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Melchior Bauer's cherub wagon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart  and
Helen Linthorne Hart
Clive Hart
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Extract

No eighteenth century designer of flying machines surpassed Melchior Bauer in imagination and aerodynamic insight. Born on 19th October 1733 at Lehnitzsch, a village near Altenburg, he was the son of a gardener, Hans Bauer'1'. Little is known of his life, but in 1763 he went to London, where he sought patronage from the recently crowned King George III for the construction of a man-powered aircraft. According to his own account, he got no further than the official scribe who refused to copy out the submission, saying that even if he were offered £500 he would never agree to send such folly to the Court. ‘If you could do all that you claim,’ said the scribe, ‘you would certainly be the foremost and greatest man on earth.’ [1 r](2).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 84 , Issue 829 , January 1980 , pp. 22 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1980 

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References

1. The few facts that are known about Bauer are incorporated in a long historical novel by Peter Supf, Der Himmelswagen: das Schicksal des Melchior Bauer, Stuttgart, 1953. For assistance in the preparation of this paper we wish to thank Dr. Huisman, J. A. and Dr. Knuth, A. M. L., both of Utrecht, and Dr. and Mrs. Kiess, R., of Stuttgart.Google Scholar
2. The manuscript, in which Bauer describes his flying machine and his attempts to find a patron, is known as ‘Die Flug-zeughandschrift des Melchior Bauer'. Dated 1764, it is in the Staatsarchiv, Weimar, catalogued a. Rep. A Greiz Rep 41 Nr. 12a. It consists of eight folios, written on both sides except for the last, f. 8V, which is blank. The text, in a large, clear hand, is in eighteenth century German script, with occasional use of Roman for salutations and emphasis. There are diagrams and line drawings on ff. 4V, 5r, 5V, 6r, 6V, 8r. Folio numbers are included in brackets in our translations.Google Scholar
3. See Johnson, Hubert C., Frederick the Great and his Officials, New Haven and London, 1975, pp 232–37.Google Scholar
4. The apostolic creatures: man, lion, ox, and eagle (Ezekiel 1:10).Google Scholar
5. The choice of 1364 as a date for comparison suggests very strongly that Bauer was writing in 1764, exactly four hundred years later.Google Scholar
6. Fabricius AB., Aquapendente, Hieronymus, De alarum actione, hoc est de volatu, appended to his De motu locali animalium secundum totum, Patavii, 1618, separately paginated 1–16.Google Scholar
7. Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso. De motu animalium I, Romae, 1680, plate XIII.Google Scholar