Abbas Ibn Firnas, the first man to fly and tell his experience

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Abbas Ibn Firnas, the first man to fly and tell his experience

Throughout the history of humanity, memorable characters have made an outstanding contribution to science. We know many of them and, to limit ourselves precisely to the aeronautical context, it immediately comes to our minds famous names such as Vinci, Cayley, Montgolfier, Le Bris, Lilienthal, Ader, Pilcher, Whitehead, Zeppelin, Torres Quevedo, Santos Dumont, Wright, Alcock, Forlanini, Cierva, Lindbergh, Latecoere and dozens of other names. Other characters have, however, gone down in history in a more discreet way, although their contribution has been undeniably remarkable. Such is the case of the scientist, historian, poet, inventor and, that means, pioneer of the aeronautics that was Abbas Ibn Firnas.

The story sometimes forgets some pioneers, as could be the case of Abbas Ibn Firnas, the first man to fly with a heavier craft than the air.

Many are surprised to learn that this man was the first person able to fly with a heavier craft than air, keeping himself in the air for about ten minutes. In addition, he achieved this feat more than a thousand years before that of the Wright brothers, in 875 to be more precise. But who was Abbas Ibn Firnas?

This character was born in 810 under the name of Abu Al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas in the vicinity of the city of Ronda (Malaga, Spain). We know relatively little about his childhood, with the exception, however, of the great culture which he fed and the different disciplines in which he began to excel, which led him inexorably to settle in the city. richer and more influential of the time of Al-Andalus, Cordova. It is in this city that he distinguished himself as a scientist, inventor, poet, philosopher, alchemist, musician and astrologer to the point that he received the nickname of Hakim Al Andalus (the sage of Al-Andalus) .

He developed in a particular way his facets of knowledge by contributing significantly to scientific and artistic progress in the courses of emirs Abd al-Rahman II and Muhammad I.

In the field of science, he was the first in the entire Iberian Peninsula, and probably in Europe, to use the astronomical tables of Sindhind, of Hindu origin, which later became essential in the development of European science and were studied in medieval universities as the subject of the Quadrivium (all four mathematical sciences of ancient theory: music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy).

He introduced the rock crystal cutting technique into the Western world and even developed alchemy procedures to create crystals from different minerals.

He conceived for the emir of Cordova an anaphoric clock, a complex mechanism that uses water as a liquid motor (energy) and whose flow is stopped or authorized by a series of valves. Able to tell the time at any time of day and night, it was a rather unusual device at that time.

He also developed the first European armillary sphere (or spherical astrolabe), an instrument used to perform approximate astronomical calculations and observations by orienting the circles of the object according to the plane of the celestial circles.

Representing the celestial vault, the mechanically articulated planetarium he built in his home in Cordoba is an example of his advanced astronomical knowledge. This creation was also animated by sound and visual effects that simulated the different meteors: the storm, lightning and thunder.

In the context of aeronautics, Abbas Ibn Firnas is an extraordinary reference as a precursor of the parachute and to be the first person to have designed, built and successfully tested the machines that could stay in the air, and this 600 years before Leonardo da Vinci drew his flying machines and more than 1,000 years before the famous flight of the Wright brothers.

He raised his first aeronautical challenge in 852 by throwing himself into the void from the top of the tower of the Mosque of Cordoba, equipped with a tarpaulin as a parachute. No one had ever tried anything like it. Or, in any case, nobody could talk about it until that date. His descent was relatively fast and his landing rather brutal. He managed with several fractures, but with the firm belief that it could work. This attempt is generally considered as the use of the first parachute in history.

A few years later, in 875, he designed a glider based on wood and silk fabric (decorated with feathers of different birds) with which he darted from the Arruzafa hills, located near Cordoba. Convinced that this invention was going to work