Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!
Click to filter posts by the three main subjects for the blog : Architecture, Flight and Mountains.
Jean Jacques Bourcart’s Ornithopter
Pictured above is a series of studies for a flying machine, proposed in 1866 by Jean Jacques Bourcart. Titled Vélocipède Aérien, the drawings show variations on an ornithopter design, in which a human pilot flaps the wings of the craft in order to fly. The subtitle of the illustration reveals that these are studies, tests and inventions which, without solving the problem of aviation, have nevertheless given interesting and encouraging results to the author.