Who was the first ever man to fly an airplane?

: Who was the first man to fly a airplain?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Casey
The first men to fly an airplane were the two who first created a working invention:
Wilbur and Orville Wright; the flight took place in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during the early 1900s.

I cannot precisely remember which of them flew first, but I believe it was Wilbur

Answer by Victor
The first air-flight machine was the hot-air balloon, flown by the French Montgolfier brothers in Annonay, now in Rhône-Alpes, on 15 October 1783.

The first heavier-than-air flying machine was the glider built by the Englishman George Cayley and flown by his employee John Appleby on 19 July 1853 in Brompton, East Yorkshire. It was Cayley who first experimented with the forces acting on a plane, and produced the first theoretical calculations about flight.

The first powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine was flown by the Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kittyhawk, North Carolina on 17 December 1903.

The search for manned flight had been going on for hundreds of years. During the Yuan dynasty (13th c.) in China, rectangular balloon-lamps became popular in festivals. Similar flying lights with a rectangular lamp in a thin paper framework have been common in Tibetan celebrations and in the Hindu festival of Diwali, for over 300 years. There is no evidence that these were ever used for human flight.

In about AD1010, an English Benedictine monk Eilmer of Malmesbury “flew” for about 200 meters using a glider but he sustained serious injuries since the machine did not glide such much as plunge down a hillside. The event is recorded in the work of the credible medieval historian William of Malmesbury.

Leonardo da Vinci created a hang-glider design with some control surfaces. The drawings exist and are considered flight-possible in principle, but no one ever built or flew in it.

In 1709, Bartolomeu de Gusmão made a proposal to King John V of Portugal, asking for Royal support for his invention of an airship based on hot air. The public test of the machine was set for 24 June 1709, but never took place.

In 1851, at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, the Australian Dr William Bland displayed a semi-rigid hydrogen-filled airship, hoping it would be powered by a steam engine. He called it his Atmotic Ship [atmospheric ship.] A model and his drawings were displayed but the machine was never built and never flew. It is estimated now that there would not have been enough hydrogen in all of Australia to inflate his airship, sufficient to carry the steam engine. It is worth saying that Dr Bland was a convicted [later pardoned] murderer and a bankrupt, and his claims for the airship were not widely believed.

And then, in 1903, the Wright brothers cracked the problems of lift and control with a small petrol engine; and the world became a different place.

OK?

Answer by armouror
In 1851 Dr William Bland designed a 90 foot, semi-rigid airship, to be powered by a steam engine capable of carrying a payload of 1 ½ tons, inflated with hydrogen and named “Atomic Ship” a model and drawings were displayed at the Crystal Palace in London in 1852, and at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855.

Answer by Hiboucoucou
There is a problem there. For North American people it is the Wrights Brothers in 1903.

But Clement Ader claimed to have flight in 1897 in France, but It was kept secret because he was in the army. The French army archive published the proof in the 1980’s

Answer by mareeclara
Richard Pearce of New Zealand is thought to have flown several months before the Wright Brothers, but this will never be aknowledged by the rest of the world,……sigh. It was witnessed by several people but anyway you have been told who the “official” books have.