|
The Dream of Flying |
Page 4 |
|||
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||||
 |
|
|||
| Eilmer - the Flying Monk - 1010 AD | ||||
|
An early attempt to fly was done by the
Benedictine monk Eilmer in England. He belonged to the monastery in Malmesbury. He
lived between
981-1069
AD (approx) and made his
famous flight around 1010 AD. Brother Eilmer designed a glider aircraft consisting of a pair of wings without tail part. With this he threw himself out from the top of the tower of Malmesbury Abbey. However the wings did not met his expectations. He caught the winds around the tower and flew about 200 m from the tower. But at last he fell down, but not so fast that he killed himself. Certainly he broke his both legs and remained crippled for the rest of his life, but he lived to an old age - not so usual for an aviation pioneer. |
||||
 |
||||
|
|
Left: Eilmer of Malmesbury
shown here, commemorated in an Edwardian stained glass window installed at
the west end of the current 14th century Abbey, in Malmesbury England. Photograph © Andrew Dunn, 15 September 2005. This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License |
|||
|
|
||||
Custom Search
| ||||
|
|
|
|
||
| © Lars Henriksson |
|
Updated 2009-05-13 |
||
