Micajah Clark Dyer was a poor mountain farmer who invented, patented, built and flew a rustic aircraft off Rattlesnake Mountain in the 1800s. Having limited formal education and building his craft with only common tools, he incorporated flight navigational controls on his craft that were years ahead of others trying to invent a flying machine, including the French and German inventors who only accomplished this about two decades later.
After Dyer's death,it was said that his widow sold the craft and patent to someone from Atlanta. Without a camera or newspaper in the North Georgia mountains at the time to report the story, Dyer's feats were almost forgotten...until 130 years later, in 2004, when his patent was discovered by a great-great-great grandson as he was searching the Internet. The patent revealed the mind of a genius, and the story of his life is one you will long remember.

Sylvia Dyer Turnage is the great-great granddaughter of Micajah Clark Dyer and grew up hearing the stories of his flying machine from her family and neighbors. As she read everything she could find about the amazing invention, she realized it was family history that should be preserved. She wrote a book about Dyer in 1994, ten years before a young relative managed to locate the patent in the U.S. Patent Office. With the new discovery of the patent and some old newspapers outside the mountain area that reported the story, she has updated the account of this remarkable man and has included many full-color photographs of the family, their homeplace, and events honoring Dyer for his invention.

Sylvia Turnage
805 Low Gap Rd.
Blairsville, GA 30512
706-745-5125
sturnage@windstream.net