Human-Powered Flight

"Vélocipède aérien," proposed by Jean Jacques Bourcart, Paris, August, 1866

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jul 11, 2020
Category: Death | Flight | Technology | Nineteenth Century

Comments

And now we have the Gossamer Albatross.

Never give up.

Posted by Richard Bos on 07/11/20 at 08:31 AM

Didn’t Leonardo Da Vinci draw something like this previously ?

Posted by Judy on 07/11/20 at 02:18 PM

Judy, there have been all sort of crackpots who have borrowed from Da Vinci. Not to say that all of Da Vinci's ideas were off the wall, it is just that the most practical ideas were lacking the technology to put them into practical use. You can't fool Father Physics. Humans, on average, just don't have the power concentration to make an airplane practical. Heavier than air flight as a form of mass transport had to wait for a power source to make it practical.

Posted by KDP on 07/11/20 at 06:28 PM

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