Early flying machines

Early flying machines include all kinds of aircraft that people studied or built before the modern aeroplane was developed around 1910. These machines show how humans have always dreamed of flying like birds. The story of flight began long ago, even thousands of years before the first successful plane.

Many inventors tried to make machines that could fly. Some used wings like birds, while others tried to find new ways to stay in the air. These early attempts helped us understand how to build the planes we use today.

For more about how planes developed over time, see the History of aviation. To learn about other uses of the term "Early Flight," see Early Flight and Flying machine (disambiguation). For information about all types of aircraft, see aircraft, and for the story of the modern aeroplane, see aeroplane.

Primitive beginnings

Many ancient cultures had legends of people and machines that could fly. One famous story is about Daedalus, a Greek inventor who made wings from feathers and wax to fly with his son, Icarus. Other cultures had tales of flying chariots, magical carpets, and mythical kings with wings.

People have tried to build flying machines for thousands of years. One early example is a small bird-shaped model made by the ancient Greek thinker Archytas around 400 BC, which may have glided through the air. In China, people made kites as far back as 5th century BC, using silk stretched over bamboo. These kites could carry messages or even people in some stories. Later, inventors like Leonardo da Vinci sketched ideas for machines that could fly, inspired by how birds move through the sky.

Main article: Bamboo-copter

Lighter than air

Balloons

Main article: History of ballooning

The story of lighter-than-air flight began in the 17th century when Galileo Galilei showed that air has weight. Soon after, writers like Cyrano de Bergerac imagined flying using substances lighter than air. In 1670, Francesco Lana de Terzi proposed using empty metal spheres to float in the air.

The first balloon flight happened in 1709 when Bartolomeu de Gusmão launched a small hot-air balloon in Lisbon. In the 1780s, the Montgolfier brothers in France made balloons from paper that could carry passengers using hot air. Around the same time, Joseph Black suggested using hydrogen gas, which is even lighter. In 1783, several important flights happened: the Montgolfier brothers sent animals up in a balloon, and later, people flew for the first time in both hot-air and hydrogen balloons.

Dirigibles or airships

Work on steering balloons, known as dirigibles or airships, continued through the 1800s. In 1852, Henri Giffard made the first powered flight in a balloon powered by a steam engine. Later, Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs made the first fully controlled flight in an electric-powered airship that returned to its starting point.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin created large rigid airships that could travel longer distances. Meanwhile, Alberto Santos-Dumont built practical dirigibles capable of routine flights, winning prizes for his controlled flights around landmarks like the Eiffel Tower.

Heavier than air

Parachutes

Leonardo da Vinci designed a pyramid-shaped parachute, but it wasn’t published for centuries. The first published design was by Fausto Veranzio in 1595, based on a ship’s sail. It had a square frame with material stretched over it, and the parachutist hung from ropes at each corner.

Louis-Sébastien Lenormand made the first witnessed parachute descent in 1783 when he jumped from a tower in Montpellier, France, using a 14-foot parachute with a wooden frame.

Kites

Kites became important in aviation history for carrying people. Gaston Biot developed a man-lifting kite in 1868. Later, Baden Baden-Powell created a chain of hexagonal kites, and Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite in 1893. In 1905, Neil MacDearmid was lifted by a large box kite called the Frost King, designed by Alexander Graham Bell.

17th and 18th centuries

Early ideas about flight included designs by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Robert Hooke. Various inventors tried to create flying machines, but none succeeded. Tito Livio Burattini built a model aircraft in 1647 that lifted a cat but not himself. Bartolomeu de Gusmão’s “Passarola” was a bird-shaped glider he hoped would fly, but it never succeeded in full-scale tests.

19th century

Sir George Cayley and the first modern aircraft

Sir George Cayley is known as the “father of the aeroplane.” He studied the physics of flight and designed the first modern heavier-than-air craft. He made important contributions, including understanding lift and drag, and creating the first gliders. In 1853, a glider he designed carried an adult aviator.

The age of steam

William Samuel Henson designed an early steam-powered aircraft in 1842. Jean-Marie Le Bris made a glider fly higher than its starting point in 1856, pulled by a horse. Félix du Temple built models with clockwork and steam power, and in 1874 achieved the first powered hop with a full-size aircraft. Thomas Moy’s Aerial Steamer was an unmanned steam-powered aircraft tested in 1875.

Learning to glide

Otto Lilienthal, known as the “Glider King,” made thousands of glider flights and promoted the idea of starting with gliders before attempting powered flight. Octave Chanute supported glider development and documented many flights. Percy Pilcher built gliders and a prototype powered aircraft but died before testing it.

Adding power

Whitehead

Gustave Whitehead claimed to have made powered flights in 1901 and 1902 in Connecticut, but these claims are disputed by many historians.

Langley

Samuel Pierpont Langley built unmanned, engine-driven aircraft that made successful flights in 1896. He later attempted to build a man-carrying aircraft but faced difficulties with engine power and control. His efforts ended before the Wright brothers’ successful flight in 1903.

Richard Pearse

Richard Pearse, a New Zealand inventor, was reported to have flown a powered aircraft in 1903, though evidence is limited.

The Wright brothers

The Wright brothers solved key problems of control and power. They invented roll control using wing warping and combined it with yaw control using a steerable rudder. They conducted wind-tunnel tests and built gliders before creating the powered Wright Flyer, which made the first sustained, controlled, powered flight in 1903.

The first practical aircraft

After achieving powered flight, progress continued to make aircraft practical for general use. This period, leading up to World War I, is known as the pioneer era of aviation.

Reliable power

Early engines were unreliable and lacked power. The Wrights built their own engines. In Europe, Léon Levavasseur’s Antoinette 8V V-8 engine became influential. The British Green C.4 engine powered many early aircraft. Radial engines, like the Anzani 3-cylinder and the Gnome Omega rotary engine, became important for their lightweight design.

Lift and efficiency

Biplanes and monoplanes were both used. The Antoinette Monobloc was an early cantilever monoplane but failed due to insufficient engine power. The Deperdussin monoplane, with bracing, was more successful. Triplanes and quadruplanes were also experimented with, as were other wing designs like the cellular octahedral wing by Alexander Graham Bell.

Stability and control

Early aircraft focused on stability but lacked full controllability. The Wrights sacrificed stability for control. Practical aircraft needed both. In France, Alberto Santos-Dumont flew the 14-bis in 1906, the first verified flight by a powered heavier-than-air machine. Louis Blériot developed the Blériot XI, which could cross the English Channel. The Voisin biplane lacked lateral control but was flown successfully by Henri Farman.

Seaplanes

Wilhelm Kress attempted an early seaplane flight in 1901 but failed due to lack of power. Henri Fabre made the first successful seaplane flight in 1910. The French Navy’s Foudre became the world’s first seaplane carrier in 1912. Early seaplanes faced issues with suction during takeoff, which John Cyril Porte solved by adding a step to the aircraft’s bottom.

Military use

By 1909, aircraft were recognized as potential weapons. Aeroplanes were first used in warfare during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, with the first operational use on October 23, 1911, and the first aerial bombardment on November 1, 1911. Aircraft were used for reconnaissance and bombing, and some types from this period saw service in World War I.

Helicopters

Early helicopter designs date back to the 19th century. Gustave de Ponton d’Amécourt built a model with counter-rotating rotors. Hiram Maxim sketched helicopter plans but focused on fixed-wing flight. The Breguet-Richet Gyroplane No. 1 made a tethered flight in 1907, and Paul Cornu made the first free flight in a manned rotary-winged craft in 1907.