Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi

Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi, who lived in the 17th century in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, is one of the first aviators to have succeeded in flying with artificial wings. He is supposed to have been inspired by and used the studies of Leonardo da Vinci on the flight of birds. He started flying from a high tower in Constantinople and managed to fly over the Bosporus. The few people known to have succeeded in this kind of flight are an aviator from Moorish Spain and an English monk in the 9th and 12th centuries, respectively. One of Hezarfen's friends Lagari Hasan Celebi is known to have performed the first flight with a rocket in a conical cage filled with gun powder.