Career
The difference of specific gravity between the balloon and the surrounding atmosphere could be converted by a system of inclined planes to steer the craft, without a motor. He referred to his propulsion as "gravitation." The craft was not normally trimmed to be neutrally buoyant. Instead it would be cycled between positive and negative buoyancy.
The resulting airflow across the body of the craft and attached airfoils would propel lieutenant
(Picture a glider alternately rising and falling through the air) He claimed to sail it as one would a sailboat. Mention is made of the movement of pilot and passenger fore and aft in the basket to control attitude.
He was a medical doctor and three times Mayor of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He constructed the city"s first sewer system.
Doctor Solomon Andrews was born on February 15, 1806, in Herkimer, New New York
He received his medical degree from Rutgers Medical College, class of 1827. His first "Aereon" flew over Perth Amboy on June 1, 1863. This had three 80-foot cigar-shaped balloons, with a rudder and gondola.
Buoyancy was controlled by jettisoning sand ballast or releasing hydrogen lift gas.
Doctor Andrews wrote Abraham Lincoln later that summer offering the Aereon for use in the American Civil War, during which he served for a time as a volunteer surgeon in the Union Army. After much discussion, he arranged a demonstration early in 1864 before the Smithsonian Institution.
He was informed, nearly a year later, that the Government had little interest in his invention, and by that time the war was nearly over. Andrews then organized the Aerial Navigation Company to build commercial Airships and establish a regular line between New York and Philadelphia.
The "Aereon #2" had one "lemon-shaped" balloon, sharply pointed at the ends.
lieutenant controlled buoyancy with a system of lines and pulleys that compressed the gas or allowed it to expand. This flew over New York City on May 25, 1866 and June 5, 1866. The second trip, carrying a passenger-assistant (a news reporter had to be left out at the last minute because of weight problems) ended at Oyster Bay, Long Island.
At this point, the post-war economic collapse and its bank failures destroyed the company, and he never flew again.
Andrews also invented a sewing machine, a barrel making machine, fumigators, forging presses, a kitchen range, a gas lamp, a nicotine-filtering pipe, rekeying and a padlock which has been used by the United States. Post Office since 1842. He died on October 17, 1872, in Perth Amboy.
The Aereon Corporation attempted, in New Jersey in 1969, to replicate and improve on the airship designs of Solomon Andrews. This was written about in the book "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed," by John McPhee ().
This book and Andrews" work provided the inspiration for development of the Hyperblimp, and various embodiments of an underwater gliding toy, by inventor Daniel Geery.