Flying had always been the dream of human beings. The idea of flying goes back as far as the stone age, when men used to watch the birds flying up in the skies. Afterwards, they tried to imitate them until, finally, they achieved their feat.

Flying has become an ordinary daily thing but there is still an open future ahead. Faster planes, bigger planes, trips into space and to other planets lie always just ahead. Man's unquenchable desire to fly continues to propel us toward an amazing reality.

In 400 years B.C., the Chinese, who invented dynamite, used kites with bird figures, to send messages to their troops. In the year 1436, Jean Muller, a professor from Bavaria, became famous with two mechanical artifacts which succeeded in flying driven or moved by clock’s mechanisms. One of them was a “mechanic fly” that once it was out of his hands started flying in circles, and the other one, “an Iron Eagle” flew in the presence of Emperor Frederick.

In 15th Century, Leonardo Da Vinci began his experimental works and drawings of flying artifacts, gliders and parachutes. He donated his blue prints or writings. He talked about “starched surfaces with a concave form”, and placed the glider’s pilot or conductor lying horizontally face down in the inferior part of the machine, because “in such way he would offer less resistance to the air”.

Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier created the first hot air balloon, which held people. This event happened on November 21, 1783 at 2:00 P.M. There was a huge crowd to watch this historical event. It went up about 3,000 feet and gently glided over over the Sienna. This giant, blue, sphere was connected to the gallery. The ropes were getting hot, and created a minor fire. They used wet sponges to stop the fire. Twenty-five minutes later they landed some five miles away from their take-off point. Later on, they placed a duck, a rooster and a lamb in the basket of another balloon, over at Versailles, before the King and his court. On November 21st was the first trip with a pilot. Mr. Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis de Arlandes were the first passengers to inaugurate the era in which man began conquering the skies.

1848, William Henson and John Stringfellow, manufactured the first aeronautic model driven or moved by a little steam motor; and it flew successfully. This is considered to be the beginning of the motorized technology in aviation. The aeronautic model was not piloted.

In 1853 George Cayley establishes the bacic design for an airplane. He distinguishes a host of eccentric areial experimetersis in his grasp of aerodynamics shown in a silver disk, he engraved in 1799; on the side he sketched a diagram of the physical forces acting in a wing. He is actually able to fly in a primitive glider.

In 1880, the blimp was invented. It was an “aircraft” filled with gas, with a motor and a propeller, which could be steered and turned in the air. By 1884, a blimp is manufactured, a fusiform airship 50 meters long, piloted by the French Captains Renard and Krebs, who made it fly several kilometers.

In France, on October 9, 1890 the bat plane "Eole" (named after a Greek god and meaning wind) was 653 pounds and had a 46-foot wing span. This bat plane went about 165 feet. The engine had a complete high-pressure boiler and a high mounted condenser. The propeller is supposed to look like bird feathers, which is connected in the middle. The pilot sat immediately behind the steam boiler. This aircraft only hopped.

In 1896, Samuel P. Langley, launched a flying machine from the Potomac River. The small aircraft covered more than half a mile. Octavio Chanute also began his experiments with gliders near Lake Michigan and he began a relationship with two brothers who worked in the construction of bicycles. They were from Dayton, Ohio, and their names were Wilbur and Orville Wright.

In 1901 another aeronautic pioneer, the Brazilian Santos Dumont, flew over the city of Paris, France, on a flying machine which was lighter than air and he even flew several times around the Eiffel Tower.

On September 1, 1901 in North Carolina, Wilbur Wright soared in the air with the Wright Brothers glider. He could not steer the plane but they tried to work out this problem. The wing span on the plane was 22 feet long. The pilot was lying on a lower wing. They launched the craft on Big Kill Devil Hill and glided about 300 ft. The brothers used a wing-wrapping system, which sent glider spinning, through the air. This defect caused the experiment to end a day early.

In 1902, Gustave Whitehead claimed to fly on his own aircraft that he built. He came from Germany where he had worked with people who worked on airplanes. Gustave flew about 200 feet above the ground for about 1.5 miles. There were several eye-witnesses.

On December the 17th, 1903 on the Kitty Hawk beach, near Dayton, Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, finally made the first powered controlled flight. The bicycle builders, had installed on their glider, a gasoline motor with 12 horse power and four lined cylinders. There were only five witnesses to what was about to happen. Orville placed himself face down to offer less resistance to the air, forgetting about or perhaps ignoring the Leonardo da Vinci principles.

The motor started running, Orville accelerated, it rumbled down the beach. Orville remained stretched down on his face. Finally he let go of the brake which was holding him and the flying machine ran over the rail that was placed for such purpose. Wilbur ran by his side holding one of the wings. Suddenly, the aircraft stopped touching the rail, Wilbur let go of the wing and, the airplane took off from the ground, with a short flight of merely 59 seconds and an altitude of 852 feet.

Next time it would be Wilbur who took the pilot’s place. The two brothers flew across the skies four more times that same day, making a total of more than 300 meters of a piloted and autonomous flight. Later on, in another attempt, a gust of wind damaged the small and fragile plane. The Wright Brothers became the first human beings who took off the ground on board a machine heavier than the air, which was controlled and piloted and with its own power. In Ohio on October 5th, 1905, the Wright brothers flew "Flyer 3". This aircraft flew for 38 minutes and 3 seconds. The air-craft covered about 24 miles. This was the first aircraft that went over a half-hour. They added new propellers and upgraded the engine to a 15/16 hp engine. They dicovered that if you tip the nose down it would gain speed.

The Voison biplane was flown in Paris on March 30, in 1907. Charles Voison was one of the Voison brothers who made 6 flights that day. Their longest flight covered about 197 feet. The Voison brothers were very exited about their flight!

In Europe in 1908, Alberto Santoes Dumont, was the first Brazilian to achieve the first powered flight. This was the first aircraft that was flown in Europe. The plane went about 82 feet up in the air.

On July 25th, 1909 Louis Bleriot, succeeded in crossing the English Channel, taking off from Calais, France. At dawn, he took off for England despite blustery winds and an injured foot. With no compass to guide him, Bleriot beat the odds and managed to somehow successfully cross the Channel. He immediately gained worldwide fame. His rival, Hubert Lathan, even re-attempted Bleriot's flight four days later, only to smash his plane into the ocean when the engine failed.

In 1910, the Wright Brothers established an exhibition company and a school, in which, they accepted women to be trained as pilots.

In 1911 Calbraith P. Rogers, flew from New York to California winning a 50,000 dollar prize offered by the editor William Randolph Hearst.

An airplane is used in a War for the first time in 1912 during the Balkans War. After that, airplanes were used in World War I from 1914 until 1918. These planes gave birth to the legend of The Gentlemen Warriors, who were those flying aces that registered 5 or more enemy planes shot down. Pilots such as the English Edward Mannock, the American Eddie Rickenbaker,with 26 victories, and the terribly feared “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen with 80 were just some of the members of the group.

In 1915, the National Assessment Committee in Aeronautics (NACA) was created in the United States, which was the basis for what today is the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

In 1916, the Smithsonian Institute supported the experiments with rockets made by Robert H. Goddard. Then in 1918, the Air Mail Service of the United States Government was created.

In 1920, Lieutenant Richard E. Bird and the pilot Floyd Bennet, flew over and around the North Pole for the first time. Mr. Bird accompanied by Bernt Balchen, later flew over the South Pole.

In 1927, American Charles Augustus Lindbergh, on board his airplane “The Spirit of Saint Louis”, crossed the Atlantic Ocean all by himself. He took off from New York and landed in Paris, France.

In 1937, the enormous blimp “Hindenburg” caught fire in the air and burned to the ground. This horrible event marked the end of the huge zeppelins.

In 1947, the Bell X-1 piloted by Charles E. Yeager, broke the sound barrier record when he flew at more than Mach 1. One Mach = 1,200 KPH and was named after the Austrian Physicist Ernest Mach.

In 1961, Russian Yuri Gagarin, became the first man to travel to the space, while another Soviet citizen Valentina Tereshkova became the first female astronaut in the world.

July 20th, 1969 , Apollo 11 arrived on the moon and Neil Armstrong walked on the lunar surface. Man had reached a new milestone.