Carl Richard Nyberg (1858-1939) was a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of a successful blowtorch. He began work on this flying test-bed in 1897, with tests and alterations to the design of Flugan (The Fly) going on until around 1910. It had a wingspan of 5 meters, and the surface area of the wings was 13 m². It was powered by a steam engine heated by four of his blowtorches, producing 10 hp at 2000 rpm. The weight of the engine was 18 kg, giving a very good power-to-weight ratio for its time. The total weight of the plane was 80 kg, so the failure to fly was more related to poor propeller and wing technology. The challenge photo was probably taken in 1903 or later, when he started testing on the ice of the Baltic at his home on Lidingö outside Stockholm, rather than tethered around a circular board track in his garden.
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