Pompeien Piraud

   A scene-painter turned dentist, Jean-Claude Pompeien Piraud began patenting ornithopters in 1870; he tried models, unsuccessfully. During this period he passed on to Gabriel Voisin what little was known at the time of aviation science. Gabriel Voisin reported in his autobiography:

   M Pompeien Piraud had contrived an ornithopter-like flying machine; and overcoming incredible difficulties, he was building himself, near the Pare de la Tete d'Or, a cock-and-bull apparatus powered by a steam-engine... The previous models he had built could not fly... He then had the idea of tying his machine to pulleys under a cable and to stretch that between 2 poplars...

   The model had bat-like wings actuated through balancing poles by the motor, which was mounted inside a roughly streamlined hull.

   (Span: 6.25 m; hull length: 2 m; hull width: .6 m)
  
   In 1898 he began a full-sized machine which was frequently publicized in 1907, shortly before he died.