A Voyage to the Moon

A French cartoon from 1867, titled Voyage a la Lune, or Voyage to the Moon.

There’s a fine line between fiction and invention. Throughout my research into flying machines, I’ve come across many fictional designs that weren’t meant to actually fly, but to evoke the idea of flight. The above cartoon is one of these. It’s a French cartoon from 1867, titled Voyage a la Lune, or Voyage to the Moon. It riffs on the idea of a bicycle that flies, and it’s got a playful feeling about it, as if it doesn’t take itself seriously. The pilot certainly doesn’t; he seems perfectly content to pedal his machine high above the ground and study the world below through his telescope.

The design is a fantasy, to be sure, but who’s to say it didn’t inspire an actual proposal or inform an inventor’s mind at some point? It may be far-fetched given the contraption’s satirical vibes, but it’s an interesting thought to ponder. One thing I’ve noticed is the history of flying machines includes just as many non-working prototypes as it does working ones. After all, it’s much easier to dream up a flying machine than to build and test a working prototype. To this I say, keep pedaling, good sir.

Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.