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Carl Meerwein's ornithoptet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart
Clive Hart*
Affiliation:
Department of Literature, University of Essex
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Extract

In 1781-84 Carl Friedrich Meerwein (1737-1810), a South German builder and architect to his namesake, Karl Friedrich, Prince of Baden, worked on ideas for a practical ornithopter. Living in comparative obscurity in Emmendingen, a small town near Freiburg, he began in August 1781 by building a simple pair of ellipsoidal wings. He might have taken the matter no further had his interest not been caught by reports of Pierre Blanchard's abortive flying attempts in Paris, published in a Basel journal in July 1782. During the next two years, when everyone in Europe was talking about the French balloonists, Meerwein decided to set out his ideas for a heavier-than-air machine. Published in Basel in the summer of 1784, his book was widely read. A modified French version was published in the same year and reissued in 1785, and in 1812 a Portuguese translation appeared.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 84 , Issue 832 , May 1980 , pp. 140 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1980 

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References

1. Meerwein, Carl Friedrich. Die Kunst zu fliegen nach Art der Vögel, Frankfurt und Basel, 1784. As the text is so brief (46 pp), I have not thought it necessary to cite page numbers.Google Scholar
2. L'Art de voler à la manière des oiseaux, Basle, 1784; new impression 1785. A Arte de voar a’ maneira dos passaros, Lisboa, 1812. The French version is shortened and simplified. It contains errors of translation and interpretation which show that it cannot have been seen through the press in detail by Meerwein himself. One or two small modifications and improvements (e.g., the triangular structure for supporting the pilot's legs; see below) nevertheless suggest that some authorial second thoughts may have been included.Google Scholar
3. See Hart, Professor Clive and Hart, Helen L. Melchior Bauer's cherub wagon. The Aeronautical Journal, Vol 84, pp 22–27, January 1980.Google Scholar
4. Meerwein's measurements are based on South German units, with a pound of 32 ounces, a foot of 10 inches, and an inch of 100 lines.Google Scholar
5. See Schlettwein, Johann August. Bemiihungen in der Naturkunde undanderen nützlichen Wissemchaften, Jena, 1756.Google Scholar
6. SirNewton, Isaac. Correspondence II, ed. Turnbull, H. W., FRS, Cambridge, 1960, p 295.Google Scholar