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Posted on 02/10/2026 4:34:49 PM PST by SunkenCiv
In 1849, Cayley built his first full-sized glider based on the same designs he created back in 1799, and successfully flew a 10 year old boy on one short flight. In 1853, he built a larger glider and sent his coachman flying 900 feet across a Brompton dale. Some say it was his grandson and not the coachman who took flight. Still others insist it was neither, but the butler instead.
(Excerpt) Read more at amusingplanet.com ...
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In 1853, he built a larger glider and sent his coachman flying 900 feet across a Brompton dale. Some say it was his grandson and not the coachman who took flight. Still others insist it was neither, but the butler instead.
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It’s the same old story… the butler did it.
This daredevil stunt is how all butlers wound up with the name Jeeves. That wasn’t what the poor guy was screaming, but...
“OK, Cheeves, you go first.”
“Uh, that’s very kind of you sir, but no thank. After you.”
“But I insist, Cheeves. You simply MUST go first. Now GET IN!”
DaVinci designed a helicopter and a parachute.
Deja Vu
https://search.brave.com/search?q=davinci+flight&summary=1
Leonardo da Vinci’s fascination with flight stemmed from his deep observation of nature, particularly birds, bats, and insects. He produced over 500 sketches and 35,000 words on flight, culminating in the Codex on the Flight of Birds (1505–1506), a pioneering work that explored aerodynamics, lift, center of gravity, and gliding—concepts centuries ahead of their time... Historical accounts suggest a test flight attempt in 1503 involving his apprentice Zoroastro da Peretola on Monte Ceceri, which ended in failure and injury. While no evidence confirms da Vinci ever built or flew a working machine, his visionary designs laid conceptual groundwork for future aviation. Modern tests of his parachute and aerial screw confirm their theoretical soundness, even if impractical in his era.
Well now, it was actually another Englishman (Saxon) who first flew before the Battle of Hastings. He did not, however, leave any drawings of his aircraft!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury (Æthelmær Derived from the Old English elements æðele "noble" and mære "famous".) was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings.
"Since it is known that Eilmer was an "old man" in 1066, and that he had made the flight attempt "in his youth", the event is placed some time during the early 11th century, perhaps in its first decade."
Snip... From William of Malsburys history.....
"He was a man learned for those times, of ripe old age, and in his early youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze upon the summit of a tower, flew for more than a furlong [201 metres]. But agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of air, as well as by the awareness of his rash attempt, he fell, broke both his legs and was lame ever after. He used to relate as the cause of his failure, his forgetting to provide himself a tail."
More at link.
A famous pioneer aviator, the late Otto Lilienthal of pre-Wright brothers time, would often say, ‘To design a flying machine is nothing; to build it is something; to test it is everything’.
NO IT DOESN'T.
The Wrights created the first successful powered, human-piloted, heavier-than-air craft. Someone else already had beat them to the punch on powered, human-piloted lighter-than-air craft, powered un-piloted heavier-than-air craft, and unpowered, human-piloted heavier-than-air craft.
But the king mac daddy, the first true "aircraft" (carrying a human passenger), was the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon in 1783.
“Rochester!:
Lon Chaney Jr played the butler/caretaker in “Spider Baby” aka ‘The Maddest Story Ever Told’.
Thanks, I linked the topic up top.
Orville and Wilbur didn’t invent heavier than air flight, although they experimented heavily with gliders and kites. In that effort, they built upon a foundation laid by others.
They didn’t invent engines powerful enough to lift themselves. They outsourced the engine development.
Orville and Wilbur invented 3-axis control. Without that, powered, heavier than air, manned flight is impossible.
And that is why they were “first in flight”.
“”History credits Orville and Wilbur Wright for flying the world’s first aircraft....
NO IT DOESN’T.
The Wrights created the first successful powered, human-piloted, heavier-than-air craft... “
That credit actually goes to Gustave Whitehead who successfully flew a powered airplane in August of 1901 (without the ‘weight and derrick’ system used by the Wrights to gain forward momentum).
The Wright Flyer is on loan to the Smithsonian from a British museum ‘as long as no previously flown aircraft is known.’ So don’t think the Smithsonian will ever investigate...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead
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