German engineer Otto Lilienthal represented a turning point in aviation history. He studied aerodynamics and worked to design a glider that would fly, and then demonstrated that the flight of an airplane could be controlled. He was fascinated by the idea of flight, and helped to prove that heavier-than-air flight was practical.
John Joseph Montgomery, having studied birds upon which he based his aerodynamic principles and designs, likely made the first human-carrying glider flight in America. On August 28, 1883, it is believed he took flight in his monoplane glider and flew 600 feet at a height of 15 feet on Wheeler Hill in Otay Mesa, near San Diego.
Test flown in the summer of 1902, the third glider built by the Wright Brothers is widely acknowledged by aviation historians to be the world's first practical aircraft. Based on wind tunnel tests the Wrights had performed after the flights of their 1901 glider, improvements incorporated into the design of the 1902 glider included, most significantly, a simple vertical control surface – a rudder.
The Beachey-Eaton biplane, known as the "Little Looper", was built in Chicago in 1914. The airplane appeared to be a smaller version of the Curtiss Model D Headless biplane, but it differed in many significant ways. It was designed and built to be an aerobatic biplane and was stronger, faster, and more agile than its larger Curtiss Model D Headless cousin.
In 1911, the Deperdussin Company in France built a trim, single-seat racing plane that heralded the sleek aerodynamic designs of later years. The plane's performance was equal to its appearance. Not only did it win the Gordon Bennett Trophy in 1912, but it also became the first airplane to exceed 100 mph – setting a new world speed record of 108 mph.
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