Across four intense years between 1895 and 1899, the British engineer and aviation pioneer Percy Sinclair Pilcher built and flew a sequence of hang gliders in Scotland and England that carried British experimental aeronautics to the threshold of powered flight. Charles E. MacKay's 171-page illustrated biography Soaring with Wings - Percy Pilcher Wants To Fly: For Dieter Dengler, dedicated to the late United States Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, reconstructs Pilcher's life, his gliders, his University of Glasgow lectures and his Clyde yachts from archival records, period drawings and the coroner's report on his fatal crash.
Experimental flying at Auchensail and Wallaceton, Cardross
Pilcher's early gliding trials took place on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde at Auchensail and Wallaceton near Cardross in Dunbartonshire, a setting that also opens the broader regional story in Clydeside Aviation: Volume One The Great War. Rather than treating those flights in isolation, the book provides a local history of Cardross alongside contemporary weather descriptions for 1895 and 1896, explaining how wind, slope and terrain shaped his launches.
Crucially, Pilcher did not work alone: his sister was instrumental in constructing the fabric wings of his gliders and later witnessed his final flight in September 1899. By combining local Dunbartonshire topography, contemporary meteorological notes and family involvement, the book shows how Pilcher moved methodically from unpowered balance trials on the Clyde hillsides toward controlled, sustained glides.
Lilienthal, Hargrave, Chanute, Maxim and the Wright Brothers
Pilcher stood at the centre of an international network of late-nineteenth-century aeronautical experimenters. His gliding work was directly influenced by the German pioneer Otto Lilienthal, whom Pilcher visited and met twice. He also corresponded with Lawrence Hargrave in Australia and Octave Chanute in the United States, and was employed by Hiram Maxim of Vickers machine-gun fame.
The engineering data Pilcher gathered during his four years of experimental flying did not vanish with him: the Wright brothers drew on Pilcher's aerodynamic data when constructing the Wright Flyer. In Glasgow, Pilcher lectured at the University of Glasgow (several of his presentations are described in the book) and displayed his most famous glider, the Hawk, at Kelvingrove Park and at Professors' Square at the University. The original Pilcher Hawk still survives today in Edinburgh.
Yachts on the Firth of Clyde: Gleam, Widow and the Herreshoff connection
A Naval officer by training, Pilcher was an accomplished yachtsman on the Firth of Clyde, and the book explores the close relationship between late-nineteenth-century yacht rigging, hull craftsmanship and early glider construction. Pilcher owned and sailed two yachts out of Gourock: Gleam, built in America by the celebrated Herreshoff Brothers, and Widow, built on the Clyde by John Paul & Son of Gourock.
An extensive appendix examines both the Herreshoff Brothers and John Paul & Son, recording how John Herreshoff himself sailed on the Firth of Clyde out of Gourock and met Pilcher. That maritime background helps explain the structural refinement of Pilcher's bamboo, wire and fabric wings.
The fatal crash of September 1899 and the Coroner's report
In September 1899, while demonstrating the Hawk in England in damp weather, structural failure in flight brought Pilcher to the ground; he died of his injuries two days later, aged thirty-two. MacKay's account of the accident is supported directly by the Coroner's report and conclusions, separating contemporary evidence from later myth.
Read the full story
Read Soaring with Wings - Percy Pilcher Wants To Fly: For Dieter Dengler for the 171-page biography of Percy Sinclair Pilcher, the Hawk, the Cardross trials and the Herreshoff and Gourock yachting appendices. Pair it with its companion volume Skyraider 04 Down Dieter Dengler The Man The Ship The Plane, and explore the wider Clyde story in Clydeside Aviation: Volume One The Great War.