"This elegant print of 1841 may well have inspired the famous song about the young man on the flying trapeze, who flew through the air with the greatest of ease; for never was living made to look so simple and effortless. The print was published within a few weeks of those showing Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage; and Dr. Miller's harking back to the birds is almost as significant at the time as Henson's prophetic vision of the future, as it showed the typical contrast of romantics and realists.
The machine here proposed by Miller, called with splendid disregard for etymology "The Aerostat", was one of the last designs for an ornithopter to catch the public's imagination, and seems to have been largely inspired by the publicity given to Degen's efforts in 1809, unless it was a light-hearted counter-blast to Henson himself, which Miller hurried through the press. An interesting detail, to be found in the printed key to the drawing, is the reference to "wings or propellers", within the same few weeks of the Henson patent referring to airscrews as propellers. The word "propeller" continued to denote any means of propulsion for some time thereafter."
C H Gibbs -Smith
One of 12 prints from the Collections of the Royal Aeronautical Society reproduced by to mark its Centenary in 1966 - No. 4
Artist:
J Absolon
Donated by:
Renee Thornton
Image(s) credit:
Doctor Miller Design For an Ornithopter (1843), J Absolon, Royal Aeronautical Society - PDM 1.0
