Man-Made Wings

According to a fascinating story there was a race of intelligent beings from another planet that possessed highly-developed brains but no hands; they could solve the most complex mathematical problems but were not able to dissect a flower to examine the structure or build ships to link the continents of their planet.

A closer examination shows that this imaginary situation is not all far-fetched. Man does indeed possess very skilful tools – his hands – in addition to his brain which gives him the power to think and learn from the past. Man was able to travel on land and water very early, but with regard to the air he was in much the same position as imagined handless creatures.

Like them, man was able to do something which was forbidden to the earthbound creatures around him, for he was able to fly in thought, to travel in imagination through space to the planets which in his early days he held to be the home of his gods, who were already able to fly. Perhaps when we see rockets nowadays, climbing heavenwards on their incandescent jets of gas; we are reminded of the chariot of the Sun God of the ancient Greeks.

There are so many legends full of stories of flying gods and their human imitators. Many generations have come under the influence of the legends of flight handed down from antiquity. The fact that they were legends has been quite unimportant, for it is not bare facts alone which assist progress. The energy of the human spirit, and curiosity and intuition of genius played an equal part. Repeatedly men have sacrificed strength, health and life to the dream of flight. Their story is unique romance, ardent inquiry, and it would need a complete encyclopaedia to record all the incidents and ideas, whether born of magic or pure research.

The progress of aeronautics is not due to mankind of a particular generation alone, for it is the result of a long and gradual development, the result of creative planning, tireless efforts, unceasing research and a chain of successes and failures spreading over many years.

Winged horses, mechanical airships, carriages drawn by birds, sails, genii and gigantic magnets, to name only a few of the possibilities named in legend, were not only the means proposed at different times to achieve flight.