Flyvebaad, 1909-1910.
Jacob Christian Hansen Ellehammer Danish
Vilhelm Ellehammer Danish
Not on view
Unaware of the Wright brothers' success, the Danish engineer Ellehammer worked in isolation to invent a means of flight, a feat he achieved on September 12, 1906. He soon shifted his attention to vertical flight craft, succeeding in 1912 in hopping along above ground in an experimental helicopter. It is those early, tentative helicopter flights that we see in these remarkable photographs, part of an album documenting Ellehammer's experiments in aviation between 1905 and 1920.