Pilots, Planes and Pioneers

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hile the Wright brothers may have been the first to make a sustained, controlled flight, they were just two among hundreds of brave men and women who helped to give the world its wings during the earliest days of aviation. Their Flyer was but one of many historically important aircraft. Below are brief descriptions and photos of some of the most important people and planes, and where available resources and links where you can find more information. In some cases, contributors have supplied expanded histories and biographies. Those are listed at the right and linked below.

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Sir George Cayley was the scholarly baronet of Bromptom Hall (near Scarborough, England) who first conceived of a fixed-wing aircraft in 1799, built the first successful glider in 1804, and founded the science of aeronautics in 1810 with the publication of On Aerial Navigation, the first scientific work in aviation.  He was also the first to design aerodynamic controls (the rudder and the elevator), the first to perform research on the lifting properties of wing shapes, and the first to suggest the use of an internal combustion engine to power an airplane, although his idea of a combustible fuel was gunpowder. In 1853, near the end of his career, he designed and built a glider (which he called a "governable parachute") that made the first recorded manned gliding flight with his coachman aboard. Cayley's coachman, reportedly, did not appreciate the honor.

Also see: The First Airplanes
 


Sir George Cayley.

This replica of Cayley's 1853 glider flew for a documentary in 1973.

Cayley's "Governable Parachute" as it appeared in the Mechanics Magazine in 1852. The craft was built and flown successfully a year later.

Humble beginnings -- Cayley's first glider was a kite on a stick. Cayley's 1804 drawing (above) and a replica (below).
 
Octave Chanute was a renowned civil engineer and bridge-builder who became the nexus of aeronautical information in the late nineteenth century. Born in France in 1832, he had emigrated to America with his parents when he was six. He began his career in civil engineering in 1849 and built many impressive projects, including the Union Stock Yards in Chicago and the first bridge across the Missouri River. He semi-retired in 1890 and began to correspond with aeronautical scientists around the world, trading scientific information and news. He wrote a series of articles on aeronautics for the Railroad and Engineering Journal beginning in 1891. These were reprinted in 1894 in a book called Progress in Flying Machines, the most comprehensive survey of aeronautics to date. In 1896, he gathered together several young aeronautical investigators, including Augustus Herring, to test fly several new glider designs in the sand dunes around Miller, IN. These experiments resulted in the Chanute-Herring biplane glider, the most successful glider of its time and the jumping-off point for the Wright brothers. Chanute is best remembered for a long correspondence with Wilbur Wright that began in 1900 and documents the invention and development of the first practical airplanes. He also visited the Wrights at their camp in Kitty Hawk, NC.
 

When Octave Chanute was enshrined in the Aviation Hall of Fame, Milton Caniff drew this portrait.

Chanute built the Hannibal Bridge in 1869. It stretched across the Missouri River in Kansas City.

Chanute's camp at the Indiana Dunes near Miller, IN in 1896.

The Chanute-Herring glider incorporated a truss system similar to what Chanute had used when building bridges.

Chanute (extreme left) with the Wright brothers and the 1902 Wright glider in Kitty Hawk.

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Biographies of Aviation Pioneers

 

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