Friday, April 1, 2011

Icarus of Twentieth Century -- April 1, 2011



From the 27-October-1911 San Francisco Golden Gate Gazette.

Icarus of Twentieth Century Follows the Wake of the Hawk



Student of Aeronautics Has Touched the Sky


[Special Dispatch to The Gazette]

SAN JOSE. Oct. 26. -— The Wright brothers are not the only students of aviation who believe that man will eventually soar as easily as the buzzard high above the earth.

Long before Wilbur Wright announced that his brothers were experimenting with a motorless aeroplane, Capt. George H. Schoedsack of this city, originator of the rolling lint brush, devised a pair of wings patterned after those of the hawk. These are strapped to the: body, with a corset-like arrangement and by an ingenious system, of pulleys the wearer is able to exert all of the strength of his arms and legs into the flapping of the wings.

Schoedsack has tried hops from small elevations and has worked out balance and other problems. This Saturday at Noon he will attempt a more ambitious flight from the 21st floor of the Gazette Building at Third and Market Streets. The public is invited to observe his experiment.

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