The Truth behind the History of Flight

Concept of flight has fascinated and challenged the man kind for thousands of years. Egyptian paintings show their pharaohs soaring with wings. Early Chinese found the Kite and used it for the holy ceremonies.
Then the history skips to Leonardo Da Vinci, who lived during the renaissance in Italy, known to be the first man to design the model for flights. He sketched hundreds of models for his Ornithopter flying machine, which are the base concept for modern day helicopters. Then in later part of 18th century hydrogen balloon was invented. And Wright brothers developed the powered aircraft. 

As in every scientific development, this story also skips from the earliest civilization to renaissance Europe. Nothing developed in between. The timeline below was taken from the Library of congress show the history of aviation.

In this short article I would like to look some of the main leaps in the development of the flight, which were carefully omitted from the above timeline.

As many of the scientific inventions and discoveries, the art of aviation was not started in Christian Europe. The first ever person to design and experiment the flying machine is Abbas ibn Firnas in Cordoba. 

His first flight took place in 852, when he wrapped himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jumped from the minaret of the Great mosque of Cordoba. This attempt was unsuccessful, but the fall was slowed enough that he got off with minor injuries, making it at least one of the earliest example of parachute jump. After the first fail attempt he worked hard to improve his design. And he succeeded. He made a machine consisting large wings and made up with eagle feathers and silk. In this second experiment he hung in the air for around ten minutes before plummeting to the ground breaking a wing and a backbone in the process. After this event only Abbas ibn Firnas understood the importance of the tail in the flight and landing. Unfortunately the injuries sustained prevented Ibn Firnas from carrying out the further experiments. However he guided somebody to create a newer version of the flying machines. The existence of such machine was mentioned in the manuscript by Roger Bacon named On Marvelous Powers of Art, in 1260. He mentioned

“There is an instrument to fly with, which I never saw, nor know any man has seen it, but I full well know by the name the learned man who invented the same”

After this incident many attempted flying and were killed or injured during the process. Later in

1633, a Turk named Lagari Hasan Celebi invented the first manned rocket, which he launched using about 300 pounds of gunpowder as a firing fuel. William E. Burrows explains this event in his book

“[T]here was a Turn named Lagari Hasan Celebi, who …. Was shot into the sky by fifty four pounds of gunpowder to celebrate the birth of Sultan Murad IV’s daughter, Kaya Sultan ….. The rocket then carried Celebi high into the air, where he opened several wings and then safely glided to the landing in front of Royal Palace. He was rewarded and made cavalry officer….”

Hazarfan Ahmed Celebi, another 17th century Turk, used eagle feathers stitched to his wings to fly. After nine attempts, he finally decided on the shape of the wings. His most famous flight took place in 1638 from Galata tower near Bosporus in Istanbul, in which he successfully landed in the other side of the strait. Hazarfan earned a reward of thousand gold pieces and a Turkish postal stamp bears tribute to his historic flight.

The flight of Hazarfan Ahmed Celebi

Turkish postal stamp bears tribute flight of Lagari Hasan Celebi

As you can see we have never heard these names in any of our school texts. Who invented Flight – the answer we gave is Wright Brothers, who is the pioneer of aviation – we said Leonardo Da Vinci. It is time to think and learn the true history of Scientific Origins, who know I may the descendant of a person who discovered the uses of chemistry.

References
1.    Al-Hassani, S. (2010). 1001 inventions. (3rd ed., p. 296). Washington DC: Natioanl Geography.
2.    Timeline of flight. (2010, July 29). Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/wb-timeline.html
3.    Dr. Shaw, R. J. (2010, Aug 27). How did we learn to fly like the birds?. Retrieved from http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/historyofflight.html
4.    First flight. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://firstflight.open.ac.uk/history/