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!
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Early Aeronautics
Pictured above is a collage of early flying machines, originally published in the German encyclopedia Meyers Konversations Lexikon. I love collages like this because the illustrator inevitably must pick and choose which examples to show. This is most likely done for a combination of reasons, including available illustrations, the most famous examples, and page layout.
“The honor of inventing the airplane cannot be assigned wholly to one man; like most other inventions, it is the product of many minds.”
-Richard Pearse, Kiwi inventor and aviator, 1877-1953.
The Wright Flyer and the World’s First Powered Flight
Upon a flat plain outside the town of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903, a home-made flying machine lifted off the ground into a headwind. It landed twelve seconds later and 37 meters (120 feet) away from its launch point. This short distance marked the first time in the history of humankind that a manned, heavier-than-air craft had flown under its own power. This event would cement its creators into the pantheon of technological pioneers and make them a household name.
Octave Chanute’s Glider Designs
Pictured above is a twelve-winged glider designed by Octave Chanute in 1896. It’s one of many flying machines Chanute experimented with, and like these others, it directly influenced other pioneers of aviation. Chanute began his career as a civil engineer, and he made a name for himself building railroads and bridges. After retiring in 1883, he turned his attention to aviation, which was a subject he’d been interested in for decades prior.
The Wright Brothers’ Flying Machine Patent
I find it fascinating to look at patent drawings of iconic designs throughout history. It’s like you’re getting a glimpse of the design process, before an object enters the public consciousness. Pictured above is a patent for the Wright Brothers’ flying machine, which has since become synonymous with the first ever powered flight. I love how drawings like this strip away any artistic style or vision, and just focus on the object itself. This is a hugely important object that lives on in the history of aviation and human achievement, but it’s rendered here in the most basic, unpretentious way.
"For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will cost me an increased amount of money if not my life."
-Wilbur Wright, inventor and aviation pioneer, 1867-1912
"The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who ... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space ... on the infinite highway of the air."
-Wilbur Wright, inventor and aviation pioneer, 1867-1912