1783 — 1969 · thirteen milestones
SkywardA brief history of flight
It took 186 years to get from a silk balloon over Paris to bootprints on the Moon. Drag the sky, scroll, or use the arrow keys to follow the climb, one milestone at a time.
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The Montgolfier balloon
A balloon built by the paper-making brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier lifted Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes from the grounds of the Château de la Muette. A fire in a brazier slung beneath the opening kept it aloft. It drifted across Paris for about 25 minutes and came down some 9 km away, the first untethered crewed flight in history.
- Crew
- 2
- Flight time
- ≈ 25 min
- Distance
- ≈ 9 km
- Lift
- Hot air
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Cayley's glider
Half a century earlier, Sir George Cayley had set out the principles of the modern aeroplane: separate means of lift, propulsion and control. In 1853 his full-size glider carried an adult across Brompton Dale. Family tradition says the reluctant pilot was Cayley's coachman, who is said to have given notice as soon as he was back on the ground.
- Designer
- Sir George Cayley
- His age
- 79
- Pilot
- His coachman, by tradition
- Type
- Fixed-wing glider
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Lilienthal's gliders
In 1891 the Berlin engineer Otto Lilienthal made his first successful glides from a hillside at Derwitz. Over the next five years he made about 2,000 flights in a series of hang gliders, steering by shifting his weight, with glides of up to 250 metres. Photographs of him in the air were printed around the world and inspired, among others, the Wright brothers.
- Pilot
- Otto Lilienthal
- Flights (1891–96)
- ≈ 2,000
- Longest glides
- ≈ 250 m
- Control
- Weight shift
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The Wright Flyer
Orville Wright flew the Flyer for 12 seconds and 120 feet (37 m) into a freezing headwind while Wilbur ran alongside. The brothers made four flights that day. The longest, with Wilbur at the controls, covered 852 feet in 59 seconds. The engine mattered, but the real breakthrough was their three-axis control, built around wing-warping.
- Pilot
- Orville Wright
- First flight
- 12 s
- Distance
- 120 ft · 37 m
- Engine
- ≈ 12 hp
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Blériot crosses the Channel
Early in the morning Louis Blériot took off from near Calais in his Type XI monoplane. He had no compass. About 36½ minutes later he landed in a meadow beside Dover Castle. The crossing won him the Daily Mail's £1,000 prize, and it showed how quickly the aeroplane was going to shrink the map.
- Aircraft
- Blériot XI
- Engine
- 25 hp Anzani
- Time
- ≈ 36½ min
- Crossing
- ≈ 35 km
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Alcock and Brown
John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown flew a modified Vickers Vimy bomber through almost 16 hours of fog, sleet and ice. They came down in the west of Ireland and landed nose-down in a bog that they had taken for a meadow. It was the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by air.
- Aircraft
- Vickers Vimy
- Crew
- 2
- Time
- ≈ 16 h
- Distance
- ≈ 3,000 km
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Lindbergh, alone
The Spirit of St. Louis carried so much fuel that a tank sat where the windscreen would have been. Lindbergh looked ahead through a periscope and the side windows. He landed at Le Bourget 33½ hours after leaving Long Island, to a vast crowd, and won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
- Aircraft
- Spirit of St. Louis
- Crew
- 1
- Time
- 33½ h
- Distance
- ≈ 5,800 km
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Amelia Earhart
Earhart took off in a red Lockheed Vega 5B and had a rough night. Ice formed on the wings, the altimeter failed and a cracked exhaust manifold spat flames. About 15 hours later she landed in a pasture near Derry. She was the first woman, and the second person, to fly the Atlantic alone.
- Aircraft
- Lockheed Vega 5B
- Crew
- 1
- Time
- ≈ 15 h
- Landing
- Culmore, near Derry
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The first jet
Test pilot Erich Warsitz flew the Heinkel He 178 from the company's airfield. It was powered by Hans von Ohain's HeS 3B turbojet, and it was the first aircraft to fly on jet power alone. Days later the Second World War began, and jet propulsion went from curiosity to priority.
- Pilot
- Erich Warsitz
- Aircraft
- Heinkel He 178
- Engine
- HeS 3B turbojet
- Engine designer
- Hans von Ohain
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Through the sound barrier
Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager was dropped from the bomb bay of a B-29. He lit the four rocket chambers of the Bell X-1, which he had named Glamorous Glennis, and reached Mach 1.06 more than 40,000 feet up. The feared "barrier" turned out to be a smooth ride once he was through. He flew with two broken ribs that he had kept quiet about.
- Pilot
- Chuck Yeager
- Aircraft
- Bell X-1
- Speed
- Mach 1.06
- Altitude
- 40,000 ft +
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Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 was a 58 cm aluminium sphere with four whip antennas. Radio amateurs around the world picked up its "beep-beep" for 21 days, until the batteries ran out. The satellite burned up in the atmosphere in January 1958, and the space age had begun.
- Diameter
- 58 cm
- Mass
- 83.6 kg
- One orbit
- ≈ 96 min
- Transmitted for
- 21 days
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Gagarin orbits the Earth
The 27-year-old Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin lifted off aboard Vostok 1 with the word "Poyekhali!" ("Let's go!"). He made a single orbit and re-entered. As planned, he ejected at about 7 km and landed by parachute near Saratov. The whole flight took 108 minutes.
- Spacecraft
- Vostok 1
- Orbits
- 1
- Flight time
- 108 min
- Cosmonaut's age
- 27
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Apollo 11: the Moon
The lunar module Eagle set down with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard while Michael Collins orbited overhead in Columbia. A few hours later Armstrong stepped onto the surface. Just 66 years after twelve seconds at Kitty Hawk, people were walking on another world.
- Crew
- 3
- Lunar module
- Eagle
- Landing site
- Sea of Tranquility
- Moonwalk
- ≈ 2½ h
1783 → 1969
186 years, straight up
From paper and silk over Paris to the Sea of Tranquility. Each step on this line looked impossible until somebody took it.