Albatross MK2 – Oldest known Aircraft Photo

Looking at the two images, one must assume that the flying machine of M. de Bris is mounted the wrong way round on the cart in the still image. But allowances must be made. This was the dawn of aviation. Clearly when it came to it, M. de Bris realised that his 1cv power source functioned better as a tractor rather than a pusher!

…a slightly better pic: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Marie_Le_Bris#/media/File:AlbatrosIIJean-MarieLeBris1868.png

and a tiny clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gesbQt5aNkQ

Yup 😉

balllooonnnss…..

A surprise for me too, is that this picture doesn’t appear anywhere in the Historic Forum and it seemed appropriate to highlight it.
Early attempts to get air under the boots must have been exciting and frightening!
Arguably, this was the first passenger carrying moment in aviation history also! 🙂

Thank you George, very enlightening of those early days, an interesting read. Arguably one horse-power?! Although not a particularly attractive design!

Apologies – the page number was reference (Sailplane and Gliding Page 234), but the pdf is page 24.

Thanks

the link only goes to page 56