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• Man's effort to fly has spanned centuries and cultures.

The Importance of Air Transportation

• Air transportation is important for economic, manufacturing, transportation size, general aviation, social, and political reasons.

Ancient Mythology & Efforts to Fly

• The earliest known evidence of human efforts to fly dates to ancient Greek and Roman literature.
• Apollo's son Phaeton rode the skies in a sun chariot.
• Sinbad the sailor flew on his bird "Roc".
• Arabs had magical flying carpets.
• Pre-Christian settlers of the Middle East dreamed of traveling by smoke.

Daedalus and Icarus

• The tale of Daedalus and his son Icarus is one of the oldest stories.
• Daedalus was sculptor, architect and inventor.
• He feared his nephew Talus, who he thought would surpass in originality.
• Daedalus threw Talus from the Acropolis in Athens and then fled to Crete.
• At Crete, Daedalus built a labyrinth for King Minos to house the Minotaur.
• King Minos refused to allow Daedalus to leave, instead putting him prison.
• Daedalus then constructed wings made out of wax for himself and his son Icarus.
• They flew away, but Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax melted.
• Icarus fell to his death in the sea.
• Daedalus flew on to Sicily and successfully escaped, living alone.

Other Mythological Figures

• Nike, the winged goddess of victory, had a statue appeared on an island in the Aegean Sea in 300 B.C.
• Hermes, the Greek God called Mercury by the Romans, was the winged messenger of the Gods.
• Pegasus, the flying horse, carried Perseus.

King Ka'us

• A Persian legend from 1500 B.C. tells of King Kai Ka'us, who built the Tower of Babylon.
• Evil spirits tempted Ka'us to invade the heavenly realm.
• Poles were attached to his gold and wood thrown.
• Large eagles tied to the poles flapped furiously to lift the throne.
• The birds flapped furiously, lifting the throne briefly before becoming exhausted.
• The king and throne crashed.
• The crash was taken as a sign that people were not meant to fly.
• Thereafter, the king was known as the Foolish King.

Additional Historical Figures

• In the Americas, the Incas had their legend of Ayar Utso, who grew wings and flew to the sun.
• In 863, Bladud, the King of Britain, attempted to fly using wings of feathers.
• Bladud jumped from a Lindon church tower, broke his neck, and died.
• In 1100 B.C., Comnenus attempted to fly around the Hippodrome of Constantinople.
• Comnenus jumped from a high tower wearing a long white robe, but the weight of his body dragged him down and he died..
• In Spain around the year 875, Andalusian physician Abbas ibn-Firnas ventured to fly.
• Firnas covered himself with feathers, attached wings, climbed to a ledge and jumped.
• He flew a considerable distance, but crashed heavily when he attempted to land like a bird.
• Firnas crashed because he forgot to provide himself with a tail like a bird.
• Lack of a tail was also blamed for the near undoing of an eleven century English monk named Eilmer, one of the first tower jumpers.
• In 1065, Eilmer fitted himself with wings and leaped from a tower at Malmesbury Abbey.
• A medieval historian reported that Elimer "had by some means fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus."
• Elimer flew for the distance of several hundred feet.
• Historians agree that Eilmer did achieve some sort of uncontrolled glide.
• He fell hard to the ground, broke his legs and was crippled for life.
• Elimer said that his failure was forgetting to put a tail on the back part.
• Roger Bacon, an English philosopher and scientist who lived from 1214 to 1292, was probably the first person to suggest an apparatus might propel a man through the air.
• Bacon was also the first to commit to paper any scientific speculation about flight.
• Around the year 1250 he wrote a book Of the Marvelous Powers of Art and Nature to demonstrate the superiority of reason over magical powers.
• Bacon believed mankind was fully capable of building "instruments to fly that would be propelled through the air by flapping, birdlike wings".
• He said anyone who claims that he can fly must have sought that aid of the devil.
• He believed any attempt to fly is sinful.
• John Damian de Falcuis, an Italian scientist for King James IV in Scotland, promised the king he could create gold from base metals.
• When unable to do so, Falcuis then said that he could fly.
• In September 1507, Flacuis constructed ten-foot wings.
• Falcuis jumped from the castle wall, breaking a leg.
• His failure was blamed on his use of chicken feathers, which are not suited for flight

Resnier de Goue

• As late as 1801, 72 year-old French general Resnier de Goue jumped from a castle rampart while flapping wildly.
• He landed in the river below and survived with no injury.

Leonardo da Vinci

• In the 16th Century Leonardo Da Vinci, an incredible genius, was a prophet of flight and a man of the Renaissance.
• Da Vinci is known for many famous paintings.
• Leonardo was also known for his insatiable thirst for knowledge.
• The idea of flight captured his imagination and he would spend hours devoting his mind to the problem of man joining birds in flight.
• Despite all his genius Leonardo failed to achieve a design that could get a man off the ground.
• Da Vinci's 15th Century sketches pointed the way to eventual development of the parachute, helicopter and airplane.
• Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, near the Tuscan town of Vinci.
• Da Vinci was the illegitimate son of notary Ser Piero da Vinci and a young woman named Caterina.
• He was raised by his father and at 16 he began his apprenticeship with Master Verrochio of Florence
• Verrochio was a master goldsmith, sculptor and typical Renaissance seeker of truth.
• Leonardo mastered the arts, music, mathematics, biology, astronomy, and physics.
• By the age of 21, he had the skilled hands of an artist and the mind of a scientist-philosopher.
• He calculated the center of gravity of various birds.
• He worked out the weight/lift ratios and the wing area necessary to support an average man.
• He worked out the leg and arm power required to move the wings in a birdlike manner.
• There is no evidence that any of Leonardo's aeronautical designs were ever built, not put to test.
• When he died in 1519 he left his collection of over 5,000 pages of manuscripts and drawings to a friend who never made them public.
• Leonardo's work didn't receive serious notice until the 1800s.
• By this point, many of his ideas were discovered by others.
• If Leonardo's work had been known earlier the progress of flight may well have advanced by centuries.

Lighter Than Air Ships

• Joseph Montgolfier threw a piece of light weight paper into the fireplace and saw it go up the chimney
• He thought this occurred because the fire produced a lighter than air gas, and reasoned it could be used as lifting power

Joseph & Etienne Montgolfier

• First successful experiment in air transportation.
• On June 4, 1783, a balloon made its first public appearance.
• The balloon was 31,784 cubic foot envelop made of cotton sew on paper.
• The balloon ascended 6,600 feet for ten minutes.
• The first aerial passengers in a man-made machine were on September 19, 1783.
• The passengers were a sheep, rooster, and duck.

Jean de Rozier

• Jean de Rozier was the head of Louis XVI's natural history collection.
• On November 21, 1783 de Rozier became the world's first successful test pilot.
• He was also the first human to accomplish flight in a man-made device.
• Rozier ascended an altitude over 1,000 feet and stayed aloft 23 minutes.
• In June 1785, de Rozier fell to his death when his balloon caught fire attempting to cross the English Channel.
• On June 4, 1784 Ms. Elizabeth Thible became the first woman to fly a balloon (balloon pilot).
• Jacques Charles (1746-1823) was a French physicist.
• Jacques was one of three passengers in the second balloon ascension that carried humans on December 1st, 1783.
• This is how his interest in gases started.
• It was a hydrogen filled balloon - good thing they were careful!
• The first known balloon ascent in the USA was in Baltimore, MD on June 24, 1784.
• Peter Carnes who built a Montgolfier-type balloon was involed.
• The first aerial passenger in the USA was Edward Warren, a 13 year old boy.
• Jean Pierre Blanchard was involved in the the first balloon flight English Channel.
• The flight happened on January 7, 1785, from Dover to Calais, England.
• On January 9, 1793, arrived to Philadelphia and President George Washington gave him a letter of passage.
• In the USA he ascended 5,812 feet and floated 15 miles in 46 minutes with a temperature of 55 degrees F.
• Jean Pierre Blanchard's wife, Marie Madeline Sophie Armant became the first woman to die in a balloon accident in 1819, as she continued her husband's legacy.

The Dirigible

• In order to gain control, balloons became elongated with vertical and horizontal planes at the end for directional control.
• Engines were soon developed for driving power.
• History may prove that the balloon was of no real assistance to the development of aviation.
• It may even be considered an obstacle to the progress of the airplane, because it distracted the direction of research which could have been devoted to the study of the airplane.

Dirigibles and Airships

• Dirigibles are balloons that have power and a steering mechanism, and that are non-rigid (gas).
• Airships are semi-rigid or rigid internal framework (gas plus inside structure).
• In 1852 French engineer Henry Giffard constructed the first practical steerable balloon of the elongated design.
• It was 44 feet long and 40 feet in diameter.
• Alberto Santos-Dumont a Brazilians was among the early builders and pilots of controlled airships.
• Santos-Dumont named "The Father of Aviation" by its countrymen.
• In September 1898 – Santos-Dumont flew his airships in Paris and later around the Eiffel Tower.
• Santos Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem.
• On November 12th, 1906 that Santos Dumont's airplane, the 14-BIS, flew a distance of 220 meters at the height of 6 meters and at the speed of 37,358 km/h.
• Santos Dumont was awarded the "Archdecon Prize" and solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means.
• On July 2, 1900 – First rigid airship flew and made history with its 17 minute flight over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany
• The first rigid airship was invented by Ferdinand Von Zeppelin.
• LZ-1=Luftship Zeppelin One that was 420 foot.
• The ship had a rigid aluminum framework
• It was inflated with hydrogen gas and Propelled by two 16 horsepower engines.
• Cruising Speed: 20 mph
• 1908: Zeppelin LZ-4 was on Lake Constance, with National Acclaim. Flights lasted 12 sand 24 hours.
• L-4 crashed and burned at
• Count Zepelin, 1909, formed DERLAG, the world's first passenger airline.
• Aerodrome facilities were built at Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt and Hamburg
• By 1913 DERLAG had a perfect safety flights and recorded 1,600 flights that carried more than 35,000 passengers.
• Zeppelin designed and built airships for the German war machine in WW1.
• They were used to fly over England and drop bombs from high altitudes.
• Zeppelins proved to be vulnerable to bad weather, anti-aircraft fire, fighter planes.
• Graf Zepelin: Airship LZ-127, crossed over the North Pole.
• The it flew from Germany to Rio de Janeiro.
• It Crossed the ocean 144 times and flew more than one million miles with no accidents.

Goodyear & The Hindenburg

• In 1933, Goodyear built the Macon.

• The akron was designed as a flying aircraft carrier.

• It features an internal hangar bay that carried 5 Sparrow Hawk biplanes.

• This was the world's largest and greatest airship.

• The USA had the monopoly on Helium, the only practical nonflammable gas.

• It Successfully carried passengers across the North Atlantic to Lakehurst, NJ.

• Included facilities like Staterooms, Restaurant and Smoking lounges, with other extreme comforts

• The Hindenburg ship was about 800 Feet Long, with a 135 Feet in Diameter.

• On the may 6th 1937, it caught fire when a landing was attempted in Lakehurst, NJ.

• From the 97 People Aboard, There were 65 deaths.

• There is uncertainty as to the use of the airship for passenger transportation.

• Airships have served a purpose and may be used successfully in the future.

• But the idea of airships still persists.