Milestones in Aviation

1809

• 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.

1853

• Late June or early July: Sir George Cayley's coachman became the world's first aeroplane pilot, flying a glider designed by his employer for 423ft (130m) across a valley in Brompton, Yorkshire.

1890

• Otto Lilienthal[?]'s first glider flight.

1894

• November: Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates stable flight with a tethered box kite.

1903

• March 31 : Richard Pearse reputed to have made an uncontrolled 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 reliably documented at the time.)
• December: After years of dedicated research and development, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright succeeded in creating and flying the first practical powered aeroplane.

1909

• July: Louis Blériot flew the English Channel.

1910

• October: Romanian inventor Henri Coanda (1886-1972), constructed the first jet engine in the world, named the Coanda-1910, exhibited at the International Aeronautical Show in Paris and tested near Paris.

1911

• First coast-to-coast airplane flight across the USA by the Vin Fiz Flyer[?] - taking 49 days, with several crashes en-route.

1919

• May: A US Navy flying boat NC-4[?] flew by short stages from Long Island, New York to Lisbon, Portugal over 19 days.
• June: John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first non-stop Atlantic crossing, flying a Vickers Vimy[?] from Newfoundland to Ireland in 16 hours.

1923

• May: The first non-stop USA coast-to-coast flight.

1927

• May 20-May 21: Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic nonstop and solo, direct from New York City to Paris.

1928

• May: Charles Kingsford-Smith[?], Ulm, Lyon and Warner flew the Southern Cross, a modified Fokker Trimotor[?] from San Francisco to Brisbane; the first air crossing of the Pacific.

1947

• October: Chuck Yeager took the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past the speed of sound.

1977

• August: Gossamer Condor became the first human-powered aeroplane, flying a figure-8 course to demonstrate sustained, controlled flight.

1974

• September: A SR-71 crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than two hours.

1986

• December: First non-stop flight around the planet without refueling.

See also: Aviation history