TL:Venetian Air Force

euio

Disclaimer:Before you say it, I know there were not any materials light enough to build an ornithopter in 1480. But otherwise, this TL would be boring.

This is my first TL. It is about Leonardo da Vinci inventing the ornithopter.

1480-
Leonardo da Vinci presents his designs for an ornithopter to the Doge of Venice. It is built and tested but can only stay in the air for a few minutes. It is powered by pedalling. Soon, more innovations are made until late in the year, a model is built that can fly for over an hour.

1481-
Venice demonstrates this new technology to the nations of Europe. However, the designs are kept extremely secret. Other nations try to imitate the invention, and make some progress. But Venice is still the only country with a working ornithopter.

Ornithopter.PNG
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Hey, you barely waited one hour.

Don't let everything happen too fast (or the TL will be very short). Just one hint.
 

Dean_the_Young

Superb scouting and recon potential spring to mind, but not much else.

I'm guessing that it's still man-pedeled, and that the hour is with furious exercise? That severly limits weight to clothes (optional), a note pad and pencil(s), and maybe a compass and map.

The idea is good, but impractical for military usage (which is what DeVinchi made his real money from).
 

euio

Here is a picture of a Venetian ornithopter of the same model that was shown to Europe. To make the flying easier on this model and following models, a spring was added to the bottom of the wings to push them down hard.


@Dean:They can glide, too.

ornithopter 2.PNG
 

euio

New entry:

1484-
Venice developes a version of the ornithopter that has large enough wings to be able to mount two arquebuses.

1488-
Cristopher Columbus becomes interested in ornithopters, thinking they could be used to reach the Orient quickly. He travels to Venice to see if he can learn about them, but the Venetians keep the designs too secret. Eventually, he steals one, cuasing Venice to declare war on Genoa, which they suspect is where Columbus will take the ornithopter. Genoa quickly suurenders when faced with Venetian air power and becomes part of the Republic of Venice.

1489-
Columbus flees to Spain, where he secretly shows the King and Queen his ornithopter and asks them to let him head Spain's ornithopter project and charter a voyage to China by air. They agree, and Columbus, along with the rest of the people in the ornithopter project, begin to design an "air galley", an ornithopter that would be large enough to fly across oceans.
 

Keenir

Banned
its a very interesting ATL.

euio said:
1481-
Venice demonstrates this new technology to the nations of Europe. However, the designs are kept extremely secret. Other nations try to imitate the invention, and make some progress. But Venice is still the only country with a working ornithopter.
Click to expand...

....only to be vassalized by the Ottomans, who unveil rocket-powered vessels.

(in OTL, there were successful experiments with gliding flight and rocket-powered flight, in the 1460s' Ottoman Empire, in Constantinople)
 

Cockroach

euio said:
1484-
Venice developes a version of the ornithopter that has large enough wings to be able to mount two arquebuses.

1488-
Cristopher Columbus becomes interested in ornithopters, thinking they could be used to reach the Orient quickly. He travels to Venice to see if he can learn about them, but the Venetians keep the designs too secret. Eventually, he steals one, cuasing Venice to declare war on Genoa, which they suspect is where Columbus will take the ornithopter. Genoa quickly suurenders when faced with Venetian air power and becomes part of the Republic of Venice.
Click to expand...
Large enought to mount two single shot matchlock muskets? Bang, Bang... opps... not at point blank range so both shots missed.

That hardly classifies as sufficient airpower to pose a threat to another city. Now if you had a few capable of carrying a decent number of bombs...
 

euio

New entry:

1484-
Venice developes a version of the ornithopter that has large enough wings to be able to mount two arquebuses and carry 5 small bombs.

1488-
Cristopher Columbus becomes interested in ornithopters, thinking they could be used to reach the Orient quickly. He travels to Venice to see if he can learn about them, but the Venetians keep the designs too secret. Eventually, he steals one, cuasing Venice to declare war on Genoa, which they suspect is where Columbus will take the ornithopter. Genoa quickly suurenders when faced with Venetian air power and becomes part of the Republic of Venice.

1489-
Columbus flees to Spain, where he secretly shows the King and Queen his ornithopter and asks them to let him head Spain's ornithopter project and charter a voyage to China by air. They agree, and Columbus, along with the rest of the people in the ornithopter project, begin to design an "air galley", an ornithopter that would be large enough to fly across oceans.

ornithopter 3.PNG
 

euio

Cockroach said:
Large enought to mount two single shot matchlock muskets? Bang, Bang... opps... not at point blank range so both shots missed.

That hardly classifies as sufficient airpower to pose a threat to another city. Now if you had a few capable of carrying a decent number of bombs...
Click to expand...
Arquebuses could hit a target from a few hundred yards away. But bombs would be a better idea. I'll change that.
 

euio

Keenir said:
its a very interesting ATL.



....only to be vassalized by the Ottomans, who unveil rocket-powered vessels.

(in OTL, there were successful experiments with gliding flight and rocket-powered flight, in the 1460s' Ottoman Empire, in Constantinople)
Click to expand...
Wow. I didn't know that, but I was still planning for the Ottomans to get ornithopters.
 

euio

1492-
Spain tests its first air galley. It falls off a cliff and explodes. The Ottoman Empire begins to test ornithopters at this time, and are very succesful because of their previous experiments with gliders.

1495-
The Ottomans start production of a four-winged ornithopter secretly. The Spanish scrap the air galley idea, and start innovating smaller ornithopters. Venice annexes Tuscany and Sardinia.

1499-
The Pope calls for a crusade against the Turks. Many nations, including Venice, send troops to invade. The Ottomans keep on retreating while destroying resources behing them and wearing down the invaders. They do not reveal their ornithopters yet.
 

Cockroach

euio said:
Arquebuses could hit a target from a few hundred yards away. But bombs would be a better idea. I'll change that.
Click to expand...
yes they did have a range of several hundred meters. However Arquebuses were weapons of rather limited accuracy... now strapping them onto a moving platform and you just reduced the accuracy even futher.

Add to that the fact that Arquebuses are muzzel loaders and hence you will be unable to reload in flight (and hence you are limited to either as many shots as Arquebuses you have hanging from the "plane") and this rapidly reaches bad idea status.

Now could someone shift this to where it belongs: ASB
 

euio

1500-
The crusaders reach Constantinople. Venetian ornithopters are sent out to bomb the city, but are caught by surprise by the Ottoman ornithopters. The Battle of Constantinople is the first battle where ornithopters engaged each other. The Venetian air fleet is quickly destroyed, because while Venetian ornithopters were built to attack ground targets, the Ottoman ones were designed with attacking other aircraft in mind. In addition, the Ottoman four-wing design was much more maneouverable than the Venetian design. It allowed the aircraft to hover, dart sideways, and fly backward, while Venetian ornithopters coul only fly forward and turn from side to side. The crudading army quickly turns into a rout.

1501-
After seeing the Ottoman four-wing design in action, the Spanish start to think of a way to make a large ornithopter with more than one wing. England makes progress with its ornithopter program and builds a 4-wing ornithopter that can stay in the air for a few minutes.
 
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euio

Cockroach said:
yes they did have a range of several hundred meters. However Arquebuses were weapons of rather limited accuracy... now strapping them onto a moving platform and you just reduced the accuracy even futher.

Add to that the fact that Arquebuses are muzzel loaders and hence you will be unable to reload in flight (and hence you are limited to either as many shots as Arquebuses you have hanging from the "plane") and this rapidly reaches bad idea status.

Now could someone shift this to where it belongs: ASB
Click to expand...

When they started to mount arquebuses on ornithopters, it seems likely they would change the arquebuses to work better for air combat than to just keep them the same. The problems you said about the arquebus are not hard problems to fix. Just have a longer barrel and make it a breech-loading gun.
 

LightInfa

How about instead of gunpowder weapons, arm the ornithopters with some form of crossbow type weapon shooting flaming ammo.
 

Paladin

Just curious, but why Venice? Da Vinci was equally active in Florence, and probably far more loyal to her, and he also did considerable work for the French.
 
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