Lagâri Hasan Çelebi | Hacker News Reader

Lagâri Hasan Çelebi

en.wikipedia.org

90 pointsbenbreen29 comments

There's a movie about his brother, it's been on my watch list for years — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Beneath_My_Wings.

The connection between aviation history and nationalism is fascinating. As a dual citizen, it's hilarious to realize how virtually no Brazilians know much about the Wright brothers... while basically no American I ever met has even heard of Santos Dumont, a huge hero in Brazil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont).

Needless to say, the same applies to the Russian / American space race. We do know a lot more about the stories on both sides there, but we obviously have a very western-centric view of things. Going to the wonderful Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow (https://kosmo-museum.ru/?locale=en) really drove this point home.

Similarly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Hargrave is semi-famous in Australia and had his image on a $20 bill.

I suspect he is not much known outside Australia.

Quote:

Among many, three of Hargrave's inventions were particularly significant:

. study of curved aerofoils, particularly designs with a thicker leading edge;

. the box kite (1893), which greatly improved the lift to drag ratio of early gliders;

. work on the rotary engine, which powered many early flying machines up until about 1920.

> the box kite (1893), which greatly improved the lift to drag ratio of early gliders;

Ah, that Hargrave! In the age of carbon fiber spars and sewing machines, box kites are very popular among amateur kite builders.

This is similar to Traian Vuia[1] in Romania. We were taught in schools that he was the first person to build an airplane.

The contentious issue being what an airplane is: Wright Flyer needed a track and a catapult to take off, but was controllable in fight. The Vuia I could take off by itself, but was not controllable in flight.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traian_Vuia

Around the turn of the century there were many tinkerers all across the world working on the problem of powered flight. Each person's success would be recorded in the local newspaper, and they were generally unaware of each other's work until a few years after the fact.

OR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal

Why is it funny?

Presuming he was serious, he would have launched unmanned test articles first. If straight-up black powder would have blown up, we must assume he would have the presence of mind to have mixed it into a binder. Paraffin wax? Maybe some sawdust, besides.

There is nothing that was lacking in the 17th century to make something that worked. The Chinese had fireworks for centuries already, and knew enough to get plenty of loft.

Mythbusters failing on their first try does not mean very much. They had a very strict development timetable.

Evliya celebi [0] who wrote about the Lagari Hasan Celebi is known to exaggerate certain aspects of his observations. If there was a flight as reported and the pilot (why would Lagari be pilot himself when there are so many low level soldiers around) have died, he would probably make up the joke about Jesus and say pilot survived.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evliya_%C3%87elebi

Seems his brother was also in the family business of aviation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezârfen_Ahmed_Çelebi

Is this the earliest recorded manned rocket flight?

Likely. There are so many fringe scientists in middle east who tried many experiments centuries before west rebranded them.

Calling this "Middle East" is inaccurate given the article claims it happened in "Sarayburnu" which is geographically in continental Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarayburnu

The definition of “Middle East” is a rather flexible one, and can definitely include continentally European Turkey. It’s a political concept at least as much as a geographical one.

Turkey is almost the definition of Near East.

Or Eurasia (even that's a bit of a stretch), but def not the Middle East.

I don’t see why that would be a stretch at all.

Because you appear to be using middle-east as a catch-all for any predominantly muslim area.

How so?

1) The stretch in the comment I replied to was referring to calling the area below the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul as belonging to Eurasia. I simply pointed out there is no stretch in there, since it does objectively belong to Eurasia, which unlike Middle-East is far of a more settled geographical definition.

2) In my other comment you are probably referring to, I simply pointed out that the definition of "Middle East" is not set in stone, and it might include the area in question. You can double check, if you don't believe me. I never came up with my own definition of it, and I definitely would not have tossed Indonesia in there.

There is probably a Chinese story a thousand years older than this one.

I mean, it's even linked in the article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu

Of course, but if you actually read the linked article: "The possibly farcical text proceeds to describe several other fictional stories of ancient aviators.[3] A date of 2000 BCE pre-dates the emergence of writing in China by three or four centuries and pre-dates the invention of gunpowder-based rockets in China by about 3,000 years"

what an accomplishment.

I liked Mew better.

When posting, create a title that tells us WTF you're posting about and why.

The poster did exactly that, it's about Lagâri Hasan Çelebi. It's not common practice to also add an explanation when posting.

That could be anything. And saying, "It's common practice to post douchily obscure titles" isn't an excuse.

Who mods this totally reasonable request down?

Go back to Reddit, jagoff.

This isn’t very friendly.

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