Jean-Marie Le Bris

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Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, photographed by Nadar, 1868.

The 1857 flight patent by Le Bris

Le Bris's glider replica

Jean-Marie Le Bris (1817 - 1872) was a French aviator, born in Concarneau, Brittany, who accomplished a glider flight in December 1856.

A sailor and sea captain, Jean-Marie Le Bris sailed around the world observing the flight of the Albatross bird. Although he sailed around the world, his true ambition was to fly. He caught some of the birds and analysed the interaction of their wings with air, identifying the aerodynamic phenomenon of lift, which he called "aspiration".

Le Bris built a glider, inspired by the shape of the Albatross bird. Named L'Albatros artificiel ("The artificial Albatross"), he managed to fly on the beach of Sainte-Anne-la-Palud (Finistère), by being pulled by a running horse, face to the wind. He thus flew higher than his point of departure, a first for heavier-than-air flying machines, reportedly to a height of 100 metres (300 ft), for a distance of 200 metres (600 ft).

In 1868, with the support of the French Navy, he built a second flying machine, which he tried three times in Brest without great success. It was almost identical to his first flying machine, except that it was lighter and had a system to shift weight distribution. His flying machine became the first ever to be photographed, albeit on the ground, by Nadar in 1868.

Le Bris invented flight controls, which could act on the incidence of wings. This invention was the object of a patent in March 1857.

Before Le Bris, several human gliders had been made (by the ancient Chinese, Abbas Ibn Firnas in the 9th century, Eilmer of Malmesbury in the 11th century, and George Cayley in 1853), but they were all non-powered. In Great Britain, Stringfellow had built small gliders in 1848, although they never carried anyone. The first autonomous powered flight, would be accomplished by Clément Ader in 1890 in his steam-powered monoplane the Eole. This flight was not considered a controlled flight, however.