Flight is one of the most important phenomena of life on our planet and is around 150 million years old (the Archaeopteryx genus of bird-like dinosaurs). It has existed throughout every period of history, with or without human involvement. Since nature deprived man of wings, he has had to rely on engineering. The flight of birds was for a long time an inspiration for human endeavours in this direction, until because of its impossibility it became more of an obstacle than a model.
In around the year 1500, the great artist, scientist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci sketched a series of human-powered flying machines, although he came to realise that this method would not be successful. A new possibility appeared in the eighteenth century with the principle of lighter-than-air flight – or balloons (the Montgolfier brothers, 1783). The remainder of the eighteenth century was characterised by aerostats (lighter-than-air aircraft). At the same time, however, advances were being made with heavier-than-air flying machines, which resulted, in the late nineteenth century, in the first successful flights with gliders (Otto Lilienthal, 1896) and eventually in powered flight (the Wright brothers, 1903). In the period that followed, innovative aviation became one of the fastest developing spheres of transport and engineering.
The all-round athlete and engineer Edvard Rusjan (born in Trieste in 1886; died in Belgrade in 1911) built seven powered aircraft of different design and construction as part of a circle of early aviation enthusiasts in Gorizia. He made his first successful powered flight on 25 November 1909 – the first powered flight in this part of Europe and the twelfth anywhere in the world. Working in Zagreb, with his financial situation somewhat improved, he designed an advanced powered monoplane, which he planned to put into commercial production. However, during a demonstration flight above Belgrade in poor weather conditions, he crashed and was killed. His example served to inspire successive generations of aviators.
Sandi Sitar,
engineering historian
