List of early flying machines
.jpg)
This is a listing of early flying machines.
Claims regarding early flying machines vary in countries, books and encyclopedias. They all use different criteria when considering, among others, the validity of a claim, and the meaning of the phrase flying machine. These and other controversial issues are discussed in first flying machine.
In this list, various advancements are presented, including actual flying machines, prototypes, models, designs or important pieces of literature. But note that some of this information is disputed by some sources.
Historic Records
| Inventor | Accomplishment or Claim | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Zhuge Liang | Kongming lantern, first hot air balloon | 2nd or 3rd century |
| Yuan Huangtou | Manned kite, first successful manned flight | 559[1] |
| 'Abbas Ibn Firnas | First parachute flight | 852 |
| 'Abbas Ibn Firnas | First hang glider, first controlled flight with manned glider-wings | 875[2][3] |
| Eilmer of Malmesbury | Also a single flight of manned glider-wings | 1010 |
| Unknown Chinese | Manned kites are common. Reported by Marco Polo | 1290 |
| Lagari Hasan Çelebi | First rocket flight | 1633 |
| John Childs | 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. | 1757 |
| Montgolfier brothers | Modern hot air balloon | 1783 |
| Diego Marín Aguilera | Single flight of manned-glider-wings | 1793 |
| William Samuel Henson | Aerial Steam Carriage, flight of model | 1842 |
| John Stringfellow | Stringfellow Machines | 1848, 1868 |
| Henri Giffard | Dirigible, hydrogen balloon powered by steam engine | 1852 |
| Sir George Cayley | Cayley Glider, flight of manned glider. Investigating many theoretical aspects of flight, many now acknowledge him as the first aeronautical engineer. | 1853 |
| Rufus Porter | New York to California Aerial Transport | 1849 |
| Jean Marie Le Bris | Artificial Albatross | 1857, 1867 |
| Félix du Temple de la Croix | Monoplane (1874) Maybe first powered manned fixed-wing flight, a short hop, from a downward ramp. | 1857 - 1877 |
| James William Butler and Edmund Edwards | Steam-Jet Dart Patented a remarkably prophetic design, that of a delta-winged jet-propelled aircraft, derived, obviously, from a folded paper plane. | 1865 |
| Francis Herbert Wenham | Wenham's Aerial Locomotion | 1866 |
| Jan Wnek | Loty glider, many flights | 1866 |
| Frederick Marriott | Marriott flying machines | 1869 |
| Alphonse Penaud | Planophore, Penaud Toy Helicopter | 1871 |
| Thomas Moy | Moy Aerial Steamer, | 1875 |
| Thomas Moy | The Military Kite | 1879 |
| Charles F. Ritchel | Ritchel Hand-powered Airship | 1878 |
| Victor Tatin | Tatin flying machines | 1879 |
| Massia and Biot | Massia-Biot Glider | 1879? 1887? |
| Alexandre Goupil | Goupi Monoplane, La Locomotion Aerienne | 1883 |
| John J. Montgomery | Montgomery Monoplane and Tandem-Wing Gliders | 1883 - 1911 |
| Aleksandr Fyodorovich Mozhaiski | Mozhaiski Monoplane | 1884 |
| Pichancourt | Mechanical Birds | 1889 |
| Lawrence Hargrave | Hargrave flying machines and Box kites | 1889 - 1893 |
| Clement Ader | Éole, Avion, short, manned and powered, flights | 1890 - 1897 |
| Chuhachi Ninomiya | Karasu model, Tamamushi model | 1891 ,1895 |
| Otto Lilienthal | Derwitzer Glider, Normal soaring apparatus and others, many flights | 1891 - 1896 |
| Horatio Phillips | Phillips Flying Machine | 1893, 1906 |
| Hiram Stevens Maxim | Maxim Biplane | 1894 |
| Pablo Suarez | Suarez Glider | 1895 |
| Octave Chanute and Augustus Herring | Chanute and Herring Gliding Machines | 1896 |
| William Paul Butusov | Albatross Soaring Machine | 1896 |
| William Frost | Frost Airship Glider | 1896 |
| Percy Sinclair Pilcher | 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 feet) | 1897 |
| Samuel Pierpont Langley | Langley Aerodromes | 1896 - 1903 |
| Gustave Whitehead | Aeronautical Club of Boston and manufacturer Horsman in New York hired Whitehead as a specialist for hanggliders, aircraft models, kites and motors for flying craft. Whitehead flew short distances in his glider. | 1897 |
| Carl Rickard Nyberg | Flugan, very short manned flight | 1897 |
| Edson F. Gallaudet | Gallaudet Wing Warping Kite | 1898 |
| Gustave Whitehead | Steam engine powered, 500-1000m flight, ended in a crash, plane damaged, at least two witnesses plus Whitehead and Darvarich who where on bord the plane. Authorities forbade Whitehead any further flying experiments in Pittsburg because of this crash, so he moved to Bridgeport. | 1899 |
| Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin | Zeppelin airship LZ 1 | 1900 |
| Wilhelm Kress | Kress Waterborne Aeroplane hops | 1901 |
| Gustave Whitehead | Number 21, 20hp. Newspaper reported manned, powered, controlled 800m flight. Witnessed by a reporter and other people who said the airplane landed softly on the ground without damage, one of four flights the same day. See Gustave Whitehead for more references. | 1901 |
| Gustave Whitehead | Number 22, 40hp. Claimed manned, powered, controlled 10km flight, a circle over Long Island Sound, landing in the water twice without damage to the plane, one of two flights the same day. Witnesses say a captain Brown watched and photographed the event from his boat in addition to the affidavits by his helpers, see Gustave Whitehead for more references. | 1902 |
| Lyman Gilmore | Gilmore Monoplane Built a steam-powered airplane and claimed that he flew it on May 15, 1902. No known witnesses, but he was a qualified engineer who invented among many other things a rotary snowplow and an eight-cylinder radial motor. | 1902 |
| Wright brothers | 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. October | 1902 |
| Richard William Pearse | Pearse Monoplane. Evidence exists that on 31 March 1903 Pearse achieved a powered, though poorly controlled, flight of several hundred metres. Pearse himself said that he had made a powered takeoff, "but at too low a speed for [his] controls to work". However, he remained airborne until he crashed into the hedge at the end of the field. | 1903 |
| Karl Jatho | Jatho Biplane 10hp 70m hops | 1903 |
| Guido Dinelli | Dinelli Glider, Aereoplano | 1903, 1904 |
| Wright brothers | Wright Flyer I, first successful, manned, powered, controlled and sustained flight in history, 259m, according to the Federation Aeronautique International, Smithsonian Institution and aviation historians. See History by contract. Flight ended in hard landing, plane damaged, pilot not hurt because of the strong headwind and very low altitude. Three of four flights photographed. | 1903 |
| Ferdinand Ferber and Gabriel Voisin | Archdeacon glider | 1904 |
| Wright brothers | Wright Flyer III, Wilbur Wright pilots a flight of 24 miles (39km) in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908. | 1905 |
| Louis Blériot and Gabriel Voisin | Blériot-Voison floatplane glider, biplane | 1905 |
| Traian Vuia | Vuia I, Vuia II, Several short powered flights. | 1906 - 1907 |
| Jacob Ellehammer | Ellehammer monoplane | 1906 - 1907 |
| Alberto Santos-Dumont | 14-bis, First official European flight. | 1906 |
| Glenn H. Curtiss | AEA June Bug Performance: Maximum speed: 39 mph (34 knots, 62 km/h) Range: 5,360 ft (1,630 m). | 1908 |
| Louis Blériot | Blériot V, Blériot XI On July 25, 1909 Louis Blériot successfully crossed the Channel from Calais to Dover in 36.5 minutes. | 1909 |
| Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) | Silver Dart on 10 March 1909, McCurdy flew the aircraft on a circular course over a distance of more than 35 km (20 mi). | 1909 |
| Aurel Vlaicu | Vlaicu 1909, Vlaicu I, Vlaicu II, Vlaicu III | 1909-1910 |
| Henri Fabre | Le Canard, First seaplane. | 1910 |
| Duigan Brothers | Duigan Pusher Biplane | 1910 |
| Henri Coanda | Coandă 1910 Biplane First jet engine flight. | 1910 |
Literature, myth or designs only
| Inventor | Accomplishment | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Indo-European mythology | Sun chariot | 2nd millennium BC |
| Greek mythology | Story of Daedalus and Icarus | 13th century BC |
| Hindu mythology, Sanskrit epics | Vimanas | 5th century BC or earlier |
| Roger Bacon | Secrets of Art and Nature: ornithopter design | c. 1250 |
| Leonardo da Vinci | Ornithopter design and literature | c. 1490 |
| Emanuel Swedenborg | Flying Machine design and literature | 1714 |
| Sir George Cayley | The Forces of Flight: technical literature | 1799 |
| Le Comte Ferdinand Charles Honore Phillipe d'Esterno | On The Flight Of Birds (Du Vol des Oiseaux): technical literature | 1864 |
| Louis Pierre Mouillard | The Empire Of The Air (L'Empire de L'Air): literature | 1865 |
| Horatio Frederick Phillips | Sustainer design, literature | 1884 - 1907 |
| James Means | The Problem of Manflight, Aeronautical Annual literature | 1894 - 1897 |
| Martin Wiberg | Patent for design of "Luftmaskin": liquid fuel rocket powered machine | 1903 |
See also
- Timeline of aviation
- Aviation history
- Accidents and incidents in aviation
- World War I Aviation
- Vaimanika Shastra
References
- ^ （永定三年）使元黄头与诸囚自金凤台各乘纸鸱以飞，黄头独能至紫陌乃堕，仍付御史中丞毕义云饿杀之。(Rendering: [In the 3rd year of Yongding, 559], Gao Yang conducted an experiment by having Yuan Huangtou and a few prisoners launch themselves from a tower in Ye, capital of the Northern Qi. Yuan Huangtou was the only one who survived from this flight, as he glided over the city-wall and fell at Zimo [western segment of Ye] safely, but he was later executed.) Zizhi Tongjian 167.
- ^ 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 Culture 2 (2), p. 97-111 [100-101].
- ^ First Flights, Saudi Aramco World, January-February 1964, p. 8-9.