#Aeronaut

[his-dark-materials-trilogy]

Once Upon a Time in the North

Illustrated edition by Chris Wormell

[empirearchives]

Sophie Blanchard

1811 Performances in Paris:

[scotianostra]

October 5th 1785 saw the Pioneering Italian aeronaut Vincenzo Lunardi take his balloon from Heriot’s School, Edinburgh to Ceres in Fife.

If you remember my post about Scotland’s first balloon flight by James Tytler that happened in August 1784, we ll it must have attracted the attention of the worlds pioneering balloonists, Italian Vincenzo Lunardi.

And so it was at 3:45 p.m. on this very day, an 1785, the Italian, Vincenzo Lunardi lifted off in his “aerostatic machine” from the garden of George Heriot’s School for what would be the first of a series of historic balloon flights across Scotland.

Lunardi was invited to bring his balloon to Scotland in 1785, and it is from his account, printed a year later, that we get a real picture of Lunardi’s impression of Scots and the detail of his adventure. Lunardi arrived in September of 1785 and describes the people as “a hardy race…full of men of science and liberality” and the countryside along his journey as “almost alpine” and full of “enchanted regions of romance”.

It took this adventurous Italian the better part of a month to meet the right people to promote his balloon flights, but by the beginning of October the place and time had been set for Lunardi’s first daring flight: a 46-mile journey, over 36 miles of water, from Edinburgh to near Ceres in Fife, where a plaque now marks his landing. From a height of 1100 feet above ground, Lunardi recounts being able to see Glasgow and Paisley as well as the far shore of the Firth of Forth. Lunardi was amazed and distracted by the beauty of Scotland, so much so that he accidentally rose to almost 2000 feet and found himself out over the Forth before knowing it. His journey took him over Inchkeith, east towards North Berwick, then north above the shore of Fife at Lower Largo and finally touching down just outside of Ceres.

After his successful journey, Lunardi rested in Cupar where he was received by many dignitaries and clubs and then invited to St Andrews by the “Gentleman Golfers”. Upon arrival in St Andrews on the 15th of October, Lunardi was made a member of the golf club, was given freedom of the town and a ball was hosted on his behalf. The next day he visited the University, and his only comment about our institution is that it is “furnished with a good library, and some very valuable ancient manuscripts”!!

One of the many curious titles and awards that Lunardi received after this first flight was an invitation to join the “Knights Companions of the Beggar’s Benison,” a local club of the upper classes with rather questionable intentions! Lunardi would make four more flights in Scotland, all by the end of 1785, the last one ending in disaster as he was forced down to sea near the Isle of May. His passion and nature for ballooning inspired a nation to look to the skies.

[aherdofbees]

[fz-freakyed]

ギンガフォース(Ginga Force) - Aeronaut (STAGE 1) 【XV-5080arrange】

Uploaded Apr 28, 2013 by universe

[pixel-create]

Red haired aeronaut, steampunk style, Alexandra Breckenridge inspired AI generation

[postcard-from-the-past]

Aeronaut Charles Dollfus on a vintage postcard

[texeoghea]

more aeronaut...

[spacenoirdetective]

[mutantlord]

Airship Pilot

This character served aboard an airship and took on the caste title of aeronaut. So too, he or she gained considerable knowledge of their own region, having visited most barter towns, digger forts, trade outposts, farming villages and any sprawling slum cities which might exist in the area. Likewise, this balloonist has memorized the details of the terrain below their vessel, including the rivers, old war zones, ruin sites, swamps, impassable mutant forests, and treacherous mountains and badlands. https://www.outlandarts.com/expansionrules.htm

[handgiven]

“If you believe in any god, I suggest prayin' to them now.”

terrible first meeting starters / @aercnaut

"well i think you ought to calm down. no situation is quite so dire—" besides. who's ever heard of god answering a prayer like that? god is not a vending machine...

[travsd]

Samuel Franklin Cody: Horseman on High

Born this day the Wild West showman, music hall performer, actor, aeronaut, and hoaxer Samuel Franklin Cody (Samuel Franklin Cowdery, 1867-1913). What an American moniker, eh? The first name of Samuel Adams, Samuel F.B. Morse, and Samuel Clemens, combined with the surname of Benjamin Franklin, combined with the last name of Buffalo Bill. And the latter is the principal cause for labeling him a…

[mindblowingscience]

NASA has launched the Europa Clipper spacecraft on an almost 10-year mission to learn whether conditions on Jupiter’s moon could sustain life in what scientists believe could be a deep ocean hidden beneath its icy surface. The spacecraft, which is supposed to travel 3 billion kilometres (1.8 billion miles), was launched on Monday on board SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from a NASA facility on Florida’s east coast.

Continue Reading.

[scotianostra]

October 5th 1785 saw a spectacular balloon flight by Italian aeronaut Vincenzo Lunardi from Heriot's School, Edinburgh to Ceres in Fife, the first Scottish hydrogen-filled balloon take off.

The 46 mile flight over the Firth of Forth ended at Coaltown of Callange in the parish of Ceres, Fife. There is today a commemorative plaque nearby. At the time, The Scots Magazine reported:

'The beauty and grandeur of the spectacle could only be exceeded by the cool, intrepid manner in which the adventurer conducted himself; and indeed he seemed infinitely more at ease than the greater part of his spectators.'

The Glasgow Mercury newspaper ran adverts the following month announcing Lunardi's intention to 'gratify the curiosity of the public of Glasgow, by ascending in his Grand Air Balloon from a conspicuous place in the city'. Vincenzo made five flights in Scotland in his Grand Air Balloon—which was made of 140m2 of green, pink and yellow silk, and which was exhibited, 'suspended in its floating state' in the choir of St. Mungo's Cathedral in Glasgow for the admission charge of one shilling.

The weather was fine at about 14:00 on 23rd November 1785 when The Daredevil Aeronaut 'ascended into the atmosphere with majestic grandeur, to the astonishment and admiration of the spectators' from St. Andrew's Square in Glasgow. The two-hour flight covered 110 miles, and passed over Hamilton and Lanark before landing at the feet of 'trembling shepherds' in Hawick near the border.

A couple of weeks later, in early December, a local 'character' called Lothian Tam managed to get entangled in the ropes and as the balloon ascended—again from St. Andrew's Square in Glasgow, Tam was lifted 6 metres before being cut loose and falling—with apparently no serious injury. The weather was worse on this flight—which had to end after just 20 minutes, with the Grand Balloon landing in Campsie Glen in Milton of Campsie—just over 10 miles from Glasgow. His landing, on 5th December 1785, is commemorated by a small plaque in the village.

However, the next flight on 20 December 1785, was a disaster, though he survived. Seventy minutes after the ascent from the grounds of Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh, Lunardi was forced down in the sea. He spent a long time in the North Sea until rescued by a passing fishing boat which docked at North Berwick. The diary of the Rev John Mill from Shetland states:

'A French man called Lunardi fled over the Firth of Forth in a Balloon, and lighted in Ceres parish, not far from Cupar, in Fife; and O! how much are the thoughtless multitude set on these and like foolish vanities to the neglect of the one thing needful. Afterwards, 'tis said, when soaring upwards in the foresaid machine, he was driven by the wind down the Firth of Forth, and tumbled down into the sea near the little Isle of May, where he had perished had not a boat been near who saved him and his machine.'

A short time later, in 1786, Lunardi published 'An Account of five Aerial Voyages in Scotland' in a series of letters to his guardian, Gherardo Campagni.

[go-go-gadget-autism]

Europa Clipper! i am terrified but utterly excited <3

[takeflyte]