I need a history nerd. HELP!

[Bard2dbone]

So a while back I was half asleep and the radio starrted playing this commentary where a guy was explainging a lyric in a song. It apparently referred to a period in the maybe late nineteenth century or so where some guy with a French-sounding name was sort of the ultimate original mad scientist. I think the guy on the radio called him the original Howard Hughes.

The part that made the story, and was probably what the lyric in the song was referring to, was that he made his own personal aircraft. I was mostly still asleep and dreaming this, so I pictured it as a baloon with a bicycle powered propeller. And he used to use it to get around while everyone was basically still using horse drawn carriages.

I want the real details on this while I'm awake! This sounds too cool not to be more widely recognized. I was thinking he was talking about the lyrics in question being from someone from the '80's, like REM or the B-52's, but comparatively recent, say released in the last ten years?

[cdef]

Don't know what the song might be, but there was a guy named Alphonse Pénaud who constructed some pretty prescient flying machines in the 1870's. Ridiculed and deject, he shot himself at 30.

[Bard2dbone]

He sounds interesting, but the guy that they were talking about on the radio apparently had his own airship of some kind that he used for even casual run-into-town stuff.

He described him flying into town just to catch a show.

The problem is that I was mostly asleep while I was hearing this, but I pictured a small blimp with some kind of pedal powered prop. I definitely got the impression it was something you could tie off to a parking meter, not something that would need a long runway to land and take off.

[bongomania]

Hmmm... in the late 1800's Alfred Jarry claimed to have invented a time machine based on a bicycle, but I don't think he's your guy.

[Ericman197]

Originally Posted by bongomania

Hmmm... in the late 1800's Alfred Jarry claimed to have invented a time machine based on a bicycle, but I don't think he's your guy.

I thought we weren't supposed to talk about Albert Hoffman

[lunarpollen]

It sounds like you might be talking about Alberto Santos-Dumont

[hbarcat]

Alberto Santos-Dumont is the person of whom you speak



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont

[Bard2dbone]

THAT'S the stuff! That is the guy he was talking about!

Between 1898 and 1905, he built and flew 11 dirigibles.Some were engine and some pedal powered. With air traffic control restrictions still decades in the future, he would glide along Paris boulevards at rooftop level in one of his airships, commonly landing in front of a fashionable outdoor cafe for lunch. On one occasion he even flew an airship early one morning to his own apartment at No. 9, Rue Washington, just off Avenue des Champs-Élysées, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.

Thanks guys!

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I was thinking of Gallagher and the White Dwarf.

[ADbassman]

Originally Posted by Bob Lee (QSC)

I was thinking of Gallagher and the White Dwarf.

I want one.

[ImaStupidBaby]

Originally Posted by cdef

Don't know what the song might be, but there was a guy named Alphonse Pénaud who constructed some pretty prescient flying machines in the 1870's. Ridiculed and deject, he shot himself at 30.

You used the word prescient. You are my internet hero

[peterbright]

And quite alliterative as well.