Posted on 12/17/2019 12:40:01 AM PST by Swordmaker
But the technology wasn’t quite ready for Robert E. Lee’s air cavalry
It’s the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 and Union forces on Cemetery Ridge await the final Confederate assault. But instead of witnessing serried ranks of rebels marching across a mile of open ground into the maws of Yankee cannons, the bluecoat regiments are shocked to hear the thud of rotor blades.
It is the the sound of Confederate general George Pickett’s 13,000-strong division landing behind Union lines.
Is this a neo-Confederate dream? The Red Badge of Courage meets Apocalypse Now?
No, it turns out that a Confederate engineer actually did design a helicopter back in 1862.
William C. Powers was an architectural engineer in Mobile, Alabama. Frustrated by the Union blockade of Mobile and other Southern ports, which prevented the Confederacy from exporting cotton and importing weapons, Powers resolved to devise a way to destroy Union ships.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
...With isinglass windows...
The same inventor almost came up with the Cuisinart.
Didn’t Hernando Cortes seize the capital of the Aztecs using DaVinci’s Helicopter in an air assault?
“When the sub was raised in 2000 all hands were still at their stations.“
They must have been tired after that long being on duty! And hungry!
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