Lagâri Hasan Çelebi

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Lagâri Hasan Çelebi
Lagari.jpg
Lagâri Hasan Çelebi's rocket flight depicted in a 17th-century engraving.
Nationality Ottoman
Occupation Engineer
Known for Legendary manned rocket flight
Relatives Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi (brother)

Lagâri Hasan Çelebi was a legendary Ottoman aviator who, according to a sole account written by traveller Evliya Çelebi, made a successful manned rocket flight.

Account

Evliya Çelebi purported that in 1633, Lagari Hasan Çelebi launched in a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The flight was said to be undertaken at the time of the birth of sultan Murad IV's daughter. As Evliya Celebi wrote, Lagari proclaimed before launch "O my sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Jesus!"; after ascending in the rocket, he landed in the sea, swimming ashore and reporting "O my sultan! Jesus sends his regards to you!"; he was rewarded by the Sultan with silver and the rank of sipahi in the Ottoman army.[1][2]

Evliya Çelebi also wrote of Lagari's brother, Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, making a flight by glider a year earlier.

Popular culture

Istanbul Beneath My Wings is a 1996 film about the lives of Lagari Hasan Çelebi, his brother and fellow aviator Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, and Ottoman society in the early 17th century as witnessed and narrated by Evliya Çelebi.

The legend was addressed in an experiment by the television show MythBusters, on November 11, 2009, in the episode "Crash and Burn"; however, the team noted that Evliya Çelebi had not sufficiently specified the alleged design used by Lagâri Hasan and said that it would have been "extremely difficult" for a 17th-century figure, unequipped with modern steel alloys and welding, to land safely or even achieve thrust at all.[3] Although the re-imagined rocket rose, it exploded midflight.[3]

See also

References

  1. Winter, Frank H. (1992). "Who First Flew in a Rocket?", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 45 (July 1992), p. 275-80
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.