Kress Flying Machine Patent and Letter

Wilhelm Kress (1836--1913) was an inventor, writer, and lecturer. This collection contains one of Kress' German patents, patent number 8706, for one of his flying machine models; a letter from 1883, in German, signed by Kress; and a description, in English, of the flying machine written by Arnold Samuelson (who lists his title as "Chief Engineer").

Wilhelm Kress was born in 1836 in Russia. In 1864, Kress invented a small elastic canvas air propeller kite and eventually began to work on the idea of a motor-powered propeller driven kite, which he successfully flew in 1865 and named the Drachenflieger. By 1877, Kress had built kite models powered by rubber strands that he called Cocoons or Aeroveloces (Cocoons or Aero-bicycles). This same year, Kress met with Josef Stefan, Director of the Physical Institute at the University of Vienna and Vice-President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, to discuss his inventions. By approximately 1879, Stefan had enrolled Kress for patents in Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary for his Drachenflieger models. Sometime in 1890, Kress began working on a design for a helicopter that he called a Hubschraube (Lifting Propeller). In 1894, Kress was invited by Octave Chanute to visit the First Aeronautical Congress in Chicago, Illinois where Kress presented several lectures. Kress designed a full-sized tandem-winged monoplane for which he was granted a patent in December 1897. Throughout the early 1900s, Kress worked on building and testing his airplane but, due to financial and mechanical difficulties, he was never able to build a complete, successful aircraft. From 1908 until his death in 1913, Kress restricted his aeronautical activities to writing and delivering lectures.