Eastern winds.

As is often the case, the more I look into something, the more it grows tentacles. As I snooped about to find worthy historical tidbits to weave together a reasonably accurate account of the history of jet engines I ran into all sorts of side roads to explore.

One of the basic ones is there is considerable history around rockets, and it begs the question, where do you split the jet engine off from rockets? I'm going to perform the surgery at the moment when jet turbines (what we call jet engines) were invented.

But there are some cool old rocket stories. The ancient Chinese had the gunpowder going on and it is assumed that occasionally something more substantial than a firework was fired heavenward. Chinese history records a fei tschu, or flying vehicle around 1750 BC, apparently capable of flying thousands of miles. No pictorial record has surfaced so we can only surmise at what powered it.

However, the crafty Turks with a long scientific heritage, look like they came up with rockets for at least firing at their enemies, if not for travel. With the Crusades and all, there was a sense of urgency to get going with weapons technology. Witnesses have recorded the Turkish forces using rocket powered "torpedoes", and books on military technique stating the same still exist today.

And in the 1600's Lagari Hasan Celebi is reported to have strapped no less that 140 pounds of gunpowder powered rockets to his back while slung under a seven winged monstrosity. He reportedly shouted he was going to "talk to Christ" and took off. The rockets fizzled and he came to earth over the ocean, landing safely.