The dream of flying is as old as mankind itself. However, the concept of the airplane has only been around for two centuries. Before that time, men and women tried to navigate the air by imitating the birds. They built wings to strap onto their arm or machines with flapping wings called ornithopters. On the surface, it seemed like a good plan. After all, there are plenty of birds in the air to show that the concept does work. The trouble is, it works better at bird-scale than it does at the much larger scale needed to lift both a man and a machine off the ground. So folks began to look for other ways to fly. Beginning in 1783, a few aeronauts made daring, uncontrolled flights in lighter-than-air balloons, filled with either hot air or hydrogen gas. But this was hardly a practical way to fly. There was no way to get from here to there unless the wind was blowing in the desired direction. It wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that an English baronet from the gloomy moors of Yorkshire conceived a flying machine with fixed wings, a propulsion system, and movable control surfaces. This was the fundamental concept of the airplane. Sir George Cayley also built the first true airplane — a kite mounted on a stick with a movable tail. It was crude, but it proved his idea worked, and from that first humble glider evolved the amazing machines that have taken us to the edge of space at speeds faster than sound. This wing of the museum focuses on the early history of the airplane, from its conception in 1799 to the years just before World War I. Because we are a museum of pioneer aviation, we don’t spend a great deal of time on those years after Orville Wright closed the doors of the Wright Company in 1916. We concentrate on the development of the airplane before it was commonplace, when flying machines were odd contraptions of stick, cloth, and wire; engines were temperamental and untrustworthy; and pilots were never quite sure whether they’d be able to coax their machine into the air or bring it down in one piece. A History of the Airplane is divided into four sections: 1490 Leonardo DaVinci's plan for a man-carrying ornithopter with flapping wings. 1783 Montgolfier hot-air balloon. 1799 Sir George Cayley's plan for a fixed-wing aircraft. THE CENTURY BEFORE In 1799, Sir George Cayley defined the forces of lift and drag and presented the first scientific design for a fixed-wing aircraft. Building on his pioneering work in aeronautics, scientists and engineers began designing and testing airplanes. A young boy made the first manned flight in a glider designed by Cayley in 1849. In 1874, Felix duTemple made the first attempt at powered flight by hopping off the end of a ramp in a steam-driven monoplane. Other scientists, such as Francis Wenham and Horatio Phillips studied cambered wing designs mounted in wind tunnels and on whirling arms. Finally in 1894, Sir Hiram Maxim made a successful takeoff (but a woefully uncontrolled flight) in a biplane "test rig." At the same time, Otto Lilienthal made the first controlled flights, shifting his body weight to steer a small glider. Inspired by his success, Wilbur and Orville Wright experiment with aerodynamic surfaces to control an airplane in flight. Their work leads them to make the first controlled, sustained, powered flights on December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.