based on the work of German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal, as well as hang gliders of their own design in the dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan near the town of Miller Beach, Indiana, just east of what became the city of Gary.[2] These experiments convinced Chanute that the best way to achieve extra lift without a prohibitive increase in weight was to stack several wings one above the other, an idea proposed by the British engineer Francis Wenham in 1866 and realized in flight by Lilienthal in the 1890s. Chanute introduced the "strut-wire" braced wing structure that would be used in powered biplanes of the future, not seriously challenged until the pioneering efforts of Hugo Junkers to develop all-metal cantilever airframe technology without external bracing from 1915 onwards. Chanute based his "interplane strut" concept on the Pratt truss, which was familiar to him from his bridge-building work. The Wright brothers based their glider designs on the Chanute "double-decker," as they called it. A new design of a biplane glider was developed and flown in 1897.
The town of Chanute, Kansas,[12] is named after Chanute (3 small towns in southeast Kansas were vying for the railroad's land office and Chanute suggested that they incorporate, which would make the larger town more attractive to the railroad - it worked), as is the former Chanute Air Force Base near Rantoul, Illinois, which was decommissioned in 1993. The former base, now turned to peacetime endeavors, includes the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, detailing the history of aviation and of Chanute Air Force base. In 1902, the Western Society of Engineers began to present the Octave Chanute Award for papers of merit on engineering innovations. From 1939 to 2005, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presented the Chanute Flight Award for an outstanding contribution made by a pilot or test personnel to the advancement of the art, science, and technology of aeronautics. In 1974, Chanute was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.[13] In 1978, the U.S. Postal Service commemorated Octave Chanute with a pair of 21-cent airmail stamps. In 1996, the National Soaring Museum honored the 100th anniversary of the glider flying experiments in the sand dunes along Lake Michigan as National Landmark of Soaring No. 8. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, in Daytona Beach, Florida, has an off-campus residence hall, the Chanute Complex. for upper-class students. The Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium, in Gary, Indiana, houses a museum dedicated to both Octave Chanute and the Tuskegee Airmen. The historic bathing pavilion was designed by architect George Washington Maher. He is present in the Frieze of American History, in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington DC.
The town of Chanute, Kansas,[12] is named after Chanute (3 small towns in southeast Kansas were vying for the railroad's land office and Chanute suggested that they incorporate, which would make the larger town more attractive to the railroad - it worked), as is the former Chanute Air Force Base near Rantoul, Illinois, which was decommissioned in 1993. The former base, now turned to peacetime endeavors, includes the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, detailing the history of aviation and of Chanute Air Force base.
In 1902, the Western Society of Engineers began to present the Octave Chanute Award for papers of merit on engineering innovations. From 1939 to 2005, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presented the Chanute Flight Award for an outstanding contribution made by a pilot or test personnel to the advancement of the art, science, and technology of aeronautics.
In 1974, Chanute was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.[13]
In 1978, the U.S. Postal Service commemorated Octave Chanute with a pair of 21-cent airmail stamps.
In 1996, the National Soaring Museum honored the 100th anniversary of the glider flying experiments in the sand dunes along Lake Michigan as National Landmark of Soaring No. 8.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, in Daytona Beach, Florida, has an off-campus residence hall, the Chanute Complex. for upper-class students.
The Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium, in Gary, Indiana, houses a museum dedicated to both Octave Chanute and the Tuskegee Airmen. The historic bathing pavilion was designed by architect George Washington Maher.
He is present in the Frieze of American History, in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington DC.
Now, with a legacy like this, is my title reasonable? Probably not. But he’s not exactly a household name. For me, he was only a name attached to a base I was stationed at, where I attended months of electronics training in a very old building. I only knew his name because years later, I got curious about who the base was named after.
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