Chris wrote to me some time ago to point out the works of Henri Van Herwegen, who goes by the name Panamarenko.  Panamarenko’s works include a great many variations on the love of flight, particularly human powered or human centred – so there are giant wing cars, bubble spaceships, a beautiful, fan-filled flying backpack (which frequently exploded in tests, thank heaven for Kevlar) and my most adored – the above Aeromodeller zeppelin, originally created in 1971 in order to fly to France, swoop down on Brigitte Bardot and rescue her from the maddening crowd.

Alas, Ms Bardot went un-rescued, and the zeppelin un-flown, partly due to a disgruntled farmer, partly due to multiple legal telegrams threatening jail time if Mr Herwegen attempted it.  Still!  It’s a beautiful creature, and one that probably would have flown – mahogany propellers powered by four flymo engines, and filled with oxygen or occasionally hydrogen(!).

The official site defies specific links, but I do like playing with the balloon on the page.  So light and floaty.  Also, what a beautiful setting the aeromodeller is situated in, in the image above!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 10:33 pm by Tinkergirl and is filed under Steampunk Images.