Greek Gods and Icarus (Greece)
The magical ability to fly was often attributed to the Gods in Greek Mythology and legends. Oriental and Western folklore also abound with stories of magic carpets, witches on broomsticks, and other forms of movement through the air.
The best known Greek legend on the subject of flight is that of Daedalus, the engineer who built the labyrinth on the island of Crete in which the Minotaur lived. With his son, Icarus, he was imprisioned by King Minos, but the captives escaped by making themselves wings of wax and feathers. With these Daedalus flew successfully all the way to Naples, but Icarus, excited by the thrill of the new experience of flying, let his youthful exuberance deafen him to his father's warning and flew too near to the sun, which melted the wax and sent the boy crashing to his death in the sea below.
Domingo Gonzales - Man in the Moon (England)
A tale was written in 1638 entitled The Man in the Moon.
The hero supposedly trained a flock of geese to fly him to the moon. Birds
and later on fish, inspired man to explore the principles of flight and
movements through the air. This is an example of how flight was explored
in early literature.
Lighter - Than - Air - Craft (Italy)
The first serious project for a lighter-than-air aircraft
was proposed by Francesco de Lana-Terzi in 1670. It was intended that this
aircraft be lifted by four thin copper spheres from which all the air had
been extracted.
Montgolfier Balloon (France)
The first journey made by man in a balloon occurred in
November 1783. The aerial journey was made over Paris by Jean Francois Pilatre
de Rozier who was accompanied by his companion Marquis d'Arlandes whose
job it was to stoke the brazier which produced the hot air to keep the balloon
aloft.
La France (France)
The La France, built by Renard and Krebs in 1884, was the first airship which could be steered in any direction regardless of the wind. Its insufficient powerplant, electrically driven, had a speed of only 14 1/2 mph.
Graf Zeppelin Airship (Germany)
The Graf Zeppelin was the most successful airship ever built. It pioneered passenger travel over the Atlantic long before airplanes were capable of long range flight. Its first flight was in September 1928. The Zeppelin Company, a German firm, built a series of airships between 1900 and 1936 which made their own contribution to aviation history including aerial cruises and reconnaissance flights between Europe, North and South America. After nearly 10 decades of service the Zeppelin Company retired these airships from service.
Cayley's First Airplane (England)
Sir George Cayley is known as the "Father of Aerial Navigation."
In 1799 he designed the first airplane with wings, fuselage, tail unit and
a means of propulsion. In 1804 he flew the first successful model airplane
which had a kite-shaped wing mounted on a pole with a universally-jointed
tail unit. The modern airplane has a similar configuration.
Otto Lilienthal Glider (Germany)
Gliding by definition means to move smoothly, and continuously.
As man watched birds such as the albatross and gull, he observed their ability
to soar for long periods without the need to flap their wings. To some it
was a mystery but to others who understood the movements of the air, its
cooling and heating, it was an incentive to design a device, heavier than
air, with no power source, which could move through the air like a bird.
This device is known as a glider. One of the great pioneers of gliding was
Otto Lilienthal. Although he was successful in pioneering the art of gliding,
he lost control, crashed and died on a flight on August 9, 1896.
The above information is obtained from ALLSTAR
NETWORK.