Degen 1807 Flugmachine
![]() Ornithopter built by Jakob Degen – a Swiss watchmaker living in Vienna – first drafted and published in 1807. Degen made his earliest somewhat successful flights by using a counterweight to assist his lift, indoors at the Winter Riding School of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna on April 18, 1808. That same year, on November 13 and 15, he gave two outdoor performances with his Flying machine at the Wiener Prater using a small hydrogen-filled balloon to aid his ascensions. Later on over the years, three times Degen staged his performance in Paris and is also known to have visited Berlin with his apparatus. These attempts generally resulted in complete failure accompanied with personal injury.
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