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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2016
From the very start of aviation a suitable engine has been the basic pre-requisite for successful flight.
The first known Swedish proposal for a heavier-than-air flying machine was made in 1716 by the scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. A steam engine, invented by him in 1714, was to provide the propulsion. His superior, “Royal Mechanicus” Christoffer Polhem, opposed the idea, and the project was abandoned without any attempt being made. More than 150 years later, in 1877, another Swede—Carl Rickard Nyberg, well-known inventor of the blow-lamp and other gas-producing devices using liquid fuel—presented a design for a helicopter and 20 years later still, for a steam-engine-driven aeroplane. The engine weight problem was to be solved by using a light tubular steam boiler, invented by him. Several prototypes were produced during the years 1899 to 1910 without being really flyable since the steam engine gave only 10 hp compared with the estimated 40 hp required.