Carl Friedrich Meerwein
Encyclopedia
Carl Friedrich Meerwein was a German
civil engineer
and aviation pioneer
.
He built flying devices with moving wings. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica he succeeded in flying with one of these devices, an ornithopter
in 1781, at Giessen, Germany. Further attempts were less successful. There is a legend that he only survived one of his flights in 1784 because he hit exactly upon a dung pile.
"Meerwein, the architect of the Prince of Baden, built an orthopteric machine, and protested against the tendency of the aerostats which had just been invented." (Verne, Robur)
Meerwein died as a result of a fall from a horse.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and aviation pioneer
Aviation history
The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest attempts in kites and gliders to powered heavier-than-air, supersonic and hypersonic flight.The first form of man-made flying objects were kites...
.
He built flying devices with moving wings. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica he succeeded in flying with one of these devices, an ornithopter
Ornithopter
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as these flying creatures. Manned ornithopters have also been built, and some...
in 1781, at Giessen, Germany. Further attempts were less successful. There is a legend that he only survived one of his flights in 1784 because he hit exactly upon a dung pile.
"Meerwein, the architect of the Prince of Baden, built an orthopteric machine, and protested against the tendency of the aerostats which had just been invented." (Verne, Robur)
Meerwein died as a result of a fall from a horse.
Sources
- This article is based in part on material from the German Wikipedia.
Further reading
- "Airplane:History of Flight" (2007) Encyclopædia Britannica Retrieved May 17, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica
- Hart, Clive (1972)The dream of flight: aeronautics from classical times to the Renaissance Faber and Faber, London, ISBN 0-571-09886-X