Commentators have marveled as to the nature of the mechanism used by Dante and by De Bacqueville. Historians have strongly attested the fact of the flights, but have overlooked the means. The inventors must have employed aërial gliders of some kind, for adequate motive power was not available before the end of the nineteenth century. Even as an experiment in gliding, or soaring, the achievement of Dante was most daring and wonderful, eclipsing the best performances up to the twentieth century. It is strange that in that period of science the survivor of such an experience, and a college professor, should not have left to the world a careful account of such an extraordinary performance. The alleged flights, however, were unquestionably feasible, even in that remote period, for the construction of an aërial glider is a simple task not beyond the capacity of craftsmen in the fifteenth century A.D., or even the fifteenth century B.C., directed by a skilful designer.
Besides the wing-armed scheme of flight credited to Daedalus, and contemplated by Da Vinci, various other plans were evolved in succeeding years. Aërial chariots and flying machines were devised for the more advantageous use of muscular energy. In all these, of course, the passenger could be both power plant and captain of the ship.
One of the earliest authenticated devices of this kind was the invention of Blanchard, described by him in the Journal de Paris, August 28, 1781, nearly two years before the invention of the hot-air balloon, of which he became later an enthusiastic votary. As his device is but one of a large number that appeared before the close of the nineteenth century, and the advent of light motors, the reader who wishes fuller acquaintance with man-driven airships may be referred to Mr. Chanute’s book, entitled Progress in Flying-Machines, which describes a large variety of such inventions, and discusses the merit and weakness of each.
Blanchard prefaces the description of his machine by answering some criticisms of his project, apparently ventured by his neighbors. “They object to me,” he writes, “that flying is not the business of man, but rather of the feathered birds. I reply that feathers are not at all necessary to the bird for flight; any fabric suffices. The fly, the butterfly, the bat, etc., fly without feathers and with fanlike wings of material resembling horn. It is, then, neither the material nor the form that causes flight, but the volume and the celerity of the movement, which should be as lively as possible.
“They object, moreover, that a man is too heavy to lift himself alone with wings, much less in a vessel which of itself presents enormous weight. I reply that my ship is extremely light; as to the man’s weight, I pray that attention be given to that which M. de Buffon says in his Histoire Naturelle, on the subject of the condor; this bird, though of enormous weight, easily lifts a two-year-old heifer weighing at least a hundred pounds, the whole with wings of about thirty to thirty-six feet expanse.”
He then describes the vessel as a little ship four feet long by two feet wide, having on either side two posts, each supporting a wing ten feet long, the whole forming a parasol twenty feet in diameter. The construction was illustrated by an engraver, who had seen the vessel and was convinced of its practicability. In conclusion, the inventor writes that people shall see him cleave the air with more speed than the crow, and that without losing his breath, being protected by a pointed mask of peculiar construction. But, as he failed to make good his promises, he was subjected to ridicule, as well as praise, by the local press, one of the caricatures portraying him in the act of making an ascension before a concourse of bulging-eyed savants and long-eared jackasses, wearing spectacles to accentuate the appearance of wisdom and solemnity.
The scientific coterie of Paris were apparently impatient of the attention shown Blanchard by the press and people. Accordingly, in May, 1782, the distinguished astronomer, De Laland, of the French Academy, administered a mild rebuke to the editors of the Paris Journal. “Gentlemen,” he wrote, “you have given so much time to air ships and divination rods that one might eventually think that you believe in these follies, or that the scientists who coöperate with your journal have nothing to say to dispel these absurd pretensions. Permit me, therefore, gentlemen, to occupy some lines in your journal to assure your readers that if the savants are silent it is only because of their contempt.
Fig. 3.—Blanchard’s Flying-machine.
“It has been demonstrated to be impossible for a man in any manner whatever to raise himself, or even to sustain himself, in the air. M. Coulomb, of the Academy of Sciences, at one of our meetings a year ago, read a paper in which he showed clearly, by calculating the power of a man, determined by experiments, that he would require wings two or three thousand feet long moved three feet per second; hence no one but an ignoramus would make an attempt of this kind.”