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Carl Edgar Myers (1842-1925) was an American aeronautical engineer born in Herkimer New York.
1892 copy of upcoming performance
This is no hot air hocus-pocus where the so-called “aeronaut” goes up about as high as a church steeple and then comes down, but an actual flying machine, that speeds and spins in the air like a bird. It is worked by foot pedals like an ordinary bicycle, but goes through the air instead of on the ground, and is supported by a hydrogen gas spindle unlike any other form or creation. It has made numerous outdoor exhibitions before thousands of people, and has never failed to rise and move away at the will of the rider.
He became known as the inventor of new or improved systems for generating gases, and as the constructor of hydrogen balloons and airships, including the aerial velocipede, gas kite, sky-cycle and electrical aerial torpedo.
He married Mary Breed Hawley on November 8th 1871, and she began to assist him in his designs and later designed balloons and tested them herself (her first balloon trip was in front of a crowd of 15K people in 1880.) Deeming Mary too simple, she took the name Carlotta for flights.
When she did this flight she did so alone, but except for carrier pigeons so she could provide updates to the spectators.
On another voyage she descended through a cloud after being blown off course by storm clouds, and misjudged, having her anchor lodged in a tree. She let loose her pigeons, and was noticed by a group of hunters who asked why she hadn’t found a taller tree to land in. Her rescue took two hours and required the removal of six nearby trees.
She had several balloons she used regularly named
- carlotta
- the aerial
- the zephyr
- the flying cloud
Mary’s success was also because she was able to spend time recording temperature and humidity, and meteorological research. She took this weather knowledge she attained and innovated on the balloon designs, so she could manipulate and catch air currents.
Carl, after spending time hiring professional balloonists to test his designs, he went up by himself.
He patented his Sky Bike Dirigible on April 20th 1897.
It is a joke in the neighborhood that the “professor,” as he is called, plants his balloon crop in the fall and gathers it in the spring. In the spring thousands of yards of balloon cloth are put out to dry, and the fields are made to look like Esquimau villages, with half inflated balloons looking like snow huts on the Northerners. Myers knows all about balloons, and he has a “skycycle” in which he has travelled many miles, going with wind currents, of which he has no fear. New York Tribune, December 20, 1901
They had a Balloon Farm which they purchased together. It was a three story Victorian house in Frankfort Maryland.
Here they were able to deliver custom made balloons for government clients.
