Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Learning to Fly

The image of Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopter was found on Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

“When will man cease to crawl in the depths to live in the azure and quiet of the sky?”, Camille Falmmarion

According to Verne in his “Rubur the Conquerer” one of the following three modes must be employed in order to produce flight:

  1. Helicopters or spiralifers which are simply screws with a vertical axis
  2. Ornithopters, which are machines which endeavor to, reproduce the natural flights of birds
  3. Aeroplanes, which are merely inclined planes like kites, but are towed or driven by screws

Rubur the Conquerer, Jules Verne

Which of the modes did Rubur emulate for his airship the Albatross? Although it is said that Rubur abhorred the first two approaches, the description of the Albatross does make it seem more like the helicopter than an aeroplane.

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