This is the story of Percy Pilcher, a man who could have beaten the Wright brothers to their record of first flight in a powered aircraft if only he had made one crucial decision differently.
Born in 1867, Lieutenant Percy Pilcher was a British inventor and a pioneering aviator. He developed and flew several hang gliders, romantically named The Bat, The Beetle, The Gull and The Hawk. Unfortunately, the ideas evoked by these names, of speed, fast directional control, soaring and hovering were incredibly difficult to achieve with the materials and technology available at the time. Percy, a bachelor, was supported by his sister Ella who stitched the cotton and silk wing canopies of his ‘aerial machines’ and assisted at test flights, each one of which must have been a terrifying trial to watch.
Model at Stanford Hall showing the fragility of the construction.
To achieve flight in Pilcher’s hang glider the craft was pulled along by horses with a rope and geared pulley attached to the glider, until it lifted off the ground as a kite would. The pilot's arms rested on leather supports and he held on to two struts to maintain his position. Once airborne the craft was hard to manoeuvre and was prey to the vicissitudes of the wind, which might gust or change direction any time. A flight was typically between 20 or 50 feet above ground - high enough to be extremely dangerous. As materials were basically cloth and bamboo, there was nothing in the structure to protect the pilot from impact. Nonetheless, Pilcher took the risks and broke the world distance record in 1897, flying 820 feet in The Hawk in the grounds of Stanford Hall, Leicestershire.