Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi
Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi, who lived in the
17th century in
Constantinople in the
Ottoman Empire, is one of the first aviators to have succeeded in flying with artificial wings. He is supposed to have been inspired by and used the studies of
Leonardo da Vinci on the flight of
birds. He started flying from a high tower in
Constantinople and managed to fly over the
Bosporus. The few people known to have succeeded in this kind of flight are an aviator from Moorish
Spain and an English monk in the 9th and 12th centuries, respectively. One of Hezarfen's friends
Lagari Hasan Celebi is known to have performed the first flight with a rocket in a conical cage filled with gun powder.