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Carl Meerwein’s flight attempt of 1785

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart
Clive Hart*
Affiliation:
Department of Literature, University of Essex
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Extract

After I had described the flight theory and practical ornithopter of Carl Friedrich Meerwein, my attention was drawn to a relevant passage in Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Sammlung interessanter und durchgängig zweckmässig abgefasster Reisebeschreibungen für die Jugend. Translator of Robinson Crusoe, traveller, and populariser of high culture, Campe included in his improving collection of travel decriptions an account of a journey from Hamburg to Switzerland which he himself had undertaken in 1785. Having reached Giessen on his way south, he was about to press on to Frankfurt when some acquaintances urged him to stay a day or two longer to watch something curious: Carl Meerwein was about to attempt to fly.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 89 , Issue 888 , October 1985 , pp. 306
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1985 

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References

1. Hart, Clive. Carl Meerwein’s ornithopter. The Aeronautical Journal, May 1980, 84, 140–143. See also Hart, Clive, The Prehistory of Flight, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985, Chapter X. I am grateful to John Bagley and Henri Hegener for useful information.Google Scholar
2. A number of editions appeared during Campe’s lifetime. Edition used: 12 vols, Reutlingen, 1794 etc. See Vol II, 148–151.Google Scholar
3. Die Kunst zu fliegen nach Art der Vögel, Frankfurt und Basel, 1784.Google Scholar
4. Codice atlantico, ff309v-b, 311v-a, 1487-90.Google Scholar