Renaissance flying machines?

I've had an idea fluttering about in my head for quite some time, actually since before I'd even heard of althistory. The idea is, what if Leonardo da Vinci or some contemporary had made it their life's work to fly, and managed to not only accomplish it in theory but to do some massive public demonstration (Like leaping off Giotto’s Campanile or something like that.)
I'd like to know what you all think about the idea, if it's even plausible for that to have happened. Would have been Papal backlash at the idea of humans flying? Would it even be seen as something useful or would it just be some novelty thing? Do you think we might see some sort of mail service across the English channel (Or some other narrow strip of water) based off of these? And what about the possibility of some sort of perfected gunpowder engine?

Difficult to say. I'd argue that da Vinci actually didn't master the theory beyond basics (the idea of air resistance and using airfoils to retard descent and guide drift). A practical series of experiments - hopefully by someone who is very lucky or a group of committed people - could produce something, maybe a basic glider or primitive base-jumping chute. Some of Leonardo's drawings do work, in theory, but they need considerable fine-tuning.

Technology in the practical senese is not the issue. 16th century craftsmen could build a functional glider or hot air ballon if they knew what they were doing. The "know what you are doing" is the problem, though. They lack most of the theory. We have tempring reports from the middle ages of people building flyinmg machines that kind of worked, but I doubt that Leonardo could go beyond that.

carlton_bach said:

Technology in the practical senese is not the issue. 16th century craftsmen could build a functional glider or hot air ballon if they knew what they were doing. The "know what you are doing" is the problem, though. They lack most of the theory. We have tempring reports from the middle ages of people building flyinmg machines that kind of worked, but I doubt that Leonardo could go beyond that.

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Historically the idea of ballon, the one made by the Mongolfier brothers, came from a report of a french ambassador in China that saw acrobats.
Kind of alliance of serenpidity and contacts with Asia, I do'nt think it's that hard to achieve for Renaissance.

carlton_bach said:

A practical series of experiments - hopefully by someone who is very lucky or a group of committed people - could produce something, maybe a basic glider or primitive base-jumping chute. Some of Leonardo's drawings do work, in theory, but they need considerable fine-tuning.

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That being said, do you think that an initial experiment, like my Giotto’s Campanile proposition would attract enough attention in Europe (And maybe beyond) to get a group of dedicated minds together to work on the idea of flight? Or as I brought up earlier, would there have been Papal backlash from such an event, enough to deter at least some of these people from joining one of these groups?

Voleur Inconnu said:

That being said, do you think that an initial experiment, like my Giotto’s Campanile proposition would attract enough attention in Europe (And maybe beyond) to get a group of dedicated minds together to work on the idea of flight? Or as I brought up earlier, would there have been Papal backlash from such an event, enough to deter at least some of these people from joining one of these groups?

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I'm not sure why there would be any sort of "papal backlash;" in fact, if someone were to want to organize or coordinate thinkers across Europe during this general time period, the Church would be a decent candidate.

Other than that, I see a couple of problems: you'd need a very successful demonstration before convincing any power (secular or ecclesiastical) to provide support or funding, and the state of the natural sciences was such in that period that even with one successful demonstration you could have a difficult time replicating the results because it'd be hard to quantify what had made this one work.

Kaiphranos said:

I'm not sure why there would be any sort of "papal backlash;" in fact, if someone were to want to organize or coordinate thinkers across Europe during this general time period, the Church would be a decent candidate.

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My reasoning behind the Papal backlash is due to what happened to Galileo over the idea of Heliocentrism. Though I'm not sure flight could cause nearly as much a stir as that did.

On the matter of a successful experiment, da Vinci was a smart man to say the very least, so I'm sure he would run countless tests on various designs (Probably small scale, or maybe even a large scale manned test either at night or in the countryside) before he would go for a publicity stunt like that, not only for his own safety but to attract the attention he desired. So a public test would almost certainly be a huge success, and probably during a large event for sake of attention.

And on the note of the Sciences, if things went well enough, might we see a slightly earlier, or an accelerated Scientific Revolution as a result of these combined efforts?

Voleur Inconnu said:

My reasoning behind the Papal backlash is due to what happened to Galileo over the idea of Heliocentrism. Though I'm not sure flight could cause nearly as much a stir as that did.

On the matter of a successful experiment, da Vinci was a smart man to say the very least, so I'm sure he would run countless tests on various designs (Probably small scale, or maybe even a large scale manned test either at night or in the countryside) before he would go for a publicity stunt like that, not only for his own safety but to attract the attention he desired. So a public test would almost certainly be a huge success, and probably during a large event for sake of attention.

And on the note of the Sciences, if things went well enough, might we see a slightly earlier, or an accelerated Scientific Revolution as a result of these combined efforts?

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Galileo was unlucky in that the church had finally decided to come downn on one side of the debate (true to form, the wrong one) and decided to make an example of the noisiest and most arrogant heliocentrist they could find. Flight would be different for several reasons:

1) it's not a theory, thus not a matter of faith, but a technique, thus a matter of practice. The church had few problems with technology at the time.

2) it's a really cool toy, and the popes loved cool toys as much as any other Renaissance potentate.

3) it is in no way offensive to the Church's teachings. After all, nowhere in the Bible or the Patristic writings does it say "Thou Shalt Not Apply Aerodynamics"

You'd certainly see church backlash, especially from some of the mendicant orders, and most likely they'd preach fire and brimstone and cite the example of Simon Magus. But you need exceptional circumstances for anyone to listen to them. Savonarola was an outlier, not the norm.

I still don't think this will produce anything like a European scientific effort, again for several reasons. The first is that it isn't really very scientific. The maths behind aerodynamics and the physics behind aerostatics are beyond Renaissance capacities. Making and flying a glider or a balloon will be an art, design will mostly be seat-of-the-pants. This can draw attention and there will be speculation about its applications, but you cannot print it up and mail it to the Leipzig fair so the Germans can build their own. You need to learn this hands-on. Secondly, aerodynamic flight will be pretty useless. The technology to make anything other than a one-man glider is centuries away. These things will become the staple of public festivals and spark an interest in fireworks-enhanced aerobatics, but nothing more than that. Balloons will be more immediately useful for things like cartography and reconnaissance and are likely to bring a continentwide craft into existence that would soon draw scientific attention. But they, too, would remain a niche tool. Thirdly, these things will keep killing people. Savour the irony if a glider designed by Leonardo means Galileo Galilei dies in an air crash at age 19.

I think it's much more likely to see early exploration of hot air balloons, and maybe even some kind of airship sooner (yes, yes, I know airships are an AH cliche -- but theoretically you could power one with a steam engine in an alternate 1700s). Actual airplanes? Pretty much impossible without some kind of more modern power source, like a diesel engine...

I also agree that any sort of development along these lines is going to be done by individual artisans and in a sort of haphazard way.

Oh! Remember that medieval Chinese guy who tried to build a rocket flying machine? Maybe you could do something with that! A very primitive, one-use flying machine, but maybe you could combine it with renaissance parachutes to get clockpunk paratroopers.

SRT said:

Oh! Remember that medieval Chinese guy who tried to build a rocket flying machine? Maybe you could do something with that! A very primitive, one-use flying machine, but maybe you could combine it with renaissance parachutes to get clockpunk paratroopers.

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Why do I get the image of some poor serf going splat against the castle's wall during the development phase ?

carlton_bach said:

"Thou Shalt Not Apply Aerodynamics"

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If I ever become Pope, that will be my first decree.

But on a more serious note, how early do you think that practical flying machines would appear? As SRT said, there would probably be exploration into airships much sooner, and potentially a 1700's steam airship. And as I believe I mentioned earlier, perhaps a gunpowder engine would have been developed in the mid 1600's, as Christiaan Huygens made attempts to develop one in 1673. In OTL it never worked, but if there is some manned flight already, I'd imagine an application to a gunpowder engine might lead to motivation and maybe even funding.

And rocket powered paratroopers during the renaissance. That's got to be one of the most bizarre outcomes imaginable. But I've got to admit, if someone came up with the idea and implemented it, that would be way better than a siege engine. It would probably have a failure rate of unimaginable proportions, but the sight of seeing a couple hundred men suddenly fly up into the air and land inside your walls would probably negate the effects of a couple of them exploding or crashing through buildings. Besides, as long as one of them can open the gate, I guess it doesn't really matter if a couple don't work properly.

Voleur Inconnu said:

And rocket powered paratroopers during the renaissance. That's got to be one of the most bizarre outcomes imaginable. But I've got to admit, if someone came up with the idea and implemented it, that would be way better than a siege engine. It would probably have a failure rate of unimaginable proportions, but the sight of seeing a couple hundred men suddenly fly up into the air and land inside your walls would probably negate the effects of a couple of them exploding or crashing through buildings. Besides, as long as one of them can open the gate, I guess it doesn't really matter if a couple don't work properly.

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I hate to rain on the parade, but I feel like rocket-powered paratroopers during the Renaissance are probably a very low probability outcome--and I don't think it'd be better than existing siege tactics. Even leaving aside the technical aspects--once the shock value wears off, it's just another way to get a small party inside the city or fortress, like tunneling in or bribing someone to open a gate... and our rocket-landsknechts won't exactly have the element of surprise on their side.

Now on the other hand, to scale things back a bit, I wonder what you might see simply from an earlier invention of hot air balloons...

I'll have to agree with you that these things are highly unlikely. However I do see one advantage over existing tactics: the sun. Much like one of the rules of dogfighting is to come from the sun, that same tactic could be applied to these. Launch a large group of these guys into the sky, not only will you terrify anyone guarding, if you launch when the sun will be at your back, you'll be invisible to the archers until you're right on top of the enemy, at times quite literally. So, if someone managed to come up with this, and I'm not saying it would happen often, I'm sure a creative general would use these to a great advantage.

Onto the matter of balloons, I doubt there would be too much military use other than reconnaissance, and perhaps signalling for troop movements or something of the sort. Like an aerial drummer boy of sorts. For civilian usage, I also could only see them as a sort of novelty item, or for cartography. At least until the capability to make craft the size of zeppelins or larger appears, I have doubts that they could be used for much more than that. But then again, I might not be thinking outside the basket so to speak.

Voleur Inconnu said:

Onto the matter of balloons, I doubt there would be too much military use other than reconnaissance, and perhaps signalling for troop movements or something of the sort. Like an aerial drummer boy of sorts.

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It would be an awful avantage on ennemy. I suggest you to read about ballons use in french revolutionnary army : it gave french generals a general view on all the battelfield rather than on one part only.

Basically the same difference between playing at Age of Empires from the point of view of an unity, and from the sky view. (I know, i've shitty references)

Kaiphranos said:

...once the shock value wears off...

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I tend to agree, but I wouldn't underestimate the shock value. I think that could be a major factor for a fairly long time, especially if it was actively exploited.

If development of hot air balloons begins during the renaissance, say in Italy in the late 1400s or early 1500s, how long until we have blimps and then dirigibles? One limiting factor I foresee is the lifting gas. The experiments will soon find out the flammability of hydrogen, while helium is in short supply in Europe. However, if enough advances are made early on, the exploitation of North American helium could fuel significant advances in airship design by the 18th or 19th century.

Firstly on the advantage portion, I thoroughly agree, but once this is figured out, imaginably the use of recon balloons would be brought to near universal usage fairly quickly. Though this would revolutionize battlefield tactics, I doubt it would give a one sided advantage once a few armies develop balloon corps.

On the matter of shock value, I'd definitely agree with Tanaka. Seriously think about the sight of a hundred men flying up into the air at once, on rockets, all probably making some ungodly noise like you've never heard, and once they're in the air, you can't see them because of the sun. It's not like a slow moving battering ram, or siege tower, or simple ladders, all of which are large targets, and if you get it with a couple flaming arrows, or a couple cannonballs it's out of commission. These, if you shoot one down, there's still ninety in the air.

Well, the flammability of hydrogen didn't seem to deter us in OTL. Well, until Hindenburg at least. And given the inherent risk of flight this early, as well as a lack of any means of capturing a disaster like that, an airship crash on the scale of Hindenburg to be honest, probably wouldn't effect the populace all that much...now if a king or someone of the sort died in a crash like this, that's another story. So I'd say we could get away with the use of hydrogen airships for quite some time until helium could replace it.

Renaissance armies were smaller, making recon balloons less useful.

mrmandias said:

Renaissance armies were smaller, making recon balloons less useful.

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Regardless of size, knowing the position of the opposing army, and the layout of the land, it would still be an advantage over going in blind, or even mounted scouts, no?

This post in another recent thread got me thinking maybe the idea of pre-20th century HTA is not so crazy after all.

However, whether invented in China a thousand years ago or in Italy 500 years ago, either way a rocket-lifted glider is going to be limited.

Not so very limited, I think, it would vanish from history or be remembered only as a one-off stunt. I suspect rocket gliders would find a permanent niche in military technology, mainly as a way of scouting. Ships could have them for very high lookouts, armies for all stages of a battle.

But the technique would mature by experience (probably accelerating the development of aerodynamic theory somewhat) then plateau as a very auxiliary thing, as long as rockets remained the only practical way of developing thrust.

With the incentive to develop sustained flight that much stronger, I suspect that alternative power plants would be developed in the 19th century--still, more later than earlier. All sorts of tech has to advance before IC engines, or steam engines of a practical power to weight ratio, or suitable Stirlings, or anything of the kind can be developed.

I do wonder if a very primitive sort of pulse-jet might be developed by the mid-19th century. Those won't have a lot of advantage over rockets, and would be very much louder! (So much so, I suspect any pulseur-aviators will be Deaf people--either they become that way trying to fly these things, or someone gets smart and recruits already Deaf people to be the pilots).

I rather suspect the metallurgy of the 1850s or even perhaps 1880s is not up to it. Still I can see these beasts beating the IC piston engine to sustained flight. When the latter becomes mature enough to compete though it will take over, for the most part.

So I'm guessing--whether invented by Leonardo or some Chinese person many centuries before, the rocket-gliders will get established as standard, but in a very limited sphere, until the 19th century at the earliest. One could have a very-low-butterflies timeline (in my view, on the nature of alternative timelines and butterflies) where politics and demographics are just about the same as OTL, up to then, but with light, very short-range, aviation being a standard part of military tech all over the world. (Whether invented in Italy or China, the tech will spread).