Did a man achieve human powered flight in the 1000s?

star_gazer

Ibn Firnas designed a water clock called Al-Maqata, devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), developed a chain of rings that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Spain to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut. In his house he built a room in which spectators witnessed stars, clouds, thunder, and lightning, which were produced by mechanisms hidden in his basement laboratory. He also devised "some sort of metronome." He is also said to have made an attempt at flight using a set of wings: “ Among other very curious experiments which he made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas Nov 10 09, 1:41 AM

serpa

Star_gazer you went back in time a couple hundred years to the 800s! The man I'm looking for was a monk. He lived in the same abbey as a notable historian. Nov 10 09, 9:11 AM

Zbeckabee

Eilmer of Malmesbury (also known as Oliver due to a scribe's miscopying, or Elmer) was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings. Given the geography of the abbey, his landing site, and the account of his flight, to travel for "more than a furlong" (220 yards, 201 metres) he would have had to have been airborne for about 15 seconds. His exact flightpath is not known, nor how long he was in the air, because today’s abbey is not the abbey of the eleventh century, when it was probably smaller, although the tower was probably close to the present height. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury Nov 10 09, 4:04 PM

serpa

Thanks Zb! Nov 10 09, 4:53 PM