CLEMENT ADER
Clément Ader filed his first patent in 1866, while still working for Compagnie du Midi. He referred to himself modestly as a "railway employee" and indicated his address as Layrac, near Agen, Lot-et-Garonne department.
Ader’s invention was a machine capable of lifting rails, replacing the levers used until then: "It can be operated by only two workers, compared with the twelve or fifteen needed to perform the operation with levers." The machine was mounted on the rails already in place and its flanged wheels enabled it to move "easily and quickly to the place where the work is required."
Two identical rack mechanisms gripped and lifted the rails on each side by the operation of a crank. Ballast or soil was then inserted under the sleepers, and the workers then moved a little further down the line and repeated the process.
The 1878 patent improved this system further, but the terminology had changed by then. Ader now conceives his removable railway as a genuine "means of transport called new endless rail, which seems the best way to describe it".
The French term galet, which refers to the small roller that holds the continuous track in its upper position, was also introduced in this patent. Terminology was important to Clément Ader, and he made a point of precisely naming the parts and pieces he described and terminology evolved as his research progressed.
This is a constant characteristic of all the specifications Ader produced in support of his patent applications.
Visiting the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867, Clément Ader discovered the recently-invented velocipedes, including one model by Pierre Michaux which had also just been patented. Michaux, a locksmith by profession, had refined this early form of bicycle by adding pedals. Newly freed from his obligations to the Compagnie du Midi, Ader now applied his inventiveness to improving the comfort of velocipedists, particularly by alleviating the problems caused by the weather:
"We need to find ways of moving as easily as possible on bad roads; the one I have developed will enable enthusiasts of this type of transport to travel city streets and country lanes without excessive fatigue [...] this method [...] consists quite simply of applying an elastic strip made of rubber, gutta-percha or any substance with the same principle of elasticity to the wheels of the velocipede, thereby forming a compressible intermediate layer between the ground and the velocipede. In short, [...] the wheels will have a new elastic rubber rim on top of their usual rim and hooping."
Again, everything is consigned to writing and captured in drawings: the tyre was born!
In 1878, just a few months after his previous patent for "endless rail", Clément Ader came up with an innovation in the transmission of electrical signals.
The first is for an "electrical voice correspondence system, called an électrophone", the second is for a "loudspeaker receiver".
Ader was an engineer and a hands-on inventor man but, as we have seen, he was no less attentive to the accuracy of the descriptions of his inventions, and he used precise terminology that he chose with great care: "I have used the term électrophonie [...] to refer to the new application of electricity to voice correspondence, and I have called the instruments used to produce it électrophones. In my opinion, that word is more appropriate than telephone or microphone.”
Other innovations followed, including anelectro-magnetic molecular vibration telephone receiver, a concentrated magnetic pole telephone system, a battery-free visible signal telephone alarm system, and an over-excited magnetic pole telephone receiver, all patented in 1879.
Ader filed a succession of patent applications in this field until 1889. Among the most noteworthy was an application filed on 9 August 1881 for a theatre telephone network system.
The théâtrophone, as it was also designated, enabled the public "to hear the singing and music of operas and the dialogue of dramatic performances in their own homes".
The system was improved in 1889 with a new patent application for an automatic distribution system for theatrical auditions and similar applications. These innovations marked the first stirrings in the development of stereophonic sound, more commonly known as stereo, which emulates the spatial distribution of the original sound sources as experienced by listeners.
The patent taken out in 1888 for an underwater telegraphy system was just as remarkable. In filing this patent, Ader secured ownership over the invention of this new telegraphic transmission system and its various receivers, together with a new "alphabet for the translation of the reception and for the amplification of waves recorded by optical means". This innovation removed the gaps between the letters of Samuel Morse's alphabet, invented way back in 1838, retaining them only to mark the spaces between words. In addition to his technical proficiency and following on from previous innovations whose terminology he perfected, Clément Ader demonstrated another side to his inventiveness in emphasising the importance of language and, more generally, of communication.
While developing all these innovations, Ader had long been interested in aviation and the idea that we might one day be able to move through the air in flying machines. In 1870, during the conflict with Prussia, he offered his services to the Ministry of War and worked on the development of observation devices based on kites. The financial comfort provided by his invention of the Théâtrophone in 1881 enabled Ader to devote his time and efforts to the problem of flight. However, it was not until 1890 that he filed a patent for a winged air navigation device called an aeroplane.. This was Clément Ader's best-known invention, and sealed his reputation as the first man to leave the ground in a "heavier-than-air" contrivance: on 9 October 1890, a few months after filing the patent. The specifications of the winged machine he called Eole open as follows: "The flight of birds has always held special interest for the applicant, who during his youth took delight in the wings of cockchafers..."
While its technology ushered in a new era (his flying machine was fitted with a steam engine), it’s the terminology, again, that attracts attention. On the very first pages of his patent application, Clément Ader accompanied terms by then generally accepted and used such as aviation (aviation), aviateur (aviator) and avier (aviate) with some verbal innovations of his own, including avion(aeroplane) and avionnerie (aeronautics), which he defined as "a winged air vehicle or device" and "the art of building aeroplanes", respectively.
During the 1890s, Ader continued to work with the military on improved versions of the Eole. He obtained four improvement patents for his invention in 1891, 1894 and 1898.
The question of propulsion was crucial to airship design. A few months later, in May 1898, Ader filed another patent, this time for improvements to lightweight engines for use in aviation, airships, navigation and automobiles. The aim of these improvements was to produce a "powerful and light" engine capable of running on liquid fuel in the gaseous or vaporous state.
A few months later, on 3 September 1898, Ader filed a new patent application for improvements to motor cars and their engines. This time, Ader made a giant step. Not only was he proposing an internal combustion engine that ran on petrol, he reconfigured the layout of the two cylinders in the engine itself, setting them at an angle of 90 degrees to each other. As the distinguishing feature of what we now call the V engine, this innovative configuration was to become standard. Ader’s specification even allowed for successive cylinder pairs to be added to the basic configuration, prefiguring the famous V6, V8 and V10 engines.
Up to the end of 1900, Ader refined his patent on several occasions, making improvements to engine cooling systems with the addition of cooling fins in small engines and water-cooled solutions in larger ones. Ader finally sold his patent on 21 December 1900 to Société Industrielle des Téléphones, which already exploited patents by Edison, Elisha Gray and Breguet. The deed of sale included a fee of 4% on all cars sold by the company, and 5% on engines. Société Industrielle des Téléphones registered the trademark for Ader cars and engines in April 1900.
On November 26, 1901, Clément Ader filed his twenty-second patent, for a skimming boat. He seems to have been no stranger to this field, as he mentions tests conducted on such a machine as early as 1867. This time he drew inspiration from a stone skimming over water: “while throwing very thin pebbles over the surface [...] which remain there for a certain time, it immediately occurs to me that if the momentum were maintained, the pebble would continue to skim".
His 1901 patent protected an invention that was already quite old. It was a new shape of boat, flat and tapering with two articulated wings that the pilot could tilt and retract when the boat was not in motion. The design also included a rudder and a horizontal tail assembly "much wider than long", also articulated and operable from the cockpit. The engine, powered by steam, oil or alcohol, was built in. The engine was required to be "high-powered, as light as possible, with cylinders positioned horizontally". "A propeller is placed under the boat in a manner appropriate to high speeds".
Besides the technical aspects, Clément Ader explains how the boat will work. “At rest, the wings are retracted, the boat sits on its waterline and its wings and tail are under water. In this state, it behaves like any ordinary boat. To skim over the water, the wings must be opened [...] and the boat will rise to the surface. The engine and propeller are then set to maximum speed, giving the wings their normal inclination, and the boat will skim over the water at high speed on its wings and tail".
In an improvement patent filed in 1904 Ader stated that he had "observed that when skimming, air sometimes naturally passes between the water and the lower surfaces of the inclined planes, which reduces adhesion considerably".
So, "to obtain a perfect skim", Ader added a "pipe with compressed air fed by a pump or fan driven by the propeller motor". "The wing can be positioned to use compressed air as a prop, acting as a kind of pneumatic skid.
After caterpillar tracks, stereophony, the first aeroplane and the V-engine, it would hardly be surprising if Ader was also the inventor of the hydrofoil. Only the findings of in-depth research and the careful cross-checking of all the sources by historians and specialists in the various technical fields in question will shed light on the matter. But after all, does it really matter? This retrospective has only two aims: to celebrate Ader’s ingenuity and the care he took to protect it. Clément Ader died in Toulouse on 3 May 1925. He was 84. He was buried in the cemetery of Muret, his hometown, at the State’s expense.
