Urs Jakob Tschan

Urs Jakob Tschan SJ (born March 5, 1760 in Balsthal ; † March 24, 1824 in Schönenwerd ) was a Swiss Jesuit and aviation pioneer .

Life

Urs Jakob Tschan was the son of Peter Tschan, a businessman and his wife Anna Maria, geb. Knife.

He attended the Jesuit College in Solothurn from 1770 and was a mathematics professor at the Solothurn grammar school from 1780 to 1800 ; During this time he was ordained a priest in 1783 . In 1798 he submitted a plan for school reform to the Helvetian education authorities, On Public Schools .

From 1800 to 1817 he worked as a pastor and rector in Dornach in the Dorneck district . In 1809, the Basel bishop Franz Xaver von Neveu appointed him general provisional and official of the diocese, which only consisted of a few Solothurn and Fricktal parishes . From 1817 he was provost of the Sankt Leodegar monastery in Schönenwerd .

On February 12, 1784, Urs Jakob Tschan raised the first unmanned hot air balloon in Switzerland in Solothurn , which he designed and built by his brother, the mechanic Anton Tschan (born August 23, 1757 in Balsthal: † February 12, 1836 ibid). The air machine rose from the Mutten in the presence of about 1,000 people , reached a height of between 2000 and 3000 meters, crossed the city several times and landed at Wallierhof in Riedholz after about 45 minutes . The event on Carnival Sunday , attended by the honorary ambassadors from Glarus , Appenzell and St. Gallen , who had business to do with the French ambassador , went down in history under the name of the Ascent to Solothurn . He had previously been forbidden by the Zurich authorities to let a self-made balloon with a ship in which a sheep with a parachute was located , whereupon he avoided in the then County of Baden .

In the years that followed, he constructed hot air balloons for his older brother, including very imaginative structures that, instead of a basket, carried summer houses or sloops into the air, and which his brother raised with live animals on board at various locations in Switzerland and abroad.

Fonts (selection)

Jean Claude Fontaine, Louis Pillier, Urs Jakob Tschan: Réflexions sur les Afflictions, suivies de la Recommandation de l'Ame, soit Prière pour les Agonisans etc. Louis Piller, Freiburg i. Üe. 1790.

Web links

Marco Jorio: Tschan, Urs Jakob. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

↑ Historical, topographical and statistical representation of the former dominions Birseck and Pfeffingen, incorporated into the canton of Basel as a result of the Vienna congress declaration: 3 . S. 148. Schweighäuser, 1816 ( google.de [accessed on April 13, 2019]).
^ Hans Brunner: From the Obergösger flying animal to the jet fighter aircraft. In: Oltner Neujahrsblätter, Volume 56, 1998. P. 31. Retrieved on April 13, 2019 .
↑ Klaus Streif: A white horse flies from St. Gallen to Baden: about the beginnings of aviation in the Baden region. In: Badener Neujahrsblätter, Volume 87, 2012. P. 173 f. Retrieved April 13, 2019 .

personal data
SURNAME	Tschan, Urs Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Tschan, Urs Jakob SJ; Tschann, Urs Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss Jesuit and aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH	March 5, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH	Balsthal
DATE OF DEATH	March 24, 1824
Place of death	Schönwerd

[1] Historical, topographical and statistical representation of the former dominions Birseck and Pfeffingen, incorporated into the canton of Basel as a result of the Vienna congress declaration: 3 . S. 148. Schweighäuser, 1816 ( google.de [accessed on April 13, 2019]).

[2] Hans Brunner: From the Obergösger flying animal to the jet fighter aircraft. In: Oltner Neujahrsblätter, Volume 56, 1998. P. 31. Retrieved on April 13, 2019 .

[3] Klaus Streif: A white horse flies from St. Gallen to Baden: about the beginnings of aviation in the Baden region. In: Badener Neujahrsblätter, Volume 87, 2012. P. 173 f. Retrieved April 13, 2019 .