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In the early 1800s, an English teacher named George Pocock turned his fondness for flying kites into a working means of transport. He was born in Bristol in 1774 and first started experimenting with large kites at school, and later, with his own children.
In 1824, he came to the attention of the public when he attached his 12-year-old daughter, Martha, to a 10-meter kite and flew her over the Avon Gorge. Devon became the very first person ever to be lifted into the sky by a kite, and she flew for over 90 meters. Later, one of his sons, Alfred, launched himself from the beach and landed on a 60-meter cliff, and then used the kite line like a zipline to descend back to the sea.
By 1826, he had filed a patent for the Charvolant, which was a carriage pulled by two giant kites. It could carry four passengers and travel at speeds of 30 km/h, and it could outrun the fastest mail coach and even outrun the private carriage of the Duke of Gloucester, at least until Pocock slowed down nicely out of courtesy.
He controlled the two kites using four ropes, each on a reel. He used this set up to steer even through winds at steep oblique angles to each other. Pocock mentions in his book, The Aeropleustic Art, that kite travel was especially nice for being toll-free (because no horses = no road fees).
While Pocock's ideas about the Charvolant did not catch on to be a more widespread form of transport, it was an interesting and remarkable precursor to modern wind-powered sports like kitesurfing.
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