Nicolas Edme Rétif’s Flying Man
Etching from Nicolas Edme Rétif’s 1781 novel La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant, or The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man. It shows an early idea for a flying machine , consisting of a pair of wings and a small parachute.
The above illustration is from Nicolas Edme Rétif’s 1781 novel La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant, or The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man. The bird suit in the illustration was built by Victorin, the main character of the novel. He was in love with Christine, the daughter of a local lord, and he built the suit in order to elope with her and fly to the summit of a local mountain to start a colony, where no other people could reach. After reaching the mountaintop, the two started a family, and over time the colony grew in size. As it grew, Victorin and his children would fly to other islands in the region and set up satellite colonies.
Though fictional, the bird suit design is still worth pondering. It’s essentially a forerunner to modern wingsuits. It’s got two large wings, attached from head-to-toe along the pilot’s sides, with another panel between the pilot’s legs. There’s also a small umbrella-like contraption that sits above the pilot’s head. The overall effect is like a giant leaf, or some kind of mashup between a flying squirrel and a king cobra, with a bit more flair along the wing edges.
Etching from Nicolas Edme Rétif’s 1781 novel La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant, or The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man. It shows the main character, Victorin, shortly after eloping with his love Christine.
Victorin’s story taps into a few aspects of the human need for verticality. The first is the mountain summit. He needed an isolated place that no one else could reach, and he chose the highest point around. Not only was it the highest place, which meant it was the most isolated, but it was also the most special, which meant it was good enough for his love Christine. The second is the flying machine. It’s a fictional design, which means it doesn’t have the burden of actual flight, but the idea is telling. Think about it. Victorin was flying to different islands and setting up colonies. The inhabitants had never seen a flying man before, so they must’ve been quite enamored upon seeing him fly in from the sea, like some sort of god.
Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.