Jan Wnęk

Inventor

1828 – 1869

15

Who was Jan Wnęk?

Jan Wnęk was a Polish carver of religious statues who is claimed to have constructed and flown a glider in the 1860s, predating the flights of Otto Lilienthal. There is a speculative 'reconstruction' of Wneks glider in the Kraków Museum of Ethnography.

Jan Wnek was born in Kaczówki near Dabrowa Tarnowska. He was the son of a serf and received no formal education., but was trained as a carpenter. Encouraged by a local priest, Father Stanislaw Morgenstern, Wnęk became a prolific sculptor in wood and stone for churches and cemeteries in Kraków and Odporyszów. The angels he sculpted are described as having wings of 'exceptional beauty.' He also possessed an instinctive talent for mechanics and improved some contemporary agricultural machinery, and acted in village plays.

There is no contemporary written description of the glider and the reconstruction in the Kraków Museum of Ethnography is entirely speculative. The claims for his flights are based on a local oral tradition. Although Professor Tadeusz Seweryn, former director of the Museum of Ethnography, claimed to have discovered some church records with descriptions of Jan Wnęk's flights, these have never been made available for independent scrutiny.

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Born
1828
Also known as
  • Jan Wnek
Died
Jul 10, 1869

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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