TRICENTENNIAL
Inventor of huge clockwork bird flew 3 miles, legend says
San Antonio has claim to the first powered flight — or does it?
There are tales of a Texas man who may have made the first powered flight decades before the Wright brothers. But whether Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck actually did is up in the air. For one thing, there are many variants of the story. For instance: The flight happened “in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach” (Handbook of Texas). Or was it “a meadow north of San Antonio” (plaque text for a Brodbeck bust)? The year was either 1865 or 1868; the date, Sept. 20 or Aug. 7 or it may have gone unrecorded. Born in 1821, Brodbeck emigrated from Germany in 1846. Trained as a teacher at home, he resumed his profession as schoolmaster of Fredericksburg’s Vereins Kirche. He also became Gillespie County surveyor and district school supervisor. Back in the Old Country, the amateur inventor gained familiarity with springs and other moving parts while tinkering with the idea of a self-winding clock. He put some of what he had learned to use during the Civil War, when he started building spring-powered model gliders that were the hit of Texas fairs, according to Roger Bilstein, co-author of “Aviation in Texas.” From there, Brodbeck made the leap toward building a full-size craft that could support manned flight. In a prospectus reprinted in the Galveston TriWeekly News, Brodbeck said he had constructed the model for “a machine which imitates the flight of birds but being constructed like a ship.” Unfortunately, he said, “the construction of a large AirShip requires more means than I possess.” Brodbeck proposed to “call on the aid of my fellow men who will (all benefit) by the result of my invention.” He did so by appealing to investors, thought to have included Dr. Ferdinand Herff of San Antonio. The version of the firstflight story set in San Antonio takes place in San Pedro Park, where Brodbeck is thought to have gathered potential backers to watch a demonstration. In his description, the craft contained a compartment for the “aeronaut,” movable wings, “hand cranks,” a mysterious “power-producing engine” and a “propeller screw” to keep the craft afloat in case of emergency water landings. The airship is supposed to have been destroyed in the crash landing, according to the Handbook, after which his local investors “refused to put up the money for a second attempt.” Investors thought to have been present “never mentioned the event in their diaries,” Bilstein noted. No plans of Brodbeck’s invention have survived. Because of Brodbeck’s success with spring-driven models, Bilstein said, the assumption has been made that his full-size version used a similar power source, apparently to be cranked up by the pilot. Brodbeck went on the road, as far away as Michigan, looking for new backers, but the inventor “failed to persuade his audiences.” He came home to his ranch near Luckenbach, where he lived until his death in 1910. A bust of Brodbeck was installed in Fredericksburg’s downtown Marktplatz in 1988, according to a March 12 article in the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post. While plaque text says Brodbeck flew his airship “Sept. 20, 1865, on a meadow north of San Antonio,” the article says, “the story is that Brodbeck is reputed to have flown three miles east of Luckenbach.” Nevertheless, Brodbeck’s aviation achievements are “shrouded in doubt,” according to the Handbook. To Bilstein, the story of the giant clockwork bird that flew are “appealing but not very convincing.”