1709: a Jesuit Flying Ship by Bartolomeu de Gusmão

Quote: Uncolored etching of "The Flying Ship" proposed by the Jesuit Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685-1724). On August 8, 1709, Gusmão is said to have flown a small balloon before the court in the Casa da Índia in Lisbon. The image in question may be a representation of a heavier-than-air machine proposed by Gusmão, or more likely, a representation of a proposed large balloon drawn by someone unfamiliar with the actual appearance of Gusmão's design. The craft is shown aloft with clouds and sun in the background. It features a bird-like shape and decorations. The operator sits in the open body of the bird with a telescope and globes. Oars are provided for propulsion. Parts are marked with letters A-I, but no key is present.

flying-ship.jpg

Source
I probably would not be posting the above drawing was it not for the altered drawing below.

aircraft.jpg

Source
As you can see, the tail ends do not really match.

flying-ship-6.jpg

And what do you think really this is?

flying-ship11.jpg

Here is some additional info: source.

a1.jpg

a2.jpg

a3.jpg

a4.jpg

a5.jpg

Sources:


KD: Basically, wanted to see what the opinions on this change of the rear portion of the aircraft was, in addition to:
  • Why would somebody replace possible nozzles (KD) with feathers?
  • What do you think we have displayed in the rear (nozzle-like objects) of the top image?
To be honest, I have hard time imagining why we even have this nozzle resemblance in the beginning of the 18th century.

Additionally, if we could locate the original legend for the top image, that would be great.
 
With aplogies for I feel I have buggered up the clean on topic thread protocol....


Well I went and had a butchers and obviously some people hitched animals to the front of cars.
Approaching it from what I would do if I lost everything in a stock market crash.

Were I wealthy enough to own car, home, land, horse and my wealth disappeared in the crash and with it went the source of my income first thing I would do is find a way to provide food and water. Moving to the country makes the most sense but I would then have no roof over my head though I could at least get there on my horse.
The car house and land would of course be left behind but as I cannot afford them or any payments on them cutting and running is likely my best option.

The last thing I would consider, assuming I didn't cut and run, would be turning my car into a buggy. I'd ride the horse or fix up an old cart or put one together from a couple of broken and abandoned carts or buggy's and hitch the horse to that. It would be lighter so less effort on the horse and I could go further to more places over rough ground or road.

Looking at the logistics. A car engine and gear train is heavy. The tyres give more friction to the road than cartwheels. A cars steering is controlled by wheel a horse by reins. To simply hitch the horse to the car and use it as motive powers requires one pair of hands to control the horse and another pair to steer the cars front wheels.
The car also has no working braking system if it is hydraulic though if wired brakes are used then they would be okay.

It would be easier and better to strip the car to its chassis and wheels and mount a wooden cart or buggy body directly on the chassis or knock one up as getting hold of planking and timber would not be a problem.

At no point does pulling a car with horse, ox, or donkey make any sense to me.
So my guess for that is all it can be is these Hoover and Bennet lash ups were propaganda devices as the cars in the photos are not banged up things in the main. Poor people know they are poor they are more interested in their next meal than hitching horses to cars. They are unlikely to own either horse or car.

Newly poor people are likely to have cars without fuel but horses, in a city, not likely but not improbable.

In cases where there is seemingly catastrophic impoverishment going on I tend to look for who benefits from what the media of the day is showing. In this case its the truly wealthy who gain as they can increase their future potential wealth by buying land and houses from the newly impoverished for pennies not dollars.
So from that angle it makes sense to make the middle class land owning house owning class as uncomfortable as possible thus encouraging them to part with whatever assets they have for a few sheckles so too speak, then hitching horses to cars makes sense, perverse sense but at least its some sense.
I also feel quite certain federal and state actors built up land holdings and property portfolios during this time and as we know governments love their propaganda and use it to inflate their influence and control.
 
I don’t think it’s reasonable to equate what you would do with what everybody would do. I think that most people on or viewing this blog think and see the word in an entirely different way than the masses.

but to play along, if you owned a delivery business but couldn’t afford or otherwise obtain gasoline… but could get a horse… wouldn’t you wish to continue generating income? Or a taxi service? Or (insert reason to do something silly like tow a car with a horse)?

the problem with a lot of these old photos, is the context is either unclear or unverifiable.

you could take a photo of me digging my fire pit, fast forward 200 years, and some narrative “scholar” could easily say “21st century man digging new fecal pit because sewers weren’t available and he couldn’t afford septic.”

the photos are lacking in verifiable context, with the exception of those which show the bonnets removed from he vehicles and permanent seats installed in their place. That clearly illustrates some intention.
 
That's the way I attempt to figure out what I am looking it. Wether that is unreasonable to you or not matters nought.
As you say they lack context and from my researching experience most, but not all, subjects without context are likely propaganda which is how i came to see the coloured big bird vessel as a cartoon, propaganda.
Here with these horse car images, there is some context but not with the photographs its within the newspaper articles of the time and the way they are written.
Having scoured the contemporary press of today produced when false flags are being run with number one son who had discovered machine writing in a couple of articles I have a different appreciation or understanding of the way propaganda is written as we went through so many articles together.

In the Jamestown expo thread recognition looked at a photo of a fountain and saw mouldy concrete.
When I looked at the photo I saw a box hedge round a lawn.
So I went to the source photo, then through the linked sites and found lots of box hedges around lawns. There is no need to post other photos as it is clearly visible in recognitions screenshots when you follow its line from one side to the other.

Different methods of researching coming from different people.
Recognition comes from a position of these expositions took existing buildings and did them up.
I come from the position they were not pre existing. That's why I went looking for a construction photo and posted it.
So we are looking for things within the photographs to support our differrent views.

In the images in this one you saw a compass I could not and still cannot determine what I am looking at but on balance from the available evidence I go along with your assessment that its a telltale compass we are likely looking at, which incidentally suggests that whoever drew the thing knew about telltale compasses in captains cabins so may well have been a nautical man. Well either the artist/engraver or the one instructing him. I say that because I cannot see anyone other than nautical men knowing about such things. Compass makers would obviously but they are rare in comparison to nautical men specifically officers, captains and admirals.
Whoever drew the other image, the one you found, knew nothing of them as that one has a globe hanging from above.

It about figuring shit out and no two of us do it the same way.

Edit to add
In the case of the horse cars. Another thing to consider is horses have to be trained to pull carts with their associated harnessing. Riding horses cannot simply be hitched up and its all good.
This would further suggest the horses in the photographs are already trained to pull carts and are likely not riding horses which adds further to the supposition these are staged photographs in the main.
Which came first. Some ingenious country boy repurposding car into cart or the media printing staged photographs which country boy saw and copied?
No way to know but bears consideration.

Also where are the mules?
They are much more suited to pulling than horses are yet I cannot see any mules. Oxen yes, obviously again already trained to pull but not seen any mules.
Just other some things I noticed.
 
Last edited:
jk-755 said:
Then there is lightning. Pretty sure lightning whatever it is would be attracted to a powerful pair of magnets in the atmosphere.
In his travels around late eighteenth century England, The Torrington Diaries 'author' John Byng often hints he was very concerned about lightning. He also paid attention to wind strength and direction. The hints are scattered through the books so I haven't gathered them here.

reverendALC said:
F, a cover made of iron wire, in form of a net, on which are fastened a good number or large amber beads, which by a secret operation will help to keep the
ship aloft;

I must know about this secret operation.

I sometimes wonder if amber used in this configuration was physically laid out in in the same way ferrite rings were laid out in the ferrite core meshes of early computer memory:
KL_CoreMemory.jpg
Ferrite-core mesh memory. Source

640px-KL_Kernspeicher_Makro_1.jpg
Close-up. Source
But with amber cores instead of ferrite cores. And exploiting electric fields instead of magnetic (or electromagnetic) fields.

I'm conceiving amber here as a hardened electret and guessing amber has some variant of electret properties whose electric field could be exploited. An electric analogy of the magnetic field exploited in ferrite core memories. Obviously, when you look at electrets, you look at Oleg Jefimenko's Electromagnetic analogy of gravitational and cogravitational fields.

Although, unlike the rest of you, I don't understand them.

This image and quote:


"It was filled with numerous tubes, through which the wind flowed and filled out the bulges which gave it shape."
From Global Spec - Parachutes:
ram air parachutedd3fcdf742ee46178cd798f65fd523ab.jpg
Ram-Air parachute. Source
The non-rigid structure is inflated by ram-air which sustains the layered cell structure of the canopy;​
1024px-F-111F_dropping_high-drag_bombsb04420fbf1c040d89e03ca8261886b66.jpg
Ballutes. Source
technically balloon/parachute hybrids; fitted around the widest point of the canopy, a burble fence with ram-air inlets inflate a canopy to precisely control drag; burble fence also ensures flow separation between chute components; inlets may be replaced with gas generators to provide lift; high weight and volume, but effective at supersonic speeds and extreme altitudes;​

air-baloon-jpg.12654

Image from jd-755's post 3206

Note the small gold-coloured balloons below and to the right of the large Michelin and blue and white balloons appear to be sealed. Presumably they are filled with a fixed quantity of lighter-than-air gas and the leakage-through-fabric rate is low enough that they don't need frequent refilling.

Hanging from the large Michelin and blue and white balloons are long flexible tubes. They imply the larger balloons are occasionally being topped up (or bottomed up). We might infer that they are being topped up with hot air.

However, there are a few problems with the 'balloon history begins with hot air' narrative. One of the more obvious problems is that illustrations of the Montgolfier brothers' balloon show it was relatively small for the weight it carried. Compared to modern 'technically advanced' balloons, that is. Another problem is that the positioning of its balcony affair just below the balloon bag gave it a relatively high centre of gravity. Which would reduce stability. As a reminder, there is a simplified Montgolfier style balloon below the Michelin balloon in the above photograph. It appears to be suspended on a cable, rather than 'gassed' like the other balloons.

Another problem with the hot air balloons narrative arises when we look at the history of record-breaking hot air balloon flights.

Fourth baronet Claude Champion de Crespigny (1847-1935) is credited by The Mausolea & Monuments Trust with being the first person to cross the North Sea in a balloon - of unspecified type - in 1883. De Crespigny flew from the field next to the gas works at Maldon in Essex to just inland of Flushing, Holland. Details of that trip and an 1870 balloon crossing of the English Channel start from page 122 of Forty Years of a Sportsman's Life.

They start from a field next to Maldon gas works and the balloons were made of rubber and 'bird-lime'. Apparently they floated on town gas or some lighter fraction of town gas.

Wikipedia doesn't credit fourth baronet Claude Champion de Crespigny (1847-1935) with a North Sea crossing. But does hint at his interest in the dead:
He was eccentric enough to bribe hangman James Berry into accepting him as assistant executioner on the occasion of a triple hanging in Carlisle on 8 February 1886​
The fourth baronet also commissioned an eight 'coffin' mausoleum at Champion Lodge and allegedly, had his dead son shipped back to it from France in 1914 - after some difficulty picking out his dead son's remains from those of 17 other dead sons. Now demolished, the mausoleum looked like this:

crespigney.jpg
Champion de Crespigny mausoleum. Source
Wikipedia does speculate about the origin of the 'de Crespigny' last name. It points out a possible link to the patron saint of tanners and cobblers with secrets to hide: 'Saint Crispin'. There are other clues but time really does matter. Wikipedia also points out that 'Igny' is both a common place-name and common part of place-names in northern France. And that it may be derived from the Latin word 'ignis', meaning 'fire'.

I suspect the Champion de Crespignys were involved with another narrative about secretive tanners crossing the English Channel but that is another story, so moving on...

Ed Yost and Don Piccard were the first (modern) people to cross the English Channel - the generally narrower sea to south and south-west of the North Sea - in a hot air balloon. They did this on 13 April, 1963. Again, details of the route and crossing are not immediately findable, though it would be helpful if anyone interested in narrative-inconsistencies could discover it and post their findings here.

Before crossing the English Channel, Ed Yost spent at least eight years overcoming several hot air ballooning challenges:
  • Replacing existing hot air balloon fuels (eg, kerosene) with a lightweight, high heat-capacity alternative.​
  • Building lightweight burner nozzles suitable for controlled burning of propane gas in the limited space of a balloon gondola slung below a very big piece of fabric.​
  • Finding and processing a fabric suitable for extended hot air balloon flight.​
Per Wikipedia: Ed Yost's challenge was:
to create a reusable, lightweight balloon that would carry a pilot to 10,000 feet and fly for three hours​
How hard was that?

From Wikipedia - Ed Yost:
On October 22, 1960, Yost made the first-ever free flight of a modern hot-air balloon from Bruning, Nebraska.[2][3] His balloon flew untethered for 1 hour and 35 minutes with the aid of heat generated by a propane burner.​
Wikipedia goes on to summarise that development toward creating a balloon suitable for crossing the English Channel involved three more years of innovation and development. Even though high-energy propane gas had been discovered in 1912 - almost 40 years after Claude Champion de Crespigny made his North Sea balloon crossing. Perhaps Yost would have saved time if Claude Champion de Crespigny had been available as an advisor.

After all, de Crespigny had got across the North Sea without having to invent lightweight burners or wait for bottled propane.

In his role as advisor, De Crespigny might have looked at the above photographs. He might have pointed out that the fabric tubes feeding an unknown gas into two of the balloons are about the right size to fit into the 'occulus' - the porthole - of the Champion de Crespigny mausoleum. And into the occuli and roof openings visible in so many of the mausoleums in The Mausolea & Monument Trust's gazetteer.

He might have advised that similar tubes could fit over the possible valve on top of Ireland's Dennis mausoleum:

dennis_mausoleum_galway_dennis_mausoleum.jpg
Dennis Mausoleum, County Galway, Ireland. Source

dennis_later_photo.jpg
After top removed.

He might have shown them Ireland's Cooke mausoleum:

cooke_mausoleum.jpg
Cooke Mausoleum, County Westmeath, Ireland. Source

And laughed - along with them - that anyone believes the narrative that this structure was a 'mausoleum' in the sense we understand 'mausoleum'.

There's photographic evidence some mausoleums were designed to capture and store liquid - as the above Cooke mausoleum photograph suggests. There is also evidence that some mausoleums were designed to have liquids flushed out of them.

dartrey_ireland_fluid_drainage_hole_img_0022.jpg
Apparent fluid drainage hole on Dartrey mausoleum, County Monaghan, Ireland. Source

I suspect they were for producing lighter-than-air gas by anaerobically decomposing protein and/or animal fats. For another example of the noticeable tendency for early balloonists to take off from gasworks, see Sophia Stocks - Early Female Aeronaut. And there's a noticeable tendency for stories about Saint Crispin to involve skinning, corpses being held under water with millstones, and then engaging in long-distance travel. And for the patron saint of jewellers, army electrical engineers and South Holland, Lincolnshire - Saint Eligius - to make expensive shrines for Saint Crispin's head. Maybe amber meshes can read brain waves.

Although methane is lighter than air, and is a product of bio-digestion, I suspect it could not lift much weight without a huge gas balloon (de Crespigny's was 37,000 cu ft). Perhaps it is possible to brew a lighter-than-air variant of butane gas (which is heavier than air, temperature-dictating) via butyrate or butyric acid. That might explain the common occurrence of so many 'buttermarkets' and butter crosses in the past and the odd design of some 'mausoleums'.
 
Last edited:
@usselo excellent post, thank you for wrangling back to the subject matter. I fear that JD and I might spar on semantics, meta discussion, and existentialism until kingdom come.

I am personally very interested in magnetism and electromagnetism, and I do enjoy making my own rendition of antique experiments. I have ordered a rather sizable chunk of Baltic amber from Lithuania to play with, as well as a collection of small amber beads to create a mini net with.

unfortunately I haven’t much to contribute to the subject of gasses and balloons, though I do solidly respect the idea that canopy/sail of the Jesuit craft could be a strangely depicted balloon or canvas of sorts!
 
I would say that's a gyroscope! Good find.

As the axis of the gyroscope is rotated while the disks are spinning, the angular momentum provides a lift which could have many diverse applications. The mechanism does not require any other external source of energy, in which the rotor speed is produced by an electric motor in a rotating gimbal. In this way, it can function in space for a very long time.
As the axis of the gyroscope is rotated while the disks are spinning, the angular momentum provides a lift which could have many diverse applications. The mechanism does not require any other external source of energy, in which the rotor speed is produced by an electric motor in a rotating gimbal. In this way, it can function in space for a very long time.
So there is a connection between the gyroscop and antigravity and possibly flying devices. The principle has been rediscovered by Tesla and John RR Searl and Otis T. Carr
Japanese scientists have reported that small gyroscopes lose weight when spun under certain conditions, apparently in defiance of gravity.
 
Last edited:
As the axis of the gyroscope is rotated while the disks are spinning, the angular momentum provides a lift which could have many diverse applications. The mechanism does not require any other external source of energy, in which the rotor speed is produced by an electric motor in a rotating gimbal. In this way, it can function in space for a very long time.

So there is a connection between the gyroscop and antigravity and possibly flying devices. The principle has been rediscovered by Tesla and John RR Searl and Otis T. Carr
Japanese scientists have reported that small gyroscopes lose weight when spun under certain conditions, apparently in defiance of gravity.
Very interesting indeed. Do you have any sources or citations for that info?
 
In the same vein as this, I recently discovered the prospect of vacuum airships. Rather than inflate a balloon with gases lighter than air, a structure has all atmosphere pumped out of it yielding a 14% increase in buoyancy over helium. I’ve found references to this idea “dated” back to the 1600s, similar to our flight of fancy above.

the hurdles to this approach are the atmospheric pressure of earth and the direct correlation between material strength and material weight. However, if once the earth enjoyed a denser atmosphere (better sun blocking, more uniform temperature with less weather systems), the prospect of a vacuum ship would only be more viable.

I was ready to dismiss the matter, until I stumbled upon this:

Evacuated Airship for Mars Missions

Now I’m no nasa believer. It’s all junk to me, every last uttering of theirs, but that’s another conversation entirely. It’s more of a quote from that nasa tabloid that piqued my interest:

Mars appears to have an atmosphere in which the operation of a vacuum airship would not only be possible, but beneficial over a conventional balloon or dirigible.”

Ok. Maybe if Mars was Earth then. Or Maybe if Earth had Mars’ atmosphere. Or perhaps, if Earth had a Mars-like atmosphere.

Many other vacuum nay-sayers regurgitate this line:

A vacuum airship made of a homogenous material cannot withstand the atmospheric pressure on Earth for any material humans have yet discovered, which can be proven using the critical buckling load of a sphere.”

Ok. No homogenous material. Heaven forbid we try an alloy or combination of materials. The grand marshal of vacuum flight thusly decreed that vacuum flight is impermissible otherwise. Until now:

1659920305924.jpeg

now if that latticed shell structure was impregnated with an atmosphere of helium… we’d be cooking with fire
 
After doing a deeper dive into telltale compasses, I also notice that many of them have E embellished albeit to a lesser degree than N. What’s the significance? Perhaps for another thread…

well , N is E in some of the mystery school et al writings ... would guess there is at least a couple of meanings - depends on the legend to read "the map"

do you have a way to present telltale compass info that is more comprehensive ?
 
I’m not sure I follow the question, but try this:

Telltale Compass

A great anecdote from a contemporary human and their use of a telltale. @jd755 this directly conflicts with telltale compasses being “only used in a captain’s bunk”
 
I’m not sure I follow the question, but try this:

Telltale Compass

A great anecdote from a contemporary human and their use of a telltale. @jd755 this directly conflicts with telltale compasses being “only used in a captain’s bunk”
You mean it fits your theory about what we are shown in the images already posted.
When telltale compasses were first built ships were not steered from covered cabins, hence their location was in a captains cabin so when in residence he could see the direction of travel from his bunk.
 
I found this illustration in an old maps book of mine, and thought it was worth sharing to this thread

B52C9CFD-AA26-4584-A05F-2E86F461ECF9.jpeg

this is an armillary sphere, from the book
Antique Maps for the Collector by Richard van de Gohm, 1972.
 
Doing a little digging on this matter, I found this page:

Early Aviators - Bartolomeu Lourenco de Gusmao

This image and quote:


"It was filled with numerous tubes, through which the wind flowed and filled out the bulges which gave it shape."

Side note: The pictures KD posted, the flag represents seven castles/kingdoms... this image has what looks like a lighthouse or mooring tower? or perhaps, it's just a very squished older Portuguese flag:


in studying older Portuguese flags, I found this:


The coat of arms before an armillary sphere, just like seen on the "aircraft"
Interesting note "It was filled with numerous tubes, through which the wind flowed and filled out the bulges which gave it shape."
As far as I understand the design of 15-16 century sail ships would not allow them to travel across the sees, more across any rivers.
The top parts of the ships (see top white part of ships of Henry VIII for example; they all have similar design) never had any latches, unlike the bottom parts with the cannons.

1672366154912.jpeg

The deck always had huge vents all along. Likely the top part was a mechanism using an atmospheric electricity to generate an air flow that was blowing onto sails to propel these ships. Otherwise by design they wont be able to sail anywhere.
Here is Vasa ship with vents on the deck. These top parts were just technical and never meant to be sealed parts of the ship. Their purpose was to generate and blow air!

1672366470977.jpeg

1672366537002.jpeg

This flying machine was build on a similar principle likely.

1672366500142.jpeg
 
Interesting tack indeed. I would happily explore the possibility that these ships aren’t correctly understood, but there’s a fallacy evident to me in that proposition:

if the ships generated the wind that filled their sales, the force of the wind wouldn’t propel the ships forward but rather work to separate the sails from the ship.

imagine sitting in a rolling chair holding a leaf blower and an umbrella… the leaf blower would force the umbrella from your hands without pulling you with it.
 
Quote: Uncolored etching of "The Flying Ship" proposed by the Jesuit Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685-1724). On August 8, 1709, Gusmão is said to have flown a small balloon before the court in the Casa da Índia in Lisbon. The image in question may be a representation of a heavier-than-air machine proposed by Gusmão, or more likely, a representation of a proposed large balloon drawn by someone unfamiliar with the actual appearance of Gusmão's design. The craft is shown aloft with clouds and sun in the background. It features a bird-like shape and decorations. The operator sits in the open body of the bird with a telescope and globes. Oars are provided for propulsion. Parts are marked with letters A-I, but no key is present.

I probably would not be posting the above drawing was it not for the altered drawing below.

As you can see, the tail ends do not really match.

And what do you think really this is?

Here is some additional info: source.
E
the description says:
aimant = magnet = iman.

there are 2.

and electric net over them.
plus ambar.
it uses electricity.

a)by default the aircraft uses heat to create a flow of air that will move the vehicle.

b)what is interesting is that it uses the electrical net to create heat, and difuse it

- the same principle ised in electric blankets, with resistances-

c)the text says that the spheres are a cover layer.

also it is very interesting that it works by using and creating a heat air current.

also other note from the text:
and uses electricity from magnets to keep ot powered when there is no sunlight kr heat enough.

efficient:
it is an aircraft that dont need to use gas, carbon, etc.
only heat, air current, from magnets
 
Back
Top