44 Fascinating Photos That Reveal The History Of Early Flying Machines And The Masterminds Who Built Them

Published February 27, 2017
Updated May 19, 2025

From Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century sketches to the very first manned gliders and airplanes, these early prototypes made modern flight possible.

After the Wright brothers made the first sustained and controlled flight of a heavier-than-air craft near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903, humanity’s race to the skies hardly ended. To the contrary, the competition to invent bigger and better flying machines heated up more than ever.

In the wake of the brothers’ breakthrough, dozens of daredevil pilots, engineers, and manufacturers tried out hundreds of various flying machines to put humans in the air. There were gliders, wingsuits, balloons, airships, flying darts, and even stranger contraptions with names that hardly explain their functions.

Amelia Earhart In Hammond Flying Machine
Latham In A Flying Machine
Paulhan In His Flying Machine At Rheims
Farman And Others Next To An Early Aeroplane
44 Fascinating Photos That Reveal The History Of Early Flying Machines And The Masterminds Who Built Them
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Many of these attempts went nowhere. They were simply rough drafts left on the scrapheap of history. However, plenty of them did contribute to the methods of flight we take for granted today.

The photos above will take you back to a freewheeling time when "pilots" and "airplanes" were "aviators" and "flying machines," when flight was still shiny and new, and when simply taking off and landing was anything but a sure thing.

The Pre-Engine Era Of Aviation

Humanity has perhaps always dreamed of flying. While we can't say for certain whether our cave-dwelling predecessors looked at birds with envy, there is some evidence that people in ancient times at least toyed with the thought. The story of Icarus, for example, while being a cautionary tale about hubris, shows that the concept of human flight had, at the very least, worked its way into myth.

But more concretely, the idea of practically creating a flying machine filled the sketchbooks of the 15th-century polymath Leonardo da Vinci. While most of da Vinci's designs were purely theoretical, his concepts for things like ornithopters and parachutes weren't actually that far off from some of the real flying machines that emerged at the tail end of the 19th century.

Flying Machine

Public DomainA page from one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, showing his design for an "aerial screw."

Da Vinci was unfortunately crippled in his pursuit of flight due to the limitations of his time. As pioneering and brilliant as he was, science as a whole was a few hundred years away from being able to determine the necessary components for flight.

The man who did eventually identify those components was Sir George Cayley, an English pioneer known as the "Father of Aviation," even if he is often overlooked in casual conversation.

Cayley had been fascinated by flight since his childhood, and around the turn of the 19th century, he began to turn that interest into practical application. He conducted a variety of tests to gain an understanding of aerodynamics and find out what the ideal design for a flying machine would be. In 1809, he published the results of his research, identifying the four aerodynamic forces: lift, drag, thrust, and weight.

Cayley went on to design various gliders, helicopters, airships, and fixed-wing machines throughout the rest of his career, but he was hardly the only person making strides in aviation.

The 19th-Century Aviation Pioneers And Their Flying Machines

Across Europe and America, the race to flight was in full swing. Inventors and aviation enthusiasts were working day and night to propel humanity into the skies.

In 1842, for example, British inventor William Samuel Henson proposed the aerial steam carriage, a design for a steam-powered, fixed-wing aircraft, and although it was never actually built, Henson's concept included many features common to modern airplanes, including a fuselage, wings, and control surfaces.

A few years later, another Englishman by the name of John Stringfellow managed to fly a small, steam-powered model aircraft indoors. This event was a major milestone, as it was the first known powered flight of a heavier-than-air craft, albeit this one was unmanned.

John Stringfellow Flying Machine Concept

The British MuseumAn artist's impression of John Stringfellow's concept for a flying machine soaring over Egypt.

Meanwhile, in France, Alphonse Pénaud was working to advance the theory of wing contours and aerodynamics. He tested his innovations in 1871, when he flew the Planophore, a rubber band-powered model monoplane that demonstrated remarkable levels of stability and control not seen in other flying machines. Later designers would look back to Pénaud's contributions when creating their own machines, as stable control is naturally a key element of manned flight.

Then, there was the German engineer Otto Lilienthal. Another enthusiast of manned aviation, Lilienthal conducted more than 2,000 glider flights in the 1890s. He also took meticulous notes on his designs and tests, which provided incredibly valuable data on lift and control. His feats drew the attention of Orville and Wilbur Wright, two Ohio bicycle makers who just so happened to have some pretty keen ideas on flight methodology.

When Lilienthal tragically broke his neck in a glider crash on Aug. 9, 1896, and died the next day in the hospital, it oddly served as the final push of inspiration that the Wright brothers needed to start conducting their own flight experiments.

And those experiments eventually led to the creation of the world's first fully practical airplane.

How The Wright Brothers Changed Flying Machines Forever

Between 1900 and 1902, the Wright brothers built a series of gliders, taking their own hyper-detailed notes on each design and making changes as needed. Perhaps the most substantial development was that of the three-axis control system, which allowed a pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and with great precision. The brothers also designed and built a lightweight internal combustion engine and efficient propellers, leading to the creation of the Wright Flyer.

Then, on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers successfully completed the first manned, powered, controlled, and sustained flight of a heavier-than-air plane. Orville piloted the Wright Flyer for 12 seconds over a course of 120 feet, and with that, the era of modern aviation had truly begun.

Wilbur Wright In Flight From Governors Island

Public DomainWilbur Wright in flight from Governors Island in New York Harbor. 1909.

But the Wright brothers didn't stop there. They continued to refine their designs, leading to longer and even more controlled flights. By 1905, the Wright Flyer III was capable of sustained flight for more than 30 minutes, and the brothers quickly attracted the attention of aviation enthusiasts around the world — and, of course, the U.S. military.

After securing a patent for their invention, they went on to sign contracts with both the U.S. Army and French investors who wanted to build and sell licensed Wright airplanes.

By 1910, the brothers had established a company to oversee their rapidly growing business, and although Wilbur Wright would die just a few years later on May 30, 1912, his brother Orville lived on for another 36 years and saw even greater advancements in the technology he had helped build.


Fascinated by this look at vintage flying machines? Next, see which legendary innovators join the Wright brothers among famous inventors who don't actually deserve credit for their best-known breakthrough. Then, take flight beyond our atmosphere and take a look at some vintage NASA photos from the glory days of space travel.

author
John Kuroski
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John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.
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Cara Johnson
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A writer and editor based in Charleston, South Carolina and an assistant editor at All That's Interesting, Cara Johnson holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Washington & Lee University and an M.A. in English from College of Charleston and has written for various publications in her six-year career.
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Kuroski, John. "44 Fascinating Photos That Reveal The History Of Early Flying Machines And The Masterminds Who Built Them." AllThatsInteresting.com, February 27, 2017, https://allthatsinteresting.com/flying-machines. Accessed May 23, 2025.