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Kites are invented in China. -
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The English King Bladud is apparently killed attempting to fly. -
Leonardo da Vinci designs flying machines.
Leonardo da Vinci made many drawings of wings and flying machines in the late 1400s. He kept them hidden, and they weren’t discovered until 400 years after his death. -
Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmao designs a model glider. -
The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was on 21 November 1783 in Paris, France in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers. -
George Cayley’s biplane design is published. -
Otto Lilienthal flies biplane gliders. -
Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first recorded powered, sustained and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. -
Richard Pearse from New Zealand makes his first recorded powered flight of more than a few seconds, though witnesses contend his first flight may have been just before the Wright brothers. -
Alberto Santos-Dumont makes the first successful powered flight in Europe. -
Kiwi aviator George Bolt’s flying career began in the South Island in 1911. Aged just 18, he launched a glider that he had designed and built himself from the Cashmere Hills above Christchurch. In 1911 Bolt took New Zealand’s first aerial photographs. In 1916 he began work as an apprentice mechanic at the Walsh brothers’ New Zealand Flying School in Auckland. -
Bessie Coleman became the first African-American to gain a pilot’s license. -
Charles Lindbergh completes the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. -
British inventor Frank Whittle invents the jet engine. -
New Zealander Jean Batten makes record-breaking flights around the world. -
Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly a solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. -
Germany’s Heinkel 178 is the first fully jet-propelled aircraft to fly. -
Seed sowing, top dressing and crop dusting are developed in New Zealand with ex-WW2 pilots and planes. Ossie James, in particular, is noted for his role in this. -
Charles Yeager pilots the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in level flight. -
First flights of supersonic transport – Soviet TU-144 and Anglo-French Concorde. -
Boeing 747 makes the first commercial flight -
Bryan Allen pedals the Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel, breaking the distance record for human-powered flight. -
Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager fly the US ultralight Voyager around the world in a 9-day non-stop flight from California to California. -
Steve Fossett makes the first non-stop solo flight around the world (2005) and in 2006 lands in England after flying around the world once and crossing the Atlantic twice – a distance of 26,389.3 miles (42,469.46 kilometres). -
New Zealand pilot Terry Delore breaks the world gliding record by 100 kilometres, travelling a total of 2,400 kilometres within New Zealand. -
The Transition® by Terrafugia is a roadable aircraft – an aeroplane that can take off and land at any airport and, with the push of a button, fold up its wings and drive down the road. -
In an unmanned test, the Martin jetpack reaches an altitude of 5,000 feet (1,524 metres). The jetpack, invented by New Zealander, Glenn Martin, is a small flying device for one person. It was named one of the world’s top 10 inventions in 2010. -
Solar Impulse 2 is the first plane powered by a renewable energy source to tour the globe. The Solar Impulse website has further information. -
In December the world’s first fully-electric aircraft for commercial flight completed a test in Canada.