Birds Can Fly, Why Can't I?

Everyone knows that the Wright brothers invented the airplane. (Anyone who doesn't should read Ask.) But before Wilbur and Orville came along, people tried everything they could think of to fly like the birds. Who was the first to fly? There are many stories. Who knows? Maybe some of them are true...

2200 B.C. The Chinese emperor Shin may have been the first to experiment with gliding. Aided by two very large reed hats that acted as parachutes, he is said to have landed safely after jumping from a high tower.

1500 B.C. According to legend, King Kai Kawus of Persia, also known as "the Foolish King," flew on a golden throne carried by four eagles. The king tied bits of meat to poles attached to the throne. As the hungry eagles tried to fly up to the food, they carried the throne up with them.

400 B.C. Chinese children played with spinning propeller toys thousands of years before helicopters.

200 B.C. The Chinese also invented kites, using them not only for play but also to carry information to and from battlefields during wars, to test the wind before setting sail in a ship, and possibly to carry a person aloft to spy on enemies.

1200 Once they invented gunpowder, the Chinese began using it to power rockets. Legend has it that an official named Wan-Hoo attempted to fly using 47 large rockets attached to a wicker chair.

1507 In Scotland, John Damian jumped off the wall of a castle wearing a pair of wings he had made from chicken feathers. He planned to fly to France but only made it to the bottom of the wall. He blamed his failure on the chicken feathers, since chickens don't fly very well.

1783 Flight really got off the ground when the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot-air balloon in France. (They got the idea after watching smoke and charred paper go up a chimney.) Before thousands of onlookers, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, the brothers launched a balloon carrying the world's first air passengers-a sheep, a rooster, and a duck.

1500 Leonardo da Vinci wasn't just a painter and sculptor, he also invented flying machines. He designed a helicopter based on the spinning propeller principle. (But if he had built it, human muscles would not have been strong enough to get it off the ground.) He also sketched parachutes and, our favorite, ornithopters with flapping wings.

1549 In England, scientist Sir George Cayley proved that wings didn't need to flap to fly. He built a large glider with three wings and, according to some reports, launched it with a 10-year-old boy on board. Cayley later built a glider with a single wing. This time, Cayley's coachman was in the pilot's seat. After a short flight, he quit in pro test. "I was hired to drive, not to fly!" he said.

1896 More isn't necessarily better-at least when it comes to wings. Octave Chanute's Katydid, a glider with six pairs of wings, flew only about 100 feet. But one of his double-decker biplane gliders stayed in the air for 14 seconds and flew a record 359 feet. His greatest contribution to flight, however, was the encouragement and advice he gave to the Wright brothers and other aviation pioneers.

1903 Samuel Langley, a well-known scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., successfully flew a powered aircraft in 1896. But his flyer was only a 30-pound model. Launched by a catapult and powered by a small steam engine, it flew for three-quarters of a mile. Impressed, the U.S. government gave Langley $50,000 to build a full-sized passenger-carrying version. In 1903 Langley's plane (equipped with a new powerful, yet lightweight, gasoline engine) was ready. Twice the plane was catapulted from a boat on the Potomac River-and dove straight into the icy water. There was no third attempt. Just nine days later, the Wright brothers flew.

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Mar 2008
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