Ezekiel Airship

The Ezekiel Airship was the brainchild of Baptist minister Burrell Cannon, who was born in Coffeeville, Mississippi, in April 1848. A sawmiller by trade, he migrated to East Texas in search of the opportunities presented by its relatively plentiful hardwood forests. Described as a "Renaissance man in an industrial age", Cannon had a strong command of engineering principles and held patents for six different inventions, including designs ranging from marine propellers to windmills to cameras. Claimed by some to have spoken eight different languages, Cannon preached "on the side" in a number of small East Texas towns before turning his attention to human-powered flight in the late 1890s. == Design ==

The aircraft was designed and built by Cannon along with a number of other local inventors who were affiliated with Cannon's investor-supported Ezekiel Airship Company. Built at the P. W. Thorsell Foundry in Pittsburg by three employees who worked full-time for Cannon, the project was financed by $20,000 in stock certificates. The airship was inspired by the Book of Ezekiel, both in name and general design. According to Scott Gold, the airship was designed to take off horizontally, like a conventional airplane, but to land vertically, like a helicopter. == Claimed flight ==

On an unspecified Sunday in 1902, According to these claims, the craft flew approximately at a height of between and in the presence of only a handful of witnesses; those involved allegedly took an oath of silence, and there is no physical evidence to support any of their claims. Cannon himself was not present during the alleged flight, moreover, as he was preaching at a local church at the time. Foundry worker Gus Stamps was claimed to have been the craft's pilot. No patents or blueprints of the craft nor photographs of its alleged flight are known to exist. == Aftermath ==

The original Ezekiel Airship was destroyed in a storm near Texarkana, en route to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair. Cannon had accepted a challenge extended by the organizers of the World's Fair promising $100,000 to anyone who could make a "sustained, controlled flight" in St. Louis. he was working on developing a combination "cotton picker and boll weevil destroyer". Also in 1922, all of Cannon's original plans for the Ezekiel Airship were destroyed in a fire. == Legacy ==

In 1986 and 1987, a full-size replica of the Ezekiel Airship was built by local craftsman Bob Lowery and the Pittsburg Optimist Club, based largely on a single surviving photograph. It weighs roughly , much heavier than the original aircraft, which is believed to have weighed . One of these artifacts is Cannon's own Bible, which is displayed open to the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. Historians of human flight have generally dismissed claims that the Ezekiel Airship was the first aircraft to successfully make a heavier-than-air flight; some, however, believe that it may have achieved uncontrolled flight. ==See also==