Doctor Miller's Design for an Ornithopter: 1843

Doctor Miller's Design for an Ornithopter: 1843

THIS ELEGANT print of 1843 may well have inspired the famous song about the young man on the flying trapeze, who flew through the air with the greatest of ease; for never was flying made to look so simple and effortless. The print was published within a few weeks of those showing Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage; and Dr. Miller's harking back to the birds is almost as significant at the time as Henson's prophetic vision of the future, as it showed tile typical contrast of romantics and realists.

The machine here proposed by Miller, called with splendid disregard for etymology “The Aerostat”, was one of the last designs for an Ornithopter to catch the public's imagination, and seems to have been largely inspired by the publicity given to Degen's efforts in 1809, unless it was a light-hearted counterblast to Henson himself, which Miller hurried through the press. All interesting detail, to be found in the printed key to the drawing, is the reference to "wings or propellers”, within the same few weeks of the Henson patent referring to airscrews as propellers. The word “propeller" continued to denote any means of propulsion for some time thereafter.

C. H. GIBBs-SMITH

One of 12 prints from the Collections ions of the Royal Aeronautical Society reproduced by the Society to mark its Centenary 1966 No.4

One of 12 prints from the Collections of the Royal Aeronautical Society reproduced by the Society to mark its Centenary in 1966—No. 3

Original size 38.5cm by 35.5cm

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