Mystery Machine

aerohydro · 12 November 2005, 09:42 PM

Hi All

Following on in the spirit of Doc's Challenge Tests, here is another pioneer aircraft which might prove to be a bit of a mystery machine ....

Can anyone identify it? Better yet, can anyone come up with some better images of it, as these ones have been heavily retouched.

Cheers,
Paul

aerohydro · 4 December 2005, 08:23 PM

Well, people have been quite...umm...reticient in trying to solve this puzzle plane. Here are a couple of clues as to the identity of the designer of this flying machine: he was Italian and and German.

Cheers,
Paul

aerohydro · 10 January 2006, 09:31 PM

Okay, people have been somewhat... um... less than forward in guessing what this flying machine is, so I will simply supply the answer.

The Mystery Machine is the Miller-Fuseri ornithopter, built in Italy in 1908. It was the work of the very Italian sounding Franz Miller of Turin, and constructed in accordance to the theories of a Dr Fuseri. (Franz Miller was one of the first full-time aeronautical engineers in Italy.) The machine itself was a marvellous, baffling, concoction of wings and flaps and struts and the like. Didn't fly of course, but more's the pity for that.

The photos come from the book "Origin of Aviation in Italy" by Piero Vergnano. It's written in both Italian and English, and details the flight scene in Italy from 1873 through to 1918. The book itself is nothing special, though admittedly it does sound far more impressive and exotic when it's other title, "Origini Dell'Aviazione in Italia", is used.

Cheers,
Paul