WI: Oliver of Malmesbury masters flight in 1020

WI: Oliver of Malmesbury masters flight in 1020?

So lets say Oliver of Malmesbury figures out the secret to flight in 1020. Now i'm not saying he invents a whole flying machine or anything like that, just that he figures out the basic idea. What would the implications be?

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Anaxagoras

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Nothing happens. There are not materials or propulsion strong enough in that time period to create any kind of flying machine. It just becomes an intellectual footnote, like the books written by Heron of Alexandria.
 
Gliding might take off as a pass time for the rich, which has the potential to kill some nobles and kings off earlier than OTL, and you can draw all kinds of butterflies from that.
 
Nothing happens. There are not materials or propulsion strong enough in that time period to create any kind of flying machine. It just becomes an intellectual footnote, like the books written by Heron of Alexandria.

Materials might exist - the Sopwith Pup in WWI was built of wood and canvas after all.

But propulsion is a long way off.

And without at least some ability actually try things, there's no way to determine what qualities would actually work in practice - getting it right by pure guesswork would be a hell of a long shot.
 
Gliders could be done IMHO from wood and canvas or leather or something. Propulsion is not doable - and anyway the invention of a propulsion system would have by far greater implications than flying.

I agree that gliding might become a past-time for the rich, there's also some military uses to it like reconnaisance or landing operations, maybe they use gliders to spread fire into a sieged city or something like that. I doubt that it'll have more impact than the odd noble killed in a freak glider accident.
 
A niche thing, like kites were in East Asian warfare, but certainly something with potential. Using a functioning glider tethered like a kite might even provide a degree of offensive or scouting capability, but it should mostly be of interest for siege and naval warfare.

Interesting butterflies for science if this produces more thought on the nature of air, displacement, currents and gases.
 
Interesting butterflies for science if this produces more thought on the nature of air, displacement, currents and gases.

It may produce some thought but they will unfortunately need Newtonian mechanics to begin making serious progress in the field of fluid dynamics. As long as you think that the application of a constant force results in constant velocity as Aristotle postulated, you are in for quite some troubles.

And then again, they do not even have differential calculus. So that will have to be developed.

Still, I fear that you need a little more butterflies for that to develop. While thought into the nature of air can produce some useful research and discoveries, it won't cover it all. Necessary but not sufficient.

I don't quite know how to make people develop Newtonian mechanics in the 11th century. I'm not too familiar with the societal structure of the time, but I reckon that the people who knew Aristotelian mechanics and the mathematics needed to describe the framework of physics are mainly monks schooled in the Ancient Languages, and not the ones you're likely to see designing catapults and what not that could serve as a trigger for the intellectual development you need...

But I'm digressing.

Interesting idea though, certainly has potential, though it will require modification.
 
If we see a gliding as a sporting activity and ground launching starting with rockets and then steam winches then the machine exists for controllable flight by the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century so the early 19th century would see the race for the lightweight steam engine revolutionising the later steam age and heralding a steam road transport system.

In the particular world of flying machines, sporting and military developments should gradually have established the use of thermals and wave lift to extend flight once launched and rockets would be sufficient to get off into either. Mass propelled launches (ie a weight thrown down a slope or cliff on a rope) or simply a group of men running downhill with a rope are even simpler and could predate steam winches or possibly rockets. Once you have a lightweight controllable airframe everything else can follow. Of course, without even late 19th century aerodynamic knowledge, many will die in this pursuit.

I think that it is the consequent development of the lightweight mobile steam engine that would have the greatest impact upon history.
 
Had some damsel in distress jumped from a parapet wearing a hooped skirt of voluminous dimension, she may have discovered para-sailing, once she recovered. The image of men wearing hooped skirts, being towed by biremes, frantically rowed by galley slaves comes to mind.

Perhaps the fact that nobody would live long enough to propagate the hypothesis is the reason for the lack of historical success. The discovery of gravity took longer than one might think appropriate. I don't think George Cayley flew himself. He was smart.
 
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