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XVI

The loss of the Titanic in 1912, the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, and the endless carnage of the First World War (1914-1918) drew many people to recall the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, a father and son who escaped from prison by crafting wings of wax and feathers. In the tale, Daedalus warns his son not to trust the wings overmuch, lest they fail, a lesson in complacency, and then not to fly too high lest the heat of the sun melt the wax, a warning against hubris. Icarus ignores his father's advice, falls out of the sky, and is killed.

Most people, in recalling the old saw, remembered mostly that Icarus and Daedalus had flown. The first man to see a bird probably envied the creature, and throughout human existence, men have tried to devise flying machines.

The first known airship was designed by Father Francesco Lana de Terzi S.J., in 1670. Father Francesco imagined a thought experiment wherein a gondola could be hefted aloft by having four copper vacuum globes attached to it. In theory, scientists agree, this would work, but the vacuum globes would have to be strong enough to withstand atmospheric pressure, hence rendering them too heavy to produce lift. Unless someone invents a superlight and superstrong material that can withstand crushing pressures, de Terzi's ship will never be built. However, Father Francesco gave a new word to the vocabulary of flight: Any cargo or passenger compartment on an airship is called a gondola.

In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers of France discovered that they could produce lift by heating the air inside of a silk pouch. Ultimately they created a huge pouch underneath which they suspended a gondola carrying a heating element. They had invented the hot air balloon, still in use today, but their balloon had no steering mechanism.

Blanchard crossing the English Channel. Rather than flying the French and British flags he was probably just happy enough to survive the trip

In 1785, a self-styled aeronaut, Pierre Blanchard tried to improve upon the Montgolfier balloon by fitting it with a sail (equivalent to a rudder for directionality), and hand-cranked flapping wings (equivalent to flaps and ailerons for lift and control). By some near-miraculous combination of perfect barometric pressure (for lift), fair weather (for visibility), good wind speed and proper wind direction (a moderate easterly), all combined with sensible sail handling techniques, proper temperature maintenance inside the balloon, brawn in keeping the manually-operated wings flapping, plus intelligence and stamina, Blanchard actually crossed the English Channel in his contraption and lived to tell about it. But even Blanchard knew he'd been luckier than any man has a right to be, and he returned to France by boat. What happened to his airship is unknown.

The idea of steerable balloons did not go away, but no one perfected the idea until the latter half of the 19th Century, right around the time of the Great Age of Steamships. It all began anew during the American Civil War, when a retired German Lieutenant General volunteered for service with the Union Army and was assigned to the fledgling Balloon Corps. Although balloons fascinated President Lincoln the Federal Army grounded its balloons in 1863, but not before the German General, an aristocrat by the name of Graf Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, was inspired by what he saw in America.