[PW] Re: Looking for first name of 1784 French helicopter pioneer Launoy

[swguardian-stumpers at yahoo.com]

I have sent Dennis the following text and an illustration of the device. The number (23) refers to the illustration number. 
 
Not until 1784 did two Frenchmen, Launoy and Bienvenu, actually make a model helicopter and demonstrate it successfully before the Académie des Sciences (23). It consisted of two propellers, each about one foot in diameter and made of feathers, which were made to rotate rapidly in opposite directions by twisted cord unwound by the power of a compressed bow. It was the first modern helicopter; but its chief importance was the interest it stirred in other inventors, notably Sir George Cayley. " C. H. Gibbs-Smith, A History of Flying (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1954) 59, 60
 
Dennis, I forgot to include the following:
 
CHAPTER IV 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BEFORE BALLOONS 
Experiments in Aviation

 
.....................
Sue Watkins
National Genealogical Society/
Association of Professional Genealogists 


----- Original Message ----
From: Dennis Lien <Dennis.K.Lien-1 at tc.umn.edu>
To: list at project-wombat.org
Sent: Monday, June 5, 2006 10:36:07 AM
Subject: [PW] Looking for first name of 1784 French helicopter pioneer Launoy


Several websites contain the information that a small helicopter (a toy
version) was demonstrated in 1784 by two Frenchmen named Launoy and
Bienvenu -- for instance

http://www.helis.com/pioneers/

(which gives the exact date as 28 April 1784)

http://www.vectorsite.net/avheli_1.html

(which describes them respectively as a "naturalist" and an
"artisan")

and

http://users.skynet.be/sky84985/chron3.html


1784, 28 avril
FRANCE, PARIS
LANNOY ET BIENVENU PRESENTENT A L'"ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES" DE PARIS, UN 
MODELE REDUIT D'HELICOPTERE. L'APPAREIL EFFECTUE UN VOL DANS LA SALLE DES 
SEANCES. ("La conquête de l'air, chronologie..." A. Van Hoorebeeck - éd. 
Marabout Université1967, p. 23)


http://www.ebabylone.com/encyclopedie_H%E9licopt%E8re.html

  Le 26 avril 1784, les Français Launoy et Bienvenu font voler devant
l'Académie royale des sciences un petit modèle très simple mû par un
mécanisme de ressort à arc.

**************

No online site or print source I've been able to find gives Launoy's
first name -- which is what my client is looking for.  (I suspect that
it may not have been recorded at the time and is thus lost to the ages,
but would like to be sure.)

Aside from considerable googling in both French and English sites,
I've checked WORLDCAT and RLIN for possible publications by a French
naturalist around that date, finding only one maybe-hit which again
gives no first name:

Title:      Catalogue raisonné de minéraux, cristallisations, agates, 
pétrifications, coquilles et autres objets d'histoire naturelle, qui 
composent le cabinet de feu M. Petit ... /
Author(s):     Launoy, naturaliste.
Publication:     Soissons : L.F. Waroquier,
Year:     1787
Description:     84 p. ; 19 cm.
Language:     French
Responsibility:     par le sieur Launoy, naturaliste.
Document Type:     Book


Also checked BIOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY MASTER INDEX; the ISIS CUMULATIVE
BIBLIOGRAPHIES; online HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY database;
HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS online; FRANCIS online; vol. 6 of Singer et al's
HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY; and Baker's FLIGHT AND FLYING: A CHRONOLOGY.
(This last refers to both men just as "Monsieur Launoy and Monsier
Bienvenu," though full names are given for most other figures in other
entries, even from earlier periods, which strengthens my assumption
that in this case the first names are not known.)

Any historians of flight and/or French technology on the list with
suggestions?  Thanks, as always...

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu



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