Lagari Hasan Çelebi

Lagari Hasan Çelebi was an Ottoman Turk who was the first person to have made a successful manned rocket flight. This was the first known example of a manned powered aircraft.Terzioglu (2007)]

Aviation

According to an account given by Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century, Lagari Hasan Çelebi was launched in the air in a rocket from Sarayburnu (the point below Topkapı Palace. The flight was accomplished at the time of the birth of Sultan Murad IV's daughter in 1633. Lagari's wish was to "speak with Jesus in the heavens". After the ascent Lagari is said to have made a slow descent into the Bosporus using wings attached to his body. He was rewarded by the Sultan with gold and the rank of sipahi.

Evliya Çelebi wrote that Lagari died in the Crimea under the service of Selamet Giray Khan, although the latter reigned between 1608 and 1610.

Popular culture

"İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında" (Istanbul Under My Wings, 1996) is a film about the lives of Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, his brother Lagari Hasan Çelebi, and the Ottoman society in the early 17th century, during the reign of Murad IV, as witnessed and narrated by Evliya Çelebi.

ee also

* Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi, brother and aviator
* Evliya Çelebi
* List of Turks
* Inventions in the Muslim world
* Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world

Notes

References

* Evliya Çelebi (2003). "Seyahatname". Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, p. 318.
* Arslan Terzioglu (2007). "The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History", "The Turks" (ed. H. C. Guzel), p. 804-810.
* Winter, Frank H. (1992). "Who First Flew in a Rocket?", "Journal of the British Interplanetary Society" 45 (July 1992), p. 275-80.