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Another Flying Dragon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart
Clive Hart*
Affiliation:
Department of English, University of Dundee
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Extract

In my paper “Mediaeval Kites and Windsocks”, I attempted to throw some new light on the curious dragon-shaped objects shown flying on the ends of lines, or fixed to the tops of poles, in a number of mediaeval and Renaissance books of military technology. Until recently these have usually been interpreted as primitive aerostats whose lift is supplemented by wind-forces similar to those which raise a kite.

A further illustration of the flying dragon is reproduced here (Fig 1). As it does not belong to any of the general categories or groups into which the other illustrations fall, it is worth considering in detail. Its three-part tail and general outline indicate that it bears some relationship to the dragons depicted in Figs. 6 and 7 of my paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 76 , Issue 741 , September 1972 , pp. 551
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1972 

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References

1. Hart, Clive. Mediaeval Kites and Windsocks. The Aeronautical Journal, Vol 73, pp. 1019-26, December 1969. (See also HART, Clive, The Dream of Flight: Aeronautics from Classical Times to the Renaissance. Faber and Faber, London, 1972).Google Scholar
2. Hart, Clive. The Dream of Flight, pp. 52-58.Google Scholar
3.Niedersachsische Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, Gottingen, Codices philos. 63 and 64.Google Scholar
4.Christ Church, Oxford, MS 92, ff. 77v-78r, 1326/7.Google Scholar