Pioneer of flight

Flight has fascinated mankind for centuries, and countless unsuccessful flying machine have been designed. The first successful flight was made by the French Montgolfier brothers in 1783, when they flew a balloon over Paris. The next major advance was the development of gliders, notably by Englishman Sir George Gayley, who in 1845 designed the first glider to make a sustained flight, and by the German Otto Lilienthal, who became known as the world's first pilot because he managed to achieve controlled flights. However, powered flight didn't become a practical possibility until the invention of light wheel, petrol-driven internal combustion engines at the end of the 19th century. Then, in 1903, the American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered flight in their Wright Flyer biplane, which used a four-cylinder, petrol-driven engine. Aircraft design advanced rapidly, and in 1990 the Frenchman Louis Bleriot made his pioneering flight across the English Channel. The American Glenn Cruitss also achieved several "firsts" in his Model-D Pusher and its variants, most notably winning the worl's first copetition for airspeed at Reims in 1909.