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.
| 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; ended in injury. |
852 |
| 'Abbas Ibn Firnas |
Single flight of manned ornithopter; ended in crash and injury. |
875[2][3] |
| Eilmer of Malmesbury |
Single flight of manned glider. |
1010 |
| Unknown Chinese |
Manned kites are common. Reported by Marco Polo |
1290 |
| Lagari Hasan Çelebi |
First rocket flight |
1633 |
| Bartolomeu de Gusmão |
First lighter-than-air airship flight |
1709 |
| 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 |
Non-rigid airship, hydrogen filled envelope for lift, 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, an early attempt at an airline |
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 prophetic design, that of a delta-winged jet-propelled aircraft, derived from a folded paper plane. |
1865 |
| Francis Herbert Wenham |
Wenham's Aerial Locomotion |
1866 |
| Jan Wnęk |
Loty glider, many flights |
1866 |
| Frederick Marriott |
Marriott flying machines, as well as an attempt at an early airline |
1869 |
| Alphonse Pénaud |
Planophore, Pénaud 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 |
| Charles Renard|Arthur Constantin Krebs |
The first fully controllable free-flight was made with the La France |
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 ft) |
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 collision with a three-story house, according to affidavit 37 years later by Louis Darvarich, self-described passenger.[4]. The fireman Martin Devane, who was called to the scene of the accident reported: "...I believe I arrived immediately after it crashed into a brick building, a newly constructed apartment house on the O'Neal Estate. I recall that someone was hurt and taken to the hospital. I am able to identify the inventor Gustave Whitehead from a picture shown to me". [5] [6] [7] |
1899 |
| Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin |
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. |
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. [8] According to affidavits and witness reports he made many flights that summer, before the publicized August 14 event. For example: Harworth also said No. 21 was flown by Weisskopf in the summer of 1901 from Howard Avenue East to Wordin Avenue, along the edge of property belonging to the Bridgeport Gas Company. Upon landing, recalled Harworth, the machine was turned around and another hop was made back to Howard Avenue.[6] |
1901 |
| Alberto Santos-Dumont |
Santos-Dumont came to prominence by designing, building, and flying dirigible balloons. 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. |
1901 |
| Gustave Whitehead |
Number 22, 40hp. He claimed a manned, powered, controlled 10km flight, a circle over Long Island Sound, one of two flights the same day, landing in the water twice without damage to the plane. Supported by signed affidavit from Pruckner. [9] |
1902 |
| Lyman Gilmore |
Gilmore Monoplane Built a steam-powered airplane and claimed that he flew it on May 15, 1902. |
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. |
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, crashed into the hedge at the end of the field. The aircraft had a modern tricycle type landing gear. By the end of July 1903, possible flights of around 1 kilometre in length, some with turns. |
1903 |
| Karl Jatho |
Jatho Biplane 10hp 70m hops |
1903 |
| Guido Dinelli |
Dinelli Glider, Aereoplano |
1903, 1904 |
| Wright brothers |
Wright Flyer I, Successful, manned, powered, controlled and sustained flight, 259m, according to the Federation Aeronautique International and Smithsonian Institution. Every flight of the aircraft on December 14 and 17 -- under very difficult conditions on the 17th -- ended in a bumpy and unintended "landing". The last, by Wilbur, after a flight of 59 seconds that covered 853 feet (260 m), broke the front elevator supports. In 1904, the Wrights continued refining their designs and piloting techniques in order to obtain fully controlled flight. Major progress toward this goal was achieved in 1904 and even more decisively with the modifications during the 1905 program, which resulted in a 39-minute, 24 mile nonstop circling flight by Wilbur on October 5. While the 1903 Flyer was clearly a historically important test vehicle, its near-mythical status in American imagination has obscured its place as part of a continuing development program that eventually led to the Wrights' mastery of controlled flight in 1905. |
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. When testing of Flyer III resumed in September the results were almost immediate. The bucking and veering that had hampered Flyers I & II were gone. The minor crashes the Wrights had experienced disappeared. The flights with the redesigned Flyer III started lasting over 20 minutes. Thus Flyer III became a practicable, as well as dependable aircraft, flying solidly for a consistent duration and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage to itself. |
1905 |
| Louis Blériot and Gabriel Voisin |
Blériot-Voison floatplane glider, biplane |
1905 |
| Traian Vuia |
Vuia I, Vuia II, Several short powered flights. August 1906, 24m flight. July 5, 1907, Flew 20m. and crashed. |
1906 - 1907 |
| Jacob Ellehammer |
Ellehammer monoplane September 12, 1906 became the second European to fly an airplane (after Traian Vuia). He made over 200 flights in the next two years using many different machines. No distance data found. |
1906 - 1907 |
| Alberto Santos-Dumont |
14-bis, First official European flight. Santos-Dumont made the first public European demonstration of a powered heavier-than-air aircraft in Paris on 23 October 1906. Designated 14-bis or Oiseau de proie (French for "bird of prey"), this craft, in which the pilot would stand rather than sit, made a short hop under ground effect of 50 meters. On 12 November 1906, Santos-Dumont flew the 14-bis 220 metres in 21.5 seconds. |
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, 35km |
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 built jet engine airplane. At the airport of Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, Coandă lost control of the jet plane, which went off of the runway and caught fire. Coanda discovered the Coanda-effect. (Hans von Ohain, went to work for Ernst Heinkel, a planebuilder who had a strong interest in advanced engines. Together they crafted the world's first flying jet plane, the experimental Heinkel He 178, which first flew on August 27, 1939.) |
1910 |
