| 1799 Sir George Cayley, a baronet in Yorkshire, near Scarborough, England, conceives a craft with stationary wings to provide lift and "flappers" to provide thrust. It also has a movable tail to provide control. So convinced is he that this idea is an earth-shaker, he engraves a drawing of this craft on a silver disk. Cayley is the first to separate the different forces that keep an aircraft in the air, and his engraving is the first recorded drawing of a fixed-wing aircraft -- an airplane. | Click on the pictures to enlarge them.
The silver disc on which Cayley engraved his concept of a fixed wing aircraft in 1799. The opposite side shows vectors that represent lift and thrust. |
| 1804 Sir George Cayley, England, builds a miniature glider with a single wing and a movable tail mounted on a universal joint. It also has a movable weight to adjust the center of gravity. It is the first recorded fixed-wing aircraft of any size capable of flight. | 
A reproduction of Cayley's 1804 glider. |
| 1809 Sir George Cayley builds a man-sized version of his glider with a wing surface of 300 feet. An assistant makes a few tentative hops in the air, holding onto the fuselage. Sir George Cayley begins to publish On Aerial Navigation, a three-part article which appeared in Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy. It is a milestone and for the first time defines the three elements required by an aircraft — lift, propulsion, and control. | 
An illustration of Cayley's 1809 Glider from On Aerial Navigation. |
| 1810-1840 Sir George Cayley tries three times to organize an aeronautical society to study the problem of flight, but finds little interest among scientists. | 
Cayley also designed lighter-than-air craft. This dirigible sketch, which Cayley published in the Philosophical Magazine in 1817, was years ahead of its time. Note the lifeboat suspended from a parachute. |
| 1831 Thomas Walker proposes a tandem-wing airoplane with the pilot and the propulsion system amidships. This would later influence Samuel Langley as he designed his aerodromes. | 
Walker's tandem-wing design featured a wing whose camber was upside down. Had it been built, it would have stayed firmly on the ground. |
| 1843 William Samuel Henson, England, proposes the Aerial Steam Carriage in Mechanics Magazine, the first known design for a propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft. | 
Henson based the deign of his Aerial, as he called it, on Cayley's work. He asked Cayley for support in building the craft, but Cayley declined. |
| 1845-48 William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow attempt to form the Aerial Transit Company, which (if only they had a practical airplane), would have been the world's first airline. To drum up support, they build and test a model of Henson's aerial carriage with a 20-foot wingspan. It makes brief glides, but does not sustain flight. | 
This promotional illustration, printed on a handkerchief, promised the Aerial Transit Company would get you to "China in 24 hours certain." |
| 1849 Sir George Cayley builds a small glider designed to lift about 80 pounds of the ground. He refers to it as his Boy Glider. It is the first recorded manned (or boyed) fixed-wing aircraft. It lifts a 10-year old boy off the ground for a few yards on test runs. Cayley also flew it in a high wind like a kite, tethered to the ground. | 
Cayley's sketch of his Boy Carrier, the first manned aircraft. 
Plans for the Boy Carrier.
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| 1853 Sir George Cayley builds an improved version of his glider and convinces his coachman to pilot it. The coachman, whose name is lost to us, makes an wavering, uncontrolled glide of a few hundred feet -- the world’s first true manned flight in a fixed-wing aircraft. The coachman quits Cayley’s service immediately after his one and only feat of airmanship, reportedly saying, "I wish to give notice, sir -- I was hired to drive, not to fly." | 
Cayley published the design of his "coachman carrier" in 1852 in Mechanics Magazine. Cayley, by the way, never referred to his craft as gliders. He called them "governable parachutes." |
