Early Flying Machines - 20th Century

20th Century

• Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German Empire —1900

Owner of the Zeppelin firm, whose Luftschiff Zeppelin 1 (LZ 1) first flew from the Bodensee on the Swiss border on July 2, 1900 as the world's first rigid airship to fly.

• Wilhelm Kress, Austria —1901

Tested Drachenflieger, a tandem monoplane seaplane similar to Samuel Langley's Aerodrome, which made brief airborne hops but could not sustain itself.

• Gustave Whitehead, United States — August 14, 1901.

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. 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".

• Lyman Gilmore, United States — May 15, 1902

Gilmore claimed to be the first person to fly a powered aircraft (a steam-powered glider). No witnesses.

• Gustave Whitehead, United States — January 17, 1902.

Whitehead claimed two more flights on January 17, 1902 using his Number 22. As with his previous claims, these are not believed by mainstream historians.

• Orville & Wilbur Wright, United States — October 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.

• Richard Pearse, New Zealand — March 31, 1903?

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. Pearse himself made no claim to have achieved anything before 1904.

• Karl Jatho, Germany — August 18, 1903.

On August 18, 1903 flew his self-made aircraft [powered by a single-cylinder 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) Buchet engine driving a two-bladed pusher propellerfor 18 m (59 ft). He had four witnesses for his flight. Modified by the addition of a second lifting surface, a second flight of 60 m (200 ft) at a height of 10 feet (3.0 m) was mde in November.

• Orville & Wilbur Wright, United States — December 17, 1903.

First recorded controlled, powered, sustained heavier than air flight, in the Wright Flyer I, a biplane. 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.

• Horatio Phillips, United Kingdom — 1904.

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.

• John Joseph Montgomery and Daniel Maloney, United States — 1905.

First high altitude flights with Maloney as pilot of a Montgomery tandem-wing glider design in March and April.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 manoeuvers to a predetermined landing location in front of a large public gathering at Santa Clara, California. On 18 July Malone was killed when the aircraft broke up at high altitude.

• Wilbur Wright, United States — October 5, 1905.

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.

• Traian Vuia, Romania — March 18, 1906.

Fully self-propelled, fixed-wing monoplane 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.

• Jacob Ellehammer, Denmark — September 12, 1906.

Built monoplane, which he tested with a tether on the Danish Lindholm island.

• Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazil — October 23, 1906.

The 14 Bis at the Chateau de Bagatelle's grounds, Bois de Boulogne, 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.

• Breguet brothers, France — 1907

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.

• Paul Cornu, France — 1907

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.

• Henri Fabre, France — 1910

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.

• Juan de la Cierva, Spain — 1923

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.