Friday, March 12, 2010

Who was James S. Adams





After the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, a frenzy of adventurers, hobbyists, engineers and inventors began to concentrate their heads together on ways to improve the speed, longevity and altitude of aircraft.

Here, we have arrived at a patent filed by a man named James Sloan Adams. Other than the fact that Mr. Adams was a Black man, not much else seems to be known about him. I have also been unable to find information on any particular aircraft that Mr. Adams' propulsion system may have been used for.

The patent was filed in 1918 and approved in 1920. This could mean a variety of things. World War I reached it's end in 1918. The airplane had just seen its first applications in warfare as fighters, bombers and scouts. Dogfighting had created the need for faster and more manuverable planes. Bombers needed to be able to fly high, carry heavy loads, and fly for a long distance. It was also around this time that commercial aviation was born. There are many possibilities for which this propulsion system could have been used.

I am going to continue to look and see what turns up. :)

5 comments:

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  2. Weird how there's no information at all on this guy besides a patent. I couldn't even find a picture. My son is doing a project on him for black history month this is tough.

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    1. Having same issue now, find anything while searching?

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  3. wow i'm in the same situation my son project is due tomorrow

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