Timeline of aviation before the 18th century

pre–10th century

• c 1700 BC
  • Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus explores the desire to fly and the inherent dangers of it.^[1]
• c. 1000 BC
  • mythical flying machines called Vimanas are mentioned in the Vedas
• c. 850 BC
  • legendary King Bladud attempts to fly over the city of Trinavantum, but falls to his death.^[1]
• c. 500 BC
  • the Chinese start to use kites.
• c. 400 BC
  • the often-described pigeon of the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum may have been a kite.
• c. 200 BC
  • the Chinese invented the first hot air balloon: the Kongming lantern
• c. 220 BC
  • the Chinese use kites as rangefinders.
• 559
  • Yuan Huangtou, Ye, first manned kite glide to take off from a tower — 559 ^[2]
• c. 852
  • Armen Firman (possibly identical with Abbas Ibn Firnas) jumped off a tower of the Mosque of Córdoba using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall. He survived with minor injuries. This was considered to be the first parachute.
• c. 875
  • at an age of 65 years, Abbas Ibn Firnas became the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying.^[3] He built his own glider, and launched himself from a mountain. The flight was largely successful, and was widely observed by a crowd that he had invited. Although he injured his back landing, his flight time was estimated to run for over ten minutes.

10th–16th century

• c. 1003
  • Jauhari attempted flight by some apparatus from the roof of a mosque in Nishapur, Khorasan, Iran, and falls to his death as a result.^[4]
• c. 1010
  • Eilmer of Malmesbury builds a wooden glider and, launching from a bell tower, glides 200 metres.^[5]
• 1241
  • The Mongolian army uses lighted kites in the battle of Legnica.
• c. 1250
  • Roger Bacon writes the first known technical description of flight, describing an ornithopter design in his book Secrets of Art and Nature.^[5]
• 1282
  • Marco Polo reports on manned and ritual kite ascents.
• 1486 - 1513
  • Leonardo da Vinci designs an ornithopter with control surfaces. He envisions and sketches flying machines such as helicopters and parachutes, and notes studies of airflows and streamlined shapes.^[5]
• 1496
  • The Italian Mathematician Giambattista Danti is supposed to have flown from a tower.
• c. 1500
  • Hieronymus Bosch shows in his triptych The temptation of St. Anthony, among other things, two fighting airships above a burning town.
• 1558
  • Giambattista della Porta publishes a theory and a construction manual for a kite.

17th century

• 1630
  • Evliya Çelebi reports, that Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi glided with artificial wings from the top of Galata Tower in Istanbul and managed to fly over the Bosphorus, landing successfully on the Doğancılar square in Üsküdar.
• 1633
  • Evliya Çelebi reports, that Lagari Hasan Çelebi flew himself in a rocket artificially-powered by gunpowder.^[6]
• 1638
  • John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, suggests some ideas to future would-be pilots in his book The Discovery of a World in the Moon.
• 1644
  • Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli manages to demonstrate atmospheric pressure, and also produces a vacuum.
• 1654
  • Physicist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke measures the weight of air and demonstrates his famous Magdeburger Halbkugeln (hemispheres of Magdeburg).Sixteen horses are unable to pull apart two completely airless hemispheres which stick to each other only because of the external air pressure.
• 1670
  • Jesuit Father Francesco Lana de Terzi describes in his treatise Prodomo a vacuum-airship-project, considered the first realistic, technical plan for an airship. His design is for an aircraft with a boat-like body equipped with a sail, suspended under four globes made of thin copper; he believes the craft would rise into the sky if air was pumped out of the globes.^[7] No example is built, and de Terzi writes: God will never allow that such a machine be built…because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids…
• 1678
  • Supposed flight of French locksmith Jacob Besnier with a flapping wing machine.
• 1680
  • Italian physicist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, the father of biomechanics, showed in his treatise On the movements of animals that the flapping of wings with the muscle power of the human arm can not be successful.
• 1687
  • Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, basics of classical physics. In book II he presented the theoretical derivation of the essence of the drag equation.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Gunston, 2001 p.12
2. ^ （永定三年）使元黄头与诸囚自金凤台各乘纸鸱以飞，黄头独能至紫陌乃堕，仍付御史中丞毕义云饿杀之。(Rendering: [In the 3rd year of Yongding, 559], Gao Yang conducted an experiment by having Yuan Huangtou and a few prisoners launch themselves from a tower in Ye, capital of the Northern Qi. Yuan Huangtou was the only one who survived from this flight, as he glided over the city-wall and fell at Zimo [western segment of Ye] safely, but he was later executed.) Zizhi Tongjian 167.
3. ^ Philip Khuri Hitti, History of the Arabs, Revised: 10th Edition, Palgrave Macmillan; (September 6, 2002) ISBN 0-333-63142-0
4. ^ Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2 (2), p. 97-111 [100-101].
5. ^ ^{a b c} Gunston, 2001 p.13
6. ^ Winter, Frank H. (1992). "Who First Flew in a Rocket?", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 45 (July 1992), p. 275-80.
7. ^ Allward, Maurice, An Illustrated History of Seaplanes and Flying Boats, New York: Dorset Press, 1981, ISBN 0-88029-286-5, pp. 9-11.

• Gunston, Bill, ed (2001). Aviation Year by Year. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7894-7986-9. </ref>

See also

• Timeline of aviation - 18th century