This article is an overview of early flying machines and aviation research, and an analysis of the debates over early flying machines. The goal is to examine the properties of flying machines, and to list the claims to allow a proper analysis of all the early flying machines. The story of flight begins more than a century before the 1903 Wright Flyer, and goes on some decades with rotorcraft.
Claims to first flying machine (unmanned) by date
Planophore model airplane by Alphonse Pénaud , 1871
Bamboo flying toys, China — around 400 BC
A bamboo-copter is a toy propeller that flies up when its shaft is rapidly spun. This helicopter-like top originated in Warring States Period China around 400 BC
According to Aulus Gellius, Archytas, the Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and strategist, was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown some 200 metres.[1][2] This machine, which its inventor called The Pigeon (Greek: Περιστέρα "Peristera"), may have been suspended on a wire or pivot for its flight.[3][4]
The 9th century Muslim Berber inventor Abbas Ibn Firnas covered his body with vulture feathers and 'flew faster than a phoenix" according to a contemporary poem. Despite a lack of contemporary accounts and the similarity to Icarus, it is still considered by John Harding to be the first attempt at heavier-than-air flight in aviation history.
In 1010 AD an English monk, Eilmer of Malmesbury, purportedly piloted a primitive gliding craft from the tower of Malmesbury Abbey. Eilmer was said to have flown over 200 yards (180 m) before landing, breaking both his legs. He later remarked that the only reason he did not fly further was because he forgot to give it a tail, and he was about to add one when his concerned Abbot forbade him any further experiments.
Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Brazil and Portugal, an experimenter with early airship designs
In 1709 Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrated a small airship model before the Portuguese court, but never succeeded with a full-scale model.
An early successful model airplane was the rubber-powered "Planophore". The 0.45 m (1 ft 6 in) span model achieved a flight of 60 m (200 ft) in August 1871.
He is considered the first human to make a witnessed descent with a parachute. On December 26, 1783 he jumped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in front of a crowd that included Joseph Montgolfier, using a 14 foot parachute with a rigid wooden frame.
Pilâtre de Rozier made the first trip by a human in a free-flying balloon (the Montgolfière): 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) covered in 25 minutes, 21 November 1783, near Paris.
1. Le Globe, the first hydrogen gas balloon flew on 26 August 1783.
2. On 1 December 1783 La Charlière piloted by Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert made the first manned hydrogen balloon flight.
3. On 19 September 1784, La Caroline, an elongated craft that followed Jean Baptiste Meusnier's proposals for a dirigible balloon, completed the first flight over 100 km from Paris to Beuvry.
First well-documented Western human glide. Cayley also made the first scientific studies into the aerodynamic forces on a winged flying machine and produced designs incorporating a fuselage, wings, stabilizing tail and control surfaces. He discovered and identified the four aerodynamic forces of flight - weight, lift, drag, and thrust. Modern airplane design is based on those discoveries including cambered wings. He is only of the many called the "Father of aviation".[5][6]
First heavier than air powered flight, accomplished by an unmanned steam powered monoplane of 10 feet (3.0 m) wingspan. In 1848, he flew a powered monoplane model a few dozen feet at an exhibition at Cremorne Gardens in London.[7]
On 24 September 1852 Giffard made the first powered and controlled flight, travelling 27 km (17 mi) from Paris to Trappes. It was the world's first passenger-carrying dirigible). Both practical and steerable, the hydrogen-filled airship was equipped with a 3 hp steam engine that drove a 3 bladed propeller.
The navigable balloon created by Giffard in 1852Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II.
Matias Perez was a Portuguese pilot, canopy maker and Cuban resident who, carried away with the ever increasing popularity of aerostatic aircraft, disappeared while attempting an aerostatic flight from Havana's "Plaza de Marte" (currently Parque de la Fraternidad) on June, 1856.
Jan Wnek, Poland — controlled flights 1866 - 1869.
Jan Wnek controlled his glider by twisting the wing's trailing edge via strings attached to stirrups at his feet.[8] Church records only—Kraków Museum unwilling to allow verification.
Clément Ader Avion No 3 (1897 photograph). He reportedly made the first manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight of a significant distance (50 metres) but insignificant altitude from level ground in his bat-winged, fully self-propelled fixed wing aircraft with a single tractor propeller, the Ader Éole. Seven years later, the Avion III is claimed to have be flown over 300 metres, just lifting off the ground, and then crashing. The event was not publicized until many years later, as it had been a military secret. The events were poorly documented, the aeroplane not suited to have been controlled and there was no further development.
The German "Glider King" was a the first person to make controlled untethered glides repeatedly, and the first to be photographed flying a heavier-than-air machine. He made about 2,000 glides until his death on 10 August 1896 from injuries in a glider crash the day before.
The Australian inventor of the box kite linked four of his kites together, added a sling seat, and flew 16 feet (4.9 m). By demonstrating to a sceptical public that it was possible to build a safe and stable flying machine, Hargrave opened the door to other inventors and pioneers. Hargrave devoted most of his life to constructing a machine that would fly. He believed passionately in open communication within the scientific community and would not patent his inventions. Instead, he scrupulously published the results of his experiments in order that a mutual interchange of ideas may take place with other inventors working in the same field, so as to expedite joint progress. [2]
The American inventor of the machine gun built a very large 3.5 ton (3.2 t) flying machine that ran on a track and was propelled by powerful twin naphtha fuelled steam engines. He made several tests in the huge biplane that were well recorded and reported. On July 31, 1894 he made a record breaking speed run at 42 miles per hour (68 km/h). The machine lifted from the 1,800-foot (550 m) track and broke a restraining rail, crashing after a short uncontrolled flight just above the ground.
The Sanskrit scholar Shivkar Bapuji Talpade designed an unmanned aircraft called Marutsakthi (meaning Power of Air), supposedly based on Vedic technology. It is claimed that it took off before a large audience in the Chowpathy beach of Bombay and flew to a height of 1,500 feet.[9]
First sustained flight by a heavier-than-air powered, unmanned aircraft: the Number 5 model, driven by a miniature steam engine, flew half a mile in 90 seconds over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. In November the Number 6 flew more than five thousand feet. Langley's full-size manned powered Aerodrome failed twice in October and December 1903.
Designer of first rectangular wing strut-braced biplane (originally tri-plane) hang glider, a configuration that strongly influenced the Wright brothers. Flown successfully at the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan, U.S. by his proteges, including Augustus Herring, for distances exceeding 100 feet (30 m).
Allegedly flew a steam-powered monoplane about half a mile and crashed into a three-story building in Pittsburgh in April or May 1899, according to a witness who gave a statement in 1934, saying he was the passenger.[10] Aviation historians dismiss all of Whitehead's claims to powered flight.[11]
Pioneer British glider/plane builder and pilot; protege of Lilienthal; killed in 1899 when his fourth glider crashed shortly before the intended public test of his powered triplane. Cranfield University built a replica of the triplane in 2003 from drawings in Philip Jarrett's book "Another Icarus". Test pilot Bill Brooks successfully flew it several times, staying airborne up to 1 minute and 25 seconds.
Claimed a flight of 70 feet (21 m) by attaching a compressed air motor to a biplane hang glider. However, he was unable to repeat the flight with anyone present.
Supposed flight by an aeroplane heavier than air propelled by its own motor — Whitehead No. 21. Reports were published in the New York Herald, Bridgeport (CT) Herald, The Washington Times and nine other newspapers.[12] The event was supposedly witnessed by several people, one of them a reporter for the Bridgeport Herald. The reporter wrote that he started on wheels from a flat surface, flew 800 metres at 15 metres height, and landed softly on the wheels. Aviation historians dismiss this flight; Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith writes that the reported carbide- or acetylene-powered engine "almost certainly never existed".[13]
Whitehead claimed two flights on January 17, 1902 in his improved Number 22, with a more powerful engine and aluminium instead of bamboo. He claimed the flights took place over Long Island Sound and covered distances of about two miles (3 km) and seven miles (11 km) at heights up to 200 feet (61 m), ending with safe landings in the water by the boat-like fuselage. Aviation historians dismiss all of Whitehead's claims to powered flight.[11]
Wright glider, coordinated turn using wing-warping and rudder, 1902.
Completed development of the three-axis control system with the incorporation of a movable rudder connected to the wing warping control on their 1902 Glider. They subsequently made several fully controlled heavier than air gliding flights, including one of 622.5 ft (189.7 m) in 26 seconds. The 1902 glider was the basis for their patented control system still used on modern fixed-wing aircraft.
Several people reportedly witnessed Pearse make powered flights including one on this date of over 100 ft (30 m) in a high-wing, tricycle undercarriage monoplane powered by a 15 hp (11 kW) air-cooled horizontally opposed engine. Flight ended with a crash into a hedgerow. Although the machine had pendulum stability and a three axis control system, incorporating ailerons, Pearse's pitch and yaw controls were ineffectual. (In the mockumentaryForgotten Silver, director Peter Jackson recreated this flight, supposedly filmed by New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie. The film was so convincing, Paul Harvey reported it as genuine on his syndicated News and Comment program).
On August 18, 1903 he flew with his self-made motored gliding aircraft. He had four witnesses for his flight. The plane was equipped with a single-cylinder 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) Buchet engine driving a two-bladed pusher propeller and made hops of up to 200 feet (60 m), flying up to 10 feet (3.0 m) high.
First recorded controlled, powered, sustained heavier than air flight, in Wright Flyer. In the day's fourth flight, Wilbur Wright flew 852 ft (260 m) in 59 seconds. First three flights were approximately 120, 175, and 200 ft (61 m), respectively. The Wrights laid particular stress on fully and accurately describing all the requirements for controlled, powered flight and put them into use in an aircraft which took off without the aid of a catapult from a level launching rail, with the aid of a headwind to achieve sufficient airspeed before reaching the end of the rail.
experimented with slat-winged configured aircraft. It was a fully self-propelled, autonomous take-off fixed wing aircraft using an internal combustion engine and a single tractor propeller that included its own wheeled landing gear and modern looking tail empenage. It flew 50 feet. A later and larger version of the slat-wing flew 500 feet in 1907.
First high altitude flights with Maloney as pilot of a Montgomery tandem-wing glider design. The glider was launched by balloon to heights up to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) with Maloney controlling the aircraft through a series of prescribed maneuvers to a predetermined landing location in front of a large public gathering at Santa Clara, California.
Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles (39 km) in 39 minutes (a world record that stood until Orville Wright broke it in 1908) and returns to land the plane at the takeoff site.
Fully self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft using a carbonic acid gas engine and a single tractor propeller. He flew for 12 metres in Paris without the aid of external takeoff mechanisms, such as a catapult, a point emphasized in newspaper reports in France, the U.S., and the UK. The possibility of such unaided heavier-than-air flight was heavily contested by the French Academy of Sciences, which had declined to assist Vuia with funding
The 14 Bis at Bagatelle field, Paris. The Aero Club of France certified the distance of 60 metres (197 ft); height was about 2–3 metres (6–10 ft). Winner of the Archdeacon Prize for first official flight of more than 25 metres.
Jacques and Louis Breguet helicopter experiments resulted (with the advice of Charles Richet) in the Gyroplane No. 1 lifting its pilot up into the air about 60 cm (2 ft) for a minute. However, the flight proved to be extremely unsteady. For this reason, the flights of the Gyroplane No. 1 are considered to be the first manned flight of a helicopter, but not a free flight.
On 13 November 1907, the Paul Cornu helicopter lifted its inventor to 30 cm (1 ft) and remained aloft for 20 seconds. It was reported to be the first truly free flight with a pilot.
On March 28, 1910, the Fabre Hydravion an experimental floatplane designed by Henri Fabre, was notable as the first plane in history to take off from water under its own power.
De la Cierva developed the articulated rotor which resulted in the world's first successful flight of a stable rotary-wing aircraft in 1923 with his fourth experimental autogyro.
Reports suggest that this was a fairground trick, involving sliding down a tethered rope. He had claimed to have performed the same stunt many times earlier in Europe
Maxim Biplane, a behemoth machine: 145 ft (44.2 m) long, 3.5 tons, 110 ft (33.5 m) wingspan, two 180 hp steam engines driving two propellers.
1894
Broke from restraining rail and made uncontrolled manned flight. Total flying distance, 1,000 ft (305 m) while restrained, 924 ft (282 m) free flight. Total 1,924 ft (586 m)
Unnamed flying device, flew 700m three times over two days. Documentation suggests that he glided down along a 700m rope and landed where the rope was fixed to the ground.
Pilcher Hawk Based on the work of his mentor Otto Lilienthal, in 1897 Pilcher built a glider called The Hawk with which he broke the world distance record when he flew 250 m (820 ft)
Zeppelin airship LZ 1. The first Zeppelin flight occurred on July 2, 1900 over the Bodensee, lasted 18 minutes. The second and third flights were in October 1900 and October 24, 1900 respectively, beating the 6 m/s velocity record of the French airship La France by 3 m/s.
Santos-Dumont gained fame by designing, building, and flying dirigibles. On 19 October 1901, he won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs by taking off from Saint-Cloud, flying his steerable balloon around the Eiffel Tower, and returning.
He claimed a manned, powered, controlled 10 km flight, a circle over Long Island Sound, one of two flights the same day, landing in the water twice without damage to the plane, designated Number 22.
Pearse Monoplane. First flight March 31, 1902 Waitohi, New Zealand. Evidence exists that on 31 March 1903 Pearse made a powered, though poorly controlled, flight of several hundred metres and crashed into a hedge at the end of the field. The aircraft had a tricycle type landing gear and primitive ailerons.[16]
Completed development of the three-axis control system with the incorporation of a movable rudder connected to the wing warping control on their 1902 Glider. They subsequently made several fully controlled heavier than air gliding flights, including one of 622.5 ft (189.7 m) in 26 seconds.
Wright Flyer I, Successful, manned, powered, controlled and sustained flight, 259m, in 59 seconds, according to the Federation Aeronautique International and Smithsonian Institution. Preceded by three other flights, each less than 200 feet.
Wright Flyer III Wilbur Wright pilots a flight of 24 miles (39 km) in nearly 39 minutes on Oct. 5, a world record that stood until Orville Wright surpassed it in 1908.
First official European flight on 23 October 1906 in aircraft designated 14-bis or Oiseau de proie ("bird of prey"). On 12 November 1906, he flew the 14-bis 220 metres in 21.5 seconds. He won the Archdeacon Prize founded by the Frenchman Ernest Archdeacon in July 1906, to be awarded to the first aviator to demonstrate a flight of more than 25 m.
With the Dunne D.5 tailless Biplane, the fifth in a series of tailless swept-wing designs, Dunne was among the first to achieved natural stability in flight in the same year.
^"Sir George Carley (British Inventor and Scientist)". Britannica. Retrieved 2009-07-26. English pioneer of aerial navigation and aeronautical engineering and designer of the first successful glider to carry a human being aloft.
^"The Pioneers: Aviation and Airmodelling". Retrieved 2009-07-26. Sir George Cayley, is sometimes called the 'Father of Aviation'. A pioneer in his field, he is credited with the first major breakthrough in heavier-than-air flight. He was the first to identify the four aerodynamic forces of flight - weight, lift, drag, and thrust - and their relationship and also the first to build a successful human carrying glider.
^Library of Congress, Chronicling America website retrieved on 2012-01-10[1]
^Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard. (1970). Aviation: an historical survey from its origins to the end of World War II, pages 291–292.
^Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97-111 [100-101].
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