Drop-Dead Gorgeous Flying Man/Ornithopter Patent Drawings, 1889

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1746

This is one of the most appealing sets of "flying" or manned aerostation patent drawings that I have seen in the USPTO collection for the 19th century. The machine is a human-powered ornithopter, applying the structure of a human against that of a bird, and outfitting the flyer accordingly to combat their human weaknesses as adapted to bird flight.  Needless to say, and in spite of the beauty of the thought, this arrangement was destined to deep failure.  (The patentee, Reuben Jasper Spaulding, of Rosita ("Little Rose"), Colorado (south of Pueblo), may have been the same Reuben J Spaulding who made the first gold strike on the Blue River on Colorado's Western Slope in 1859.)  Spaulding's design is interesting also for the balloon device for getting the aero pioneer off the ground. 

[Source:  Google Patents (and also for the extensive annotations for the images).]  I note that there was a model constructed for this patent--I'd love to see that.

And along this same vein of ornithopter-y thought is this, another American solution to the man-bird-mechanical-flight continuum, produced a dozen years earlier--it is similar, though not nearly as glorious (at least in presentation) as the later Spaulding effort: 

 

The work really ins't quite as awesome as Spalding's beautiful Lazarusian resurrection, and not as detailed, but still quite interesting:

 

Comments

[Paul Dunlop]

"I note that there was a model constructed for this patent--I'd love to see that."

You can. Spalding actually made two models. The one that went to the US Patent Office, to accompany his patent application, still survives. A large colour photo of it can be seen on page 63 of the Time-Life book "The Road to Kitty Hawk" (ISBN 0809432609).

The second model was gifted by a Spalding descendant to the author Don Dwiggins. Photos of that model can be seen in Dwiggins' book "Man-Powered Aircraft" (ISBN 0830622543).

Cheers,
Paul