An interesting new book
is now getting into circulation that discusses a few of the birds
we WON'T Be commemorating this coming week. When you consider the
hilarious attempts at flight that proceeded and followed the Wright
brother's successful flight at Kitty Hawk 100 years ago (December
17), their achievement is even more amazing according
to author Phil Scott.
Scott describes the wild and wooly efforts of early aeronauts to
soar like birds, some literally with flapping wings. He chronicles
it all in a new book, "The Wrong Stuff?: Attempts at Flight
Before (& After) the Wright Brothers," (Hylas Publishing/$24.95
Hardcover).
"We really need to commemorate these valiant if misguided
efforts," says Scott, journalist and aviation researcher. "The
intrepid souls whose only dream was to fly like eagles were an
imaginative lot."
A few of the early aeronauts built odd-looking wing flappers, or
ornithopters as they came to be called. Leonardo Da Vinci was
probably the first to design such a machine-his "Great Bird" was a
sort of a human bat suit with wings of starched linen and
leather.
Other early inventors even strapped living birds to themselves,
figuring the birds could carry a man. One man even tied wings to
his arms and legs hoping he could soar over Paris, but immediately
landed in the river Seine.
Other French aeronauts boldly marched into the fray, including
Clement Ader with his bat-like Eole and Avion III; Captain Dorand's
Aeroplane which was intended to be a spotter aircraft for the
military-except that it wouldn't fly.
Marquis d'Equevilley-Montjustin's strange and beautiful
multiplane began with a four-wheel platform upon which the pilot
stood, surrounded by hoops which enclosed five pairs of wings and
never left the ground. The flying albatross of Jean-Marie Le Bris
did manage to take off, then promptly crashed into a rock
quarry.
"Some of the odd machines built after the Wright Brothers came
close to real flight: The Caproni Ca. 60, which resembled a comfy
houseboat, flew exactly once," says Scott. "Pescara's Helicopter
was the very first helicopter to hover above the ground for one
minute and the Hafner Rotabuggy, a Jeep with rotors invented by the
British during World War II, was a good idea whose time may never
come."
"You can be sure... that in a garage somewhere someone is
working on a strange bird," says Scott in the introduction of The
Wrong Stuff. He has barely more than a little learning and big
dreams. That, after all, is what makes flying magic."