5 Ekim 2011 Çarşamba

Lagâri Hasan Çelebi

Lagari Hasan Çelebi was an Ottoman aviator, who made a flight with rocket. He was a legandary. He made successful flight in Istanbul.

In the history pages you can not find an information about that situation. That information was told only in Evliya Çelebi's book "Seyahatname", so maybe this event could be wrong. We wanted to believe that event, because it was amazing event for that years. I will give more information about Evliya Çelebi in next days.
File:Lagari.jpg
We aren't sure about who Lagari Hasan Çelebi was. When we look his last name, you can see it is the same name with Evliya Çelebi's. In his book, Evliya Çelebi also wrote about the flight of Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, the brother of Lagari Hasan Çelebi. Nobody is sure about that information. Let's see how Evliya Çelebi told the story to us.


"Evliya Çelebi proported that in 1633 Lagari Hasan Çelebi launched in a 7 winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The flight was said to be undertaken at the time of the birth of Sultan Murad IV's daughter. As Evliya Celebi wrote, Lagari proclaimed before launch 'O my sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Jesus'; after ascending in the rocket, he landed in the sea, swimming ashore and reporting "O my sultan! Jesus sends his regards to you!"; he was rewarded by the Sultan with silver and the rank of sipahi in the Ottoman army." (You can find the original part in the book of Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname: Part I-Istanbul memories)

In these years the Ottomans were so conservative. They were related to their religion , and they weren't open to new things. They were against to the science. After that event all Ottomans didn't want Hasan Çelebi in Istanbul. The Sultan decided to sent him to another city. He was sent to Kirim, which is now in Ukraine.

The first rocket made in Ukraine, so many Ottomans understood that they made mistakes, because they believed Hasan Çelebi helped them to make a rocket. If the all stories are true, the Ottoman Empire missed a big chance.

Istanbul Beneath My Wings is a film about the lives of Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, his brother Lagari Hasan Çelebi, and Ottoman society in the early 17th century as witnessed and narrated by Evliya Çelebi. This movie tells the story of the flights of Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi and Lagari Hasan Çelebi. This is an old movie, but it is one of the few movie, which describe the Ottoman Empire's situation.

This legend was tested and debunked on the TV show MythBusters, on November 11, 2009, in the episode "Crash and Burn". However, the rocket displayed on the TV show did not adhere to the specifications described by Evliya Çelebi. This shows us that the story of the flight of Lagari Hasan Çelebi can be a fiction. 

This video is showing his flight in the movie Istanbul Beneath My Wings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z48P9VQJIhU