Throughout history, man has tried to defy gravity, wanting desperately to fly like a bird.
FLIGHT MYTHS, LEGENDS & FACTS
° Bellerophon the Valiant, son of the King of Corinth, captured Pegasus, a winged horse. Pegasus took him to a battle with the triple headed monster, Chimera.
° Daedalus was an engineer who was imprisoned by King Minos. With his son, Icarus, he made wings of wax and feathers. Daedalus flew successfully from Crete to Naples, but Icarus, tired to fly too high and flew too near to the sun. The wings of wax melted and Icarus fell to his death in the ocean.
° King Kaj Kaoos attached eagles to his throne and flew around his kingdom
° Alexander the Great harnessed four mythical wings animals, called Griffins, to a basket and flew around his realm.
° Around 400 BC - China
The discovery of the kite that could fly in the air by the Chinese started humans thinking about flying.
° 1485 Leonardo da Vinci - The Ornithopter
° 1783 - Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier- the First Hot Air Balloon
Let us not forget the likes of Otto Lilienthal, a German engineer that after more than 2500 flights, he was killed when he lost control because of a sudden strong wind and crashed into the ground. Samuel Langley was an astronomer, who realized that power was needed to help man fly. He built a model of a plane, which he called an aerodrome, that included a steam-powered engine. In 1891, his model flew for 3/4s of a mile before running out of fuel. Then we have the Wright Brothers and it was Wilbur who piloted the Flyer III for 39 minutes and about 24 miles of circles around Huffman Prairie. He flew the first practical airplane until it ran out of gas.
Now we come full circle and have Jason, a fearless friend of mine, who decided to debunk all of what history has written and obviously is a huge fan of Mary Poppins. Here we have a blatant case of too much drag and not enough lift but never fault a man for trying and doing it with such flair as well.
