Ibn Firnas worked at a huge variety of enterprises. He set up astronomical tables, he wrote poetry, he built a planetar-ium and designed a water clock. He developed a process for cutting rock crystal. Up to then, only the Egyptians knew how to facet crys-tal. Now Spain would no longer need to export quartz to Egypt, but could finish it at home. Ibn Firnas built his own glider. It was far more than a fancy cloak. He too launched himself from a tower. The flight was largely successful. However, the landing was bad. He injured his back, and left critics saying he hadn't taken proper account of the way birds pull up into a stall, and land on their tails. He'd provided neither a tail, nor means for such a maneuver. His death, just twelve years later, may've been hastened by the injury. And, as we tell our schoolchildren about the Wright Brothers, the Islamic countries tell theirs about Ibn Firnas, a thousand years before the Wrights. The Libyans have a postage stamp honoring him. The Iraqis have their airport. In the Summer of 2003, American troops found themselves fighting at the Ibn Firnas airport, just north of Baghdad