In 1791, the story opens on the countryside near Vienna where a runaway hot-air balloon drags a distressed woman through the sky. The local observer, the protagonist Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger [Tilo Prückner], is drawn to this improbable spectacle, having never seen such a thing before. He helps the woman to safety and is welcomed into the woman’s grateful family, the Morettis [Otto Lackovič] from Italy, who soon become his hosts and set the stage for his lifelong curiosity about flight. During his stay, he devours a book about the science of flight and feeds a growing fascination with birds and the mechanics of how they soar. Through the Moretti family, he becomes connected to an early aviation circle and meets an experimenter in human flight, Irma Moretti's fiancé, Jakob von Degen, who invites him to witness a public demonstration of a flying machine.
Two years pass, and the setting shifts to Ulm, where Albrecht now toils as a tailor. His life expands with a wife, Anna Berblinger [Hannelore Elsner], who embodies the practical, unglamorous partnership that suits his station. Their quiet life is stirred when the dashing Jakob von Degen returns, now married to the beautiful Irma, and their fast talk of skies and machines rekindles Albrecht’s own dreams. The tale moves toward a public stage as Albrecht’s path crosses with a rebel energy—Kaspar Fesslen [Vadim Glowna], who has been leafleting about Paris and a flying experiment and who is rumored to be a Jacobin agitator. A night in a tavern ends with Fesslen being expelled for the disturbances he causes, and the seed is planted for a new, dangerous alliance.
At last, Albrecht’s own flying machine—a large wing-shaped glider—comes into view, and his early trials begin in earnest. He takes a tumble, crashing from a hill as his wife looks on with concern. Fesslen visits him in the aftermath, reconnecting him with the world of flight and the ideas that stirred him to dream. They talk about flight and risk, and Fesslen invites him to a meeting of Jacobins, drawing Albrecht into a world where political upheaval and technological ambition mingle. When the authorities confiscate his workshop and goods, Albrecht fights to rebuild; his tests steadily improve, though each flight ends in a crash that tests his resolve. The narrative then leaps forward to the era of the Napoleonic Wars and the siege of Ulm, where revolutionary sympathizers offer financial support for his continued research. A day of triumph arrives as he achieves his first fully successful flight from a local hill and makes a careful, safe landing. Fesslen is released from confinement and stays with him for a time, dying soon after, while Irma appears again as he practices, and the two of them announce a Pentecost public demonstration of the machine.
Yet the path to glory is blocked by political and royal pressure. The local authorities request that the demonstration not be held publicly, preferring a show for the King of Württemberg [Karel Augusta]. Albrecht writes to invite the visiting Herr Degen to attend, hoping to gain official sanction for what he has built. Degen arrives, but the crowd’s enthusiasm is tempered by anxiety and skepticism. On the appointed day, the launch cannot be performed from the hill that has marked all previous attempts; instead, it must happen from a low platform on the town wall, with the river as the ultimate test. The wind refuses to cooperate, the crowd grows restless and jeers, and Albrecht takes his leap. He lands in the river, crawls ashore, and vanishes into the throng before collapsing. Soldiers recover him and place him unconscious in a gilded but broken cart full of debris. When he awakens, he fashions a makeshift periscope and, through its lens, sees the impossible: he is flying, a vision of himself high above the town that tests the boundaries of his world.
