Dale Henry. Early Flying Machines

Oxford University Press, 1992. — 72 p.If you had never seen an airplane - or even a balloon or a kite what would convince you that man could fly?Discoveries and Inventions is a new series that looks at the history of science and technology from a unique perspective. In each of these concise and highly illustrated books, specialist science writers focus on areas of everyday life that have been vastly changed by discovery, research, andinvention. But what makes these books so interesting and so much fun is that no prior knowledge of the subject is assumed. Series editor Rodney Dale has found trade catalogs, advertisements, patent drawings, blueprints, and photographs of inventions and discoveries -- all the visual evidence of scientists and inventors bringing their ideas to reality. As we see how each new invention was originally presented tothe public, it becomes clear how one invention naturally paved the way to another, how one machine allowed another to be made, and how the need for a new machine or process countered the effect of a preceding one.Ancient dreams
Balloons
Airships
The parachute
Ornithopters
Fixed-wing flight
Success
Chronology
Further reading