The Flying Monk

Posted by John Crandall Aug 20, 2006

By this account, Eimler built a gliding machine copied on the wings of birds, and jumped from the top of a tower gliding a fairly long distance.

He landed badly, and broke both his legs. He was in the process of designing a tail section which he said would enable him to land better when the Abbot of Malmesbury forbid him to risk his life any further on such outlandish experiments.

Its a very interesting tale, and one of those fun "what ifs", and footnotes to History that one runs into when doing research. From the Greek Myth of icarus, which some say could actually be based on fact since the Cliffs of Crete (where it supposedly happened) provide thermal updrafts ideal for gliding flight, and have the added benefit of being over water where the glider is in little more danger than a cliff diver.

Whether or not such tales are literally true, men have dreamed of flying since ancient times. There are numerous similar tales of short gliing flights, but controlled repeatable gliding flight was not accomplished until Otto Lilienthal, and controlled powered flight had to wait for the Wright Brothers.