The Chinese have been flying kites dating back several hundred years BC, while hot air balloons and even Leonardo de Vinci contributed to the principles of aerial navigation. The 17th and 18th Century saw model aircraft being built and the first published paper on aviation: Sketch of a Machine for Flying in the Air in 1716. Not stopping here, Sir George Cayler, known as the father of the aeroplane, constructed the first heavier-than-air flying machine. Others continued building fixed winged aircraft in the 1800s culminating with the Wright Brothers recording the first sustained, controlled, powered, heavier-than-air manned flight on December 17, 1903.

Interestingly, some claim Gustave Whitehead (born Gustav Albin Weisskopf) designer and builder of early engines and flying machines was the first to successfully take to the air with a controlled powered flight in Connecticut 1901. Either way the rest is Air & Space history as the man has definely conquered gravity and is adding by leaps and bounds interplanetary space travel as regular as today's air travel. Space Odyssey 2001 is just years away...Walter Pietrowicz