The dream of manned flight dates back to the ancient world, but a true understanding of aerodynamic principles and practical aircraft design didn’t arrive until the work of the English polymath George Cayley.
The dream of manned flight dates back to the ancient world, but a true understanding of aerodynamic principles and practical aircraft design didn’t arrive until the work of the English polymath George Cayley. In 1799, the man known as the “Father of Aviation” drew up the earliest known plans for an aircraft that used a fixed-wing design with separate mechanisms for lift and thrust. He followed it up with a small model glider in 1804, but his biggest achievement came in 1853, when he built a full-sized glider that successfully took flight near Scarborough, England—supposedly with Sir George’s terrified carriage driver as its passenger.