Aviation Timeline

 

This time line requires a lot of work I will get this upto date soon

 

Aviation in pre–10th centuryc 1700 BC

Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus explores the desire to fly and the inherent dangers of it.[1]
c. 1000 BC
mythical flying machines called Vimanas are mentioned in the Vedas
c. 850 BC
legendary King Bladud attempts to fly over the city of Trinavantum, but falls to his death.[1]
c. 500 BC
the Chinese start to use kites.
c. 400 BC
the often-described pigeon of the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum may have been a kite.
c. 200 BC
the Chinese invented the first hot air balloon: the Kongming lantern
c. 220 BC
the Chinese use kites as rangefinders.[citation needed]
559
Yuan Huangtou, Ye, first manned kite glide to take off from a tower — 559 [2]
c. 852
Armen Firman (possibly identical with Abbas Ibn Firnas) jumped off a tower of the Mosque of Córdoba using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall. He survived with minor injuries. This was considered to be the first parachute.
c. 875
at an age of 65 years, Abbas Ibn Firnas became the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying.[3] He built his own glider, and launched himself from a mountain. The flight was largely successful, and was widely observed by a crowd that he had invited. Although he injured his back landing, his flight time was estimated to run for over ten minutes.

 

Aviation in 10th–16th centuryc. 1003

 

Jauhari attempted flight by some apparatus from the roof of a mosque in Nishapur, Khorasan, Iran, and falls to his death as a result.[4]
c. 1010
Eilmer of Malmesbury builds a wooden glider and, launching from a bell tower, glides 200 metres.[5]
1241
The Mongolian army uses lighted kites in the battle of Legnica.
c. 1250
Roger Bacon writes the first known technical description of flight, describing an ornithopter design in his book Secrets of Art and Nature.[5]
1282
Marco Polo reports on manned and ritual kite ascents.
1486 - 1513
Leonardo da Vinci designs an ornithopter with control surfaces. He envisions and sketches flying machines such as helicopters and parachutes, and notes studies of airflows and streamlined shapes.[5]
1496
The Italian Mathematician Giambattista Danti is supposed to have flown from a tower.[citation needed]
c. 1500
Hieronymus Bosch shows in his triptych The temptation of St. Anthony, among other things, two fighting airships above a burning town.
1558
Giambattista della Porta publishes a theory and a construction manual for a kite.
17th century1630
Evliya Çelebi reports, that Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi glided with artificial wings from the top of Galata Tower in Istanbul and managed to fly over the Bosphorus, landing successfully on the Doğancılar square in Üsküdar.
1633
Evliya Çelebi reports, that Lagari Hasan Çelebi flew himself in a rocket artificially-powered by gunpowder.[6]
1638
John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, suggests some ideas to future would-be pilots in his book The Discovery of a World in the Moon.
1644
Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli manages to demonstrate atmospheric pressure, and also produces a vacuum.
1654
Physicist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke measures the weight of air and demonstrates his famous Magdeburger Halbkugeln (hemispheres of Magdeburg).Sixteen horses are unable to pull apart two completely airless hemispheres which stick to each other only because of the external air pressure.
1670
Jesuit Father Francesco Lana de Terzi describes in his treatise Prodomo a vacuum-airship-project, considered the first realistic, technical plan for an airship. His design is for an aircraft with a boat-like body equipped with a sail, suspended under four globes made of thin copper; he believes the craft would rise into the sky if air was pumped out of the globes.[7] No example is built, and de Terzi writes: God will never allow that such a machine be built…because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids…
1678
Supposed flight of French locksmith Jacob Besnier with a flapping wing machine.[citation needed]
1680
Italian physicist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, the father of biomechanics, showed in his treatise On the movements of animals that the flapping of wings with the muscle power of the human arm can not be successful.
1687
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, basics of classical physics. In book II he presented the theoretical derivation of the essence of the drag equation.

18th century aviation
The kite is popular during the century.
1709
Father Bartolomeu de Gusmão designs a model hot air balloon and demonstrates it to King John V of Portugal.
1716
Well thought-out glider-project of the Swedish scholar Emanuel Swedenborg. Basis for his construction are bird flight and the glider kite.
1738
In his Hydrodynamica the Swiss scholar Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) formulates the principle of the conservation of energy for fluids (Bernoulli's principle), the relationship between pressure and velocity in a flow.
1746
English military engineer Benjamin Robins (1707–1751) invented a whirling arm centrifuge to determine drag.
1766
British chemist Henry Cavendish determines the specific weight of hydrogen gas.
1772
Abbé Desforges unsuccessfully tries to fly an apparatus with a basket and oars made of bird feathers.
1777
In St.Louis, the prisoner Dominikus Dufort jumps from a high building with a parachute garment and is rewarded with a spontaneous collection of money.
1781
Italian scientist Tiberiua Cavallo, then living in England, sends up soap bubbles filled with oxygen.
1783
June 5, unmanned flight of the Montgolfier brothers hot-air-balloon (Montgolfière) in Vivarais, France. The Montgolfiers demonstrate a hot air balloon in public, at Annonay.
August 27, flight of Le Globe, an unmanned experimental hydrogen-balloon, in Paris (built by Professor Charles and the Robert brothers). It flies 25 km (16 mi) from Paris to Gonesse and is destroyed by frightened peasants.
September 19, the Montgolfiers launch a sheep, duck, and rooster in a hot-air balloon in a demonstration for King Louis XVI of France. The balloon rises some 500 m (1,700 ft) and returns the animals unharmed to the ground.
October 15, Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes rise into the air in a Montgolfière tethered to the ground in Paris. de Rozier becomes the first human passenger in a hot-air balloon, rising 26 m (84 ft).
November 21, in a flight lasting 25 minutes, de Rozier and d'Arlandes take the first untethered ride in a Montgolfière in Paris, the first human passengers carried in free flight by a hot-air balloon.
December 1, Jacques Charles and his assistant Nicolas-Louis Robert make the first flight in a hydrogen-filled balloon (La Charlière). They travel from Paris to Nesles-la-Vallée, a distance of 43 km (27 mi). On his second flight the same day, Charles reached an altitude of circa 3,000 m over Nesles-la-Vallée.
Sebastian Lenormand does several parachute jumps from the tower of the observatory in Montpellier.
1784
September 19, Anne-Jean Robert, Nicolas-Louis Robert and Colin Hullin fly La Carolina, a hydrogen balloon, 186 km from Paris to Beuvry.
Jean-Pierre Blanchard fits a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft.
Pilâtre de Rozier and the chemist Proust rise with a Montgolfière up to 4,000 m.
Jean Baptiste Meusnier makes an oblong balloon to explore unknown areas, with an airscrew driven by muscle power.
1785
June 15, Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Jules Romain become the first known aeronautical fatalities when their balloon crashes during an attempt to cross the English Channel.
July 1, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American meteorologist John Jeffries cross the English Channel from Dover to Guînes in a balloon.
Richard Crosbie makes several unsuccessful attempts to cross the Irish Sea in a hydrogen-filled balloon.
Ukita Kōkichi, Japanese paperhanger, makes artificial wings and tries flying from the top of a bridge.
1789
First experiments in Japan to develop an ornithopter-type glider.[1]
1793
Military use of a captive balloon at the siege of Mainz (Germany).
Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes the first balloon ascent in the United States.
1794
April 2, establishment of the Company of Aeronauts, the first airship company in the French Army, who use a balloon named l'Entreprenant for reconnaissance of the Austrian forces at the Battle of Fleurus. Two companies of balloon observers are formed.
1797
October 22, André-Jacques Garnerin jumps from a balloon from 3,200 feet over Parc Monceau in Paris in a 23-foot-diameter parachute made of white canvas with a basket attached. He was declared "official French aeronaut of the state".
1798
At least one balloon of the French army's Company of Aeronauts is transported aboard the French Navy warship Le Patriote for use ashore in conducting a reconnaissance of the coast of Egypt, but Le Patriote strikes a rock and sinks off Alexandria, Egypt, on July 4.[2]
August 1 - The French ship-of-the-line Orient has gear of the French Army's Company of Aeronauts on board when she is destroyed during the Battle of the Nile.[2][3]
1799
Englishman Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) sketched a glider with a rudder unit and an elevator unit. His manuscript is considered to be the starting point of the scientific research on heavier than air flying machines. It was Cayley who helped to sort out the confusion of that time. …"He knew more than any of his predecessors … and successors up to the end of the 19th century." - Orville Wright. Even so his ideas did not affect further development very much.
January 15 - The French Army's Company of Aeronauts is abolished

1800s
1818 technical illustration shows early balloon designs.
Gay-Lussac and Biot ascend to 4,000 m in a hot air balloon, 1804. Illustration from the late 19th Century.
Zambeccari and two companions after their failed attempt to cross the Adriatic, 1804. Illustration from the late 19th Century.1803
British Rear Admiral Charles Henry Knowles proposes to the Admiralty that the Royal Navy loft an observation balloon from a ship in order to reconnoitre French preparations in Brest to invade Great Britain. His proposal is ignored.[1]
18 July – Etienne Gaspar Robertson and Lhoest climb from Hamburg (Germany) up to 7,280 m in a balloon.
3–4 October – Frenchman André-Jaques Garnerin covered a distance of 395 km from Paris to Clausen with his Montgolfière.
Count Francesco Zambeccari publishes a five-volume work on ballooning and aeronatics.
1804
Sir George Cayley builds a model glider with moveable control surfaces.
August/September – experiments by physicists Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean Baptiste Biot disproved the theory that the Earth's pull decreases with height.
7 September 7 – Zambeccari and two companions, Grasetti and Andreoli, ascend in Bologna attempting to cross the Adriatic, but have to be rescued after one day at sea.
J. Kaiserer suggests making a Montgolfière manoeuvrable with the help of tame eagles.
1806
Lord Cochrane flies kites from the Royal Navy 32-gun frigate HMS Pallas to spread propaganda leaflets along the coast of France. It is the first use of an aerial device in European maritime warfare.[1]
1807
Jakob Degen, a watchmaker from Vienna, experiments with an apparatus with valve-flap, flapping wings.
1808
Degen tries to combine a Montgolfière with the flapping wings.
1809
Degen propels a hydrogen-filled balloon by flapping large ornithopter-style wings.
September – Sir George Cayley published his seminal paper On Aerial Navigation, setting out for the first time the scientific principles of heavier-than-air flight.
1810s1811
31 May – Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger, the "tailor of Ulm" (Germany) crashes in his apparatus, a copy of Degen's, into the Danube. It was presumably a workable hang glider.
1812
19 July – lamp gas used to fill a Montgolfière (Green).
1820s
Harris jumps from his balloon to save his fiancée. Illustration from the late 19th Century.1824
Englishman Thomas Harris jumps to his death from a balloon in order to save his fiancée's life when relieving all ballast cannot stop the precipitous plunge after an accidental drop in pressure.[2]
Jan Wnęk reportedly performs several public gliding flights from the Odporyszow village church tower. (Austria/Hungary border).
1830s1836
7-8 November – flight of a coal gas balloon by Charles Green covering 722 km from London to Weilburg, with passengers Holland and Mason.
1837
Robert Cocking jumps from a balloon piloted by Charles Green at a height of 2,000 m (6,600 ft) to demonstrate a parachute of his own design, and is killed in the attempt.
1838
The American John Wise introduces the ripping panel which is still used today. The panel solved the problem of the Montgolfiere dragging along the ground at landing and needing to be stopped with the help of anchors.
1839
Charles Green and the astronomer Spencer Rush climb up to 7,900 m in a free balloon.
1840s
Arban is rescued by Italian fishermen, 1846. Illustration from the late 19th Century.1840
Louis Anslem Lauriat makes the first manned flight in Canada, at Saint John, New Brunswick, in his balloon Star of the East.[3]
1842
November – English engineer William Samuel Henson makes the first complete draft of a power driven aeroplane with steam engine drive. The patent follows the works of Cayley. The English House of Commons rejects the motion for the formation of an "Aerial Transport Company" with great laughter.
1843
William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow filed articles of incorporation for the world's first air transport company, the Aerial Transit Company
1848
William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow build a steam powered model aircraft, with a wingspan of 10 ft (3.5 m) which successfully flies a distance of 40 m before crashing into a wall. This was the world's first heavier-than-air powered flight.
1849
12–25 July – While blockading Venice, the Austrian Navy launches unmanned balloons (Montgolfières) equipped with explosive charges from the deck of the steamship Vulcano in an attempt to bombard Venice. Although the experiment is unsuccessful, it is both the first use of balloons for bombardment and the first time a warship makes offensive use of an aerial device.[4]
Sir George Cayley launches a 10-year old boy in a small glider being towed by a team of people running down a hill. This is the first known flight by a person in a heavier-than-air machine.
7 October – Frenchman Francisque Arban flies over the Alps in a free balloon (Marseille-Subini near Turin).
1850s1852
24 September – French engineer Henri Giffard flies 27 km (17 mi) in a steam-powered dirigible, reaching a speed of about 10 km/h.
Formation of the first society for promoting aerial navigation (Société Aérostatique et Météorologique de France).
1853
Late June or early July – Sir George Cayley's coachman successfully flies a glider, designed by his employer, some proportion of the distance across Brompton Dale in Yorkshire, becoming the world's first adult aeroplane pilot. Unimpressed with this honour, the coachman promptly resigns his employment.
1855
Joseph Pline is the first person to use the word "aeroplane" in a paper proposing a gas filled dirigible glider with propellers.
1856
December – French Captain Jean Marie Le Bris flies 600 ft (180 m) in his Artificial Albatross glider.
1857
Félix Du Temple flies clockwork and steam-powered model aircraft, the first sustained powered flights by heavier-than-air machines.
French brothers du Temple de la Croix apply after successful attempts with models for a patent for a power-driven aeroplane.
1858
French airman Nadar takes the first aerial photographs.
1859
1–2 July – John Wise and three companions complete a Montgolfière flight over a distance of 1,292 km (St. Louis - Henderson, USA).
1860sThe first use of observation balloons in naval warfare takes place during the American Civil War (1861–1865).[5]
1861
First telegraph message is sent from the air, by Thaddeus Lowe in the balloon Enterprise.
The Union Army Balloon Corps is formed under Lowe's command, for observation and artillery direction. Balloons would see major use in the U.S. Civil War over the next four years.
3 August – The United States Army steamship Fanny becomes the first ship to loft a captive manned balloon when a civilian aeronaut, John La Mountain, ascends from her deck to observe Confederate military positions at Hampton Roads, Virginia. He ascends again a few days later either from Fanny or a ship named Adriatic.[6]
The United States Navy barge George Washington Parke Custis becomes the first ship configured to conduct air operations, transporting and towing observation balloons along the Potomac River. She continues these operations into early 1862.[7]
1862
Late March – Civilian aeronaut John H. Steiner takes United States Navy officers aloft in an observation balloon from the deck of a flatboat on the Mississippi River so that they can direct the fire of U.S. Navy mortar boats against the Confederate-held Island Number Ten It will be the last aerial guidance of naval gunfire anywhere in the world until 1904.[8]
March–May – The United States Navy barge George Washington Parke Custis transports and tows observation balloons along the York River in Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign.[8]
April – John B. Starkweather ascends several times in a balloon from the deck of the Union paddle steamer May Flower to observe Confederate positions at Port Royal, South Carolina.[8]
June – The Confederate States Navy chooses the steamer CSS Teaser to embark a balloon for use in observation of Union Army positions along the James River in Virginia.[9]
1–3 July – The Confederate States Navy steamer Teaser operates a coal-gas silk observation balloon to reconnoitre Union Army positions along the James River in Virginia, the only use of a balloon by the Confederate States Navy. Her capture on July 4 by the steamer USS Maratanza ends Confederate naval balloon operations.[9]
5 September – After a dramatic take-off, aeronaut Coxwell and English physicist Glaisher reach 9,000 m (29,527 ft).
1863
The Union Army Balloon Corps is disbanded early in the year.[8]
Dirigible airship flown by Solomon Andrews over Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
Civilian aeronaut John H. Steiner takes Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a Prussian Army officer assigned to the Union Army as an observer, aloft in a balloon. Zeppelin later will credit this ascent as his inspiration to create the rigid airship, which he first flies in 1900.[8]
1864
Outbreak of the War of the Triple Alliance between the Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay. The Alliance forces made much use of balloon reconnaissance over the next six years.
1865
Dirigible airship flown twice over New York City by Solomon Andrews.
Jules Verne describes in his novel The Journey to the Moon the launch of a rocket from Florida, from where many years later U. S. space flights actually start.
The Frenchman d'Esterno writes in his book About the flight of birds, "Gliding seems to be characteristic for heavy birds; there are no odds which are stacked against that humans can not do the same at fair wind."
French artist and farmer Louis Pierre Mouillard makes a successful gliding flight. After years of studies about bird flight he publishes his book L'Empire de l'Air in 1881. He thinks that imitation of gliding and soaring flight of birds is possible, but not the imitation of the flapping of wings.
1866
First South American military balloon reconnaissance ascent. The 6th of July, Lieutenant Colonel Roberto A. Chodasiewicz, an Argentine Army military engineer, makes the first South American military observation ascent, manning a Brazilian Army's captive ballon over Paraguayan troops, during the Triple Alliance War.
Foundation of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the world's oldest society devoted to all aspects of aeronautics and astronautics.
Jan Wnęk makes gliding flights (1866–1869) from the Odporyszów church tower. Church records only.
1867
Henry Giffard installs a huge captive balloon for 20 passengers at the World Exposition in Paris.
1868
M.Boulton applies for an English patent for the use of a wing flap.
First exhibition of aviation in London's Crystal Palace.
1870s1870
Balloons are used by the French to transport letters and passengers out of besieged Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Between September 1870 and January 1871, 66 flights – of which 58 land safely – carry 110 passengers and up to three million letters out of Paris, as well as 500 carrier pigeons to deliver messages back to Paris.[10]
1871
The Englishmen Wenham and Browning do air flow experiments in a wind tunnel.
1872
2 February – French navy-engineer Dupuy de Lome achieves 9 to 11 km/h with his muscle powered airship.
13 December – Paul Haenlein tests the first airship with a gas engine in Brno, achieving 19 km/h. The tests were stopped because of a shortage of money.
German engineer Paul Haenlein flies a dirigible with an internal combustion engine on a tether in Vienna, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft.
1874
The French air pioneer Bénaud designs the first aircraft intended to take off from and land on water – a two-seat monoplane with retractable amphibious landing gear, counter-rotating propellers, a vertical fixed fin to which the rudder was hinged, dihedral angle on the wings, and an enclosed cockpit equipped with a single control column to control the elevators and rudder, a compass, and a barometer to be used as an altimeter.[11]
5 July – Belgian Vincent de Groof is killed in an accident as he tries to do a flight using flapping wings.
20 September – Felix and Louis du Temple de la Croix build a steam-powered monoplane which achieves a short hop after gaining speed by rolling down a ramp. It carries a human operator whose identity is no longer known.
1875
Englishman Thomas Moy tests a tethered power driven aeroplane with steam engine drive and a wing span of 4 m.
15 April – the scientific flight of the montgolfiere "Zenith" up to 8,000 m ends in the death of two aeronauts and the deafness of Gaston Tissandier.
1876
Frenchmen Penaud and Gauchot apply for a patent for a power-driven aeroplane with a device for drawing in the undercarriage, and wings with upward dihedral and a stick control.
1877
First flight of a steam-driven model helicopter built by Enrico Forlanini.
Imperial Japanese Army flying experience begins with the use of balloons.[12]
1878
Charles F. Ritchel publicly demonstrates of his hand-powered, one-man rigid airship, and eventually sells five of them.
1879
The British Army gains its first balloon, the Pioneer.
Frenchman Victor Tatin builds a power-driven model aeroplane with airscrews and a compressed air motor, successfully flying of the ground.
1880s1880
Alexander Fjodorowitsch Mozhaiski patents a steam-powered aircraft.
Karl Wölfert and Ernst Baumgarten attempt to fly a powered dirigible in free flight, but crash.
Balloons are used in British military manoeuvres for the first time at Aldershot.
1882
Wölfert unsuccessfully tests a balloon powered by a hand-cranked propeller
The Berlin-based "German Society for Promoting Aviation" publishes a magazine, the "Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt" (Magazine of Aviation).
1883
The first electric-powered flight is made by Gaston Tissandier who fits a Siemens AG electric motor to a dirigible. Airships with electric engines (Tissandier brothers, Renard and Krebs).
American AJ King invents the fast moving internal combustion engine, which is suitable for aviation because of its good power-to-weight ratio.
John J. Montgomery makes a controlled heavier-than-air flight. His first two gliders did not include flight controls but his third featured aileron prototypes.

The astronomer Jules Janssen took this photo of the French officers' Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs La France dirigible from his Meudon astrophysic observatory in 1885.1884
9 August – The first fully controllable free-flight is made in a French Army dirigible by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs. The flight covers 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes. It was the with landing on the starting point.
Mozhaiski finishes his monoplane (span 14 m, or 46 ft). It makes a short hop after running down a launch ramp.
British Army balloons are taken on the expedition to Bechuanaland in South Africa.
The Imperial Russian Army adopts the balloon for military service.[13]
Englishman Horatio F.Philipps has a patent issued for caved profiles of wings.
1885
The Prussian Airship Arm (Preussische Luftschiffer Abteilung) becomes a permanent unit of the army.
British Army balloons are taken to Sudan by the expeditionary force headed there.
1886
12–13 September – Frenchmen Hervé and Alluard achieve a Montgolfiere flight over 24 hours.
1888
Wölfert flies a petrol powered dirigible at Seelburg. The engine was built by Gottlieb Daimler.
1889
Percival Spencer makes a successful parachute jump from a balloon at Drumcondra, Ireland
Percy Pilcher builds a human-carrying glider, the Hawk, and begins development of a light internal combustion engine.
Otto Lilienthal publishes in his book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Bird Flight as the Basis for the Art of Aviation) measurements on wings, so called polar diagrams, which are the concept of description of artificial wings even today. The book gives a reference for the advantages of the arched wing.
1890s1890
9 October – The first brief flight of Clément Ader's steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft Eole takes place in Satory, France. It flies uncontrolled approximately 50 meters (165 feet) at a height of 20 cm (8 inches) before crashing, but it is the first take-off of a powered airplane solely under its own power.[14][15][16][17]
1891
Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the Aerodrome No. 0, 1 & 2 powered unmanned model aircraft.
Otto Lilienthal flies about 25 m (82 ft) in his Derwitzer Glider.
Clément Ader makes a second flight in Eole, an uncontrolled 100-meter (328-foot) hop that ends in a crash. Ader later will experiment with an even less successful twin-engined steam-powered aircraft before giving up his aircraft experiments.[18]
29 April – Chuhachi Ninomiya flies the first model airplane in Japan, a rubber-band-powered monoplane with a four-bladed pusher propeller and three-wheeled landing gear. It makes flights of 3 and 10 meters (10 and 33 feet). The next day it flies 36 meters (118 feet).[19]
1892
February – The first contract is awarded for the construction of a military airplane: Clément Ader is contracted by the French War Ministry to build a two-seater aircraft to be used as a bomber, capable of lifting a 75-kilogram (165-pound) bombload.[20]
August – Clément Ader flies 200 meters (656 feet) uncontrolled in the Avion II (also referred to as the Zephyr or Éole II) at a field in Satory.
Otto Lilienthal flies over 82 meters (90 yards) in his Südende-Glider.
Austria's army gains a permanent air corps, the Kaiserlich und Königliche Militäraeronautische Anstalt ("Imperial and Royal Military Aeronautical Group")
Horatio Phillips builds a steam-powered aircraft at Harrow which was tethered to the centre of a circular track. It successfully left the ground, even when carrying 32 kg (72 lb) of ballast. (Some sources list 1893)
1893
Otto Lilienthal flies about 250 m (820 ft) in his Maihöhe-Rhinow-Glider.
Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates a human-carrying glider in Australia at an aeronautical congress in Sydney. It is based on the box kite, an invention of Hargrave's. It becomes an example for several scientific kites and aeroplane constructions.
First experiments of the Englishman Philipps with a 50-wing-plane.
1894
31 July – Hiram Maxim launches an enormous biplane test rig (wingspan 32 m, 105 ft) propelled by two steam engines. It makes a short captive hop after running down a length of railway track.[16]
October – Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the unmanned Aerodrome No. 4 over the Potomac river a distance of 130 ft.[citation needed]
November – Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates stable flight with a tethered box kite.
4 December – German meteorologist Arthur Berson climbs up with a balloon to 9,155 m.
Czeslaw Tanski successfully flies powered models in Poland and begins work on full-size gliders.
Railway engineer Octave Chanute publishes Progress in Flying Machines, describing the research completed so far into flight. Chanute's book. a summary of many articles published in the "American Engineer and Railroad Journal", is a comprehensive account on the stage of development worldwide on the way to the aeroplane.
Otto Lilienthal's Normal soaring apparatus is the first serial production of a glider. With different aeroplane constructions he covers distances up to 250 m.
1895
Percy Pilcher makes his first successful flight in a glider named Bat.
In the book L'Aviation Militaire, Clément Ader writes ...an aircraft carrier will become indispensable. Such ships will be very differently constructed from anything in existence today. To start with, the deck will have been cleared of any obstacles: it will be a flat area, as wide as possible, not conforming to the lines of the hull, and will resemble a landing strip. The speed of this ship will have to be at least as great as that of cruisers or even greater...Servicing the aircraft will have to done below this deck...Access to this lower deck will be by means of a lift long enough and wide enough to take an aircraft with its wings folded...Along the sides will be the workshops of the mechanics responsible for refitting the planes and for keeping them always ready for flight.[21]
By the mid-1890s, the Imperial Russian Navy has established "aerostatic parks" on the coasts of the Baltic Sea and Black Sea.[22]
1896
6 May – Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the unmanned Aerodrome No. 5 from a houseboat on the Potomac River a distance of 3,300 ft (1,006 m).
June – Octave Chanute organises a flyer camp at Lake Michigan during which both a Lilienthal-glider (reconstruction) and a biplane built by Chanute are tested.
9 August – Otto Lilienthal crashes during a routine flight in the hills of Stölln and dies next day because of a spinal injury.
October – Ground testing of the first rigid airship, an all-aluminium craft designed by the Austro-Hungarian engineer David Schwarz and built by Carl Berg, begins in Berlin. Schwarz will die of a heart attack before seeing it fly.[23]
November – Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the unmanned Aerodrome No. 6 a distance of 4,200 ft (1,280 m).
Germans August Parseval and Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld invent the kite balloon for observations in strong winds.
1897
11 June – Salomon Andrée, N. Strindberg, and K. Fraenkel attempt an Arctic expedition to the North Pole by free balloon from Spitsbergen. They crash within three days but manage to survive for several months in the pack ice. Their remains are discovered in 1930 on White Island. It was possible to develop the located film material.
12 June – Friedrich Hermann Wölfert and his mechanic are killed when their petrol-powered airship cataches fire at a demonstration at the Tempelhof field.
14 October – Clément Ader later asserts that on this date he made a 300 m (984 ft) flight in his steam-powered uncontrolled Avion III also referred to as Aquilon or the Éole III. His claim is disputed. The French Army is not impressed and withdraws funding.
3 November – The first flight in a rigid airship is made by Ernst Jägels, flying an all-aluminium craft designed by the Austro-Hungarian engineer David Schwarz and built by Carl Berg. It reaches an altitude of 80 feet (24 m), proving metal-framed airships can become airborne, but cannot be controlled in flight and is damaged beyond repair in an emergency landing. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin buys the wreck and its plans from Schwarz's widow Melanie.[24]
Carl Rickard Nyberg starts working on his Flugan.
1898
Santos-Dumont flies his first balloon design, the Brésil.
The Langley Aerodrome is commissioned by the United States Army Signal Corps.
The Aéro-Club de France is founded.
The French Navy torpedo boat tender Foudre operates a spherical balloon experimentally during naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea.[25]
1899
April – Gustave Whitehead claimed to have flown his steam-powered aircraft a distance of 500 m (1,640 ft) in Pennsylvania with a passenger.
The Wright brothers begin experimenting with wing-warping as a means of controlling an aircraft.
Samuel Cody begins experiments with kites big enough to lift a person.
Percy Pilcher flies various gliders and is close to completing a powered machine but is killed when his glider crashes at Stanford Hall, England after a tail strut fails. The flight had been intended as a display of powered flight, but when the engine was not ready in time, Pilcher used a team of horses to pull the glider into the air.
19002 July – Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin pilots his experimental first Zeppelin, LZ1, over Lake Constance, reaching an altitude of 400 meters (1,312 feet) with five men on board. Although the flight lasts only 18 minutes, covers only 5.6 kilometers (3.5 mi), and ends in an emergency landing on the lake, it is the first flight of a truly successful rigid airship.[26][27][28]
12 September – The Wright brothers arrive at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to begin their first season of glider experiments there.[29]
3 October - Probably on this date, Wilbur Wright makes the Wright brothers' first glider flight at Kitty Hawk. During their tests, they will fly the 1900 glider both as a glider and as a kite under various wind conditions.[30]
17 October – On her second flight, the Zeppelin LZ-1 remains aloft for 80 minutes.[31]
23 October – The Wright brothers abandon their 1900 glider in a sand hollow and break camp at Kitty Hawk to return home to Dayton, Ohio

1901July 31 - German meteorologists Berson and Süring climb to 10,800 m in a free balloon.
AugustAugust 14 - in Fairfield, Connecticut, Gustave Whitehead reportedly flew his engine-powered Whitehead No. 21 800 meters at a height of 15 meters, according to articles in the Bridgeport Herald, the New York Herald and the Boston Transcript. No photographs were taken, but a sketch of the plane in the air was made by a reporter for the Bridgeport Herald, Dick Howell, who was present.
OctoberOctober 19 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian, flies his dirigible Number 6 around the Eiffel Tower to collect an FF100,000 prize.
October 29 - the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain is established.
Wilhelm Kress trials a triplane seaplane that makes a short hop before capsizing.
November-DecemberThe Wright brothers optimise their No. 3 Glider wing design with the help of wind tunnel measurements.
1902The Wright brothers fly their No. 3 Glider on over 700 flights, results lead directly to the construction of the Flyer.
JanuaryJanuary 17 - Gustave Whitehead purports to fly a motorized airplane with a boat-shaped hull on a supposed 11 km (6.8 mi) flight over Long Island Sound and states he landed safely in the water close to the starting point. The No.22, if it existed, is said to have had wheels and could land on water as well as on the ground. It reportedly was rebuilt from his Whitehead Aeroplane No. 21 of the previous year. No.21 had a 20hp motor, No.22 had a 40hp motor. There is only Whitehead's written statement that No.22 existed.
FebruaryFebruary 4 - First balloon flight in Antarctica when Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton ascend to 800 feet (240 m) in a tethered hydrogen balloon to take the first Antarctic aerial photographs.
February 4 - Future pilot Charles Lindbergh is born.
MarchProfessor Erich von Drygalski's 1901-1903 German Antarctic Expedition uses a balloon to survey the Antarctic coast of Wilhelm II Land.
AprilApril 30 - The St Louis Aeronautical Exposition opens in Missouri. A highlight is Octave Chanute launching a replica of his 1896 glider.
1903Léon Levavasseur demonstrates his Antoinette engine, designed as a lightweight powerplant specifically for aircraft.
Konstantin Tsiolkovski deduces the Basic Rocket Equation in his article Explorations of outer space with the help of reaction apparatuses.
FebruaryFebruary 16 Traian Vuia presented to the Académie des Sciences of Paris the possibility of flying with a heavier-than-air mechanical machine and his procedure for taking off, but it was rejected for being an utopia, adding the comments: The problem of flight with a machine which weighs more than air can not be solved and it is only a dream.
MarchMarch 31 - Richard Pearse is reputed to have made a powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft, a monoplane of his own construction, that crash lands on a hedge. This date is computed from circumstantial evidence of eyewitnesses as the flight was not well documented at the time. The machine made a flight claimed to be around 150 feet (45 m) on his farm at Upper Waitohi, near Timaru in south Canterbury, New Zealand.
MayMay 11 - Richard Pearse is claimed to have made a flight of around 1,000 yards (900 m), landing in the semi-dry bed of the Opihi River.
AugustAugust 18 - Karl Jatho makes a flight with his motored aircraft in front of four people. [1]. His craft flies up to 200 feet (60 m) a few feet above the ground in a powered heavier-than-air craft.
OctoberOctober 7 – Samuel Langley conducts the first tests of his full-sized man-carrying version of his earlier model aerodromes. The pilot Charles Manly nearly drowned when the machine slid off its launch apparatus atop a houseboat and fell into the Potomac River.
NovemberNovember 12 - The Lebaudy brothers make a controlled dirigible flight of 54 km (34 mi) from Moisson to Paris, switzerland.
DecemberDecember 8 - second attempt by Charles Manly to fly Langley's repaired full-sized aerodrome. As with the October 7 attempt the machine failed to fly tripping on its launch gear and somersaulting into the Potomac River nearly killing Manly. A surviving photograph captures the machine upended on its side as it falls off the houseboat. Langley himself was absent at this attempt but the machine's failure to fly ended his government(aka U.S. Army) funded attempts at building a successful full sized man-carrying flying machine.
December 17 - The Wright Brothers make four flights in their Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina following years of research and development. Orville Wright takes off first and flies 120 ft (37 m)in 12 seconds. This is frequently considered the first controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight and is the first such flight photographed. On the fourth effort, which is considered by some to be the first true controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight, Wilbur flies 852 ft (260 m) in 59 seconds.
1904The Wrights apply for patents for their flying machine in Germany and France.
AprilApril 1 - Captain Ferdinand Ferber makes a failed attempt to fly an Archdeacon glider at Berck sur Mer, Picardie.
April 3 - Gabriel Voisin successfully flies a modified Archdeacon glider at Berck sur Mer, Picardie. Voisin added a canard to the design. His longest flight on this day was 25 seconds.
MayMay 23 - First flight attempt, unsuccessful, of the Wright Flyer II.
JuneThe British Army tests Samuel Cody's person-carrying kites at Aldershot.
AugustAugust 3 - Major Thomas Scott Baldwin demonstrates the first successful U.S. Airship, "California Arrow", at Oakland, California
SeptemberSeptember 20 - Wilbur Wright makes the first circuit flight, in the Flyer II.
NovemberNovember 9 - Wilbur Wright flies the Wright Flyer II a distance of 3 miles near Dayton, Ohio, the first flight of longer than five minutes.
1905MarchMarch 16-20 - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery and makes three successful flights at Aptos, CA, the highest launch being at 3,000 feet with an 18 minute decent to a predetermined landing location.
AprilApril 27 - Sapper Moreton of the British Army's balloon section is lifted 2,600 ft (792 m) by a kite at Aldershot under the supervision of the kite's designer, Samuel Cody.
April 29 - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery to an altitude of 4,000 feet before release and gliding flight and landing at a predetermined location as part of a large public demonstration of aerial flight at Santa Clara, California.
JuneJune 6 - Gabriel Voisin flies along the River Seine in his float-glider towed by a motorboat.
June 23 - Wright Flyer III first flight.
JulyJuly 14 - Orville Wright has a serious crash with Wright Flyer III, upon which the Wright Brothers radically alter the aircraft. The pivot point of the front rudder is mainly the culprit for the Flyer's insistent pitching.
July 18 - Daniel Maloney makes a launch in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery at Santa Clara, California. However, a balloon cable damages the glider and upon release Maloney and the aircraft fell uncontrolled to the ground, leading to Maloney's death.
SeptemberSeptember - The Wright Brothers resume flight experiments with the re-designed Flyer III with performance of the airplane immediately in the positive. Smooth controlled flights lasting over 20 minutes now occur.
OctoberOctober 5 - Wilbur Wright makes a flight of 24.2 miles (38.9 km) in Flyer III. The flight lasts for almost 39:23 minutes at Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio.
October 14 - the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is founded in Paris
NovemberNovember 30 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ2 airship is damaged while attempting its first launch.
DecemberNeil MacDermid is carried aloft in Canada by a large box kite named The Siamese Twins, designed by Alexander Graham Bell