One of the steam punks of his generation, an American inventor who had also dabbled with machine guns and who developed some sort of repeating mechanism that also found it's way into a type of pistol some people like, decided to look into the challenge of manned flight and he set out to do the ground work for a heavier than air flying machine, powered by a very efficient and light set of steam engines.
He reached his goal, his flying machine took off, but in a controlled environment powered by those 2 steam engines. All this quite a few years before the Wright brothers came up with their solution.
One of the steam engines survived and is still on display somewhere in the UK. The other steam engine is, well not entirely missing as we know where it was, but out of reach nonetheless. In 1912 it was shipped to the US, in a steam liner called the Titanic.
The inventor was Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim.
|