Editing Fixed-wing aircraft (section)

===Gliders and powered devices===
Around [[Ancient Greece|400 BC in Greece]], [[Archytas]] was reputed to have designed and built the first self-propelled flying device, shaped like a bird and propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have flown some {{convert|200|m|abbr=on}}.<ref>[[Aulus Gellius]], "Attic Nights", Book X, 12.9 at [https://archive.today/20120713140825/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/10*.html LacusCurtius]</ref><ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20021029221138/http://www.tmth.edu.gr/en/aet/1/14.html Archytas of Tarentum, Technology Museum of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece]}}. Tmth.edu.gr. </ref> This machine may have been suspended during its flight.<ref>[http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070104/NEWS02/701040323/1006/ Modern rocketry]{{Dead link|date=December 2014}}. Pressconnects.com.</ref><ref>[http://www.mechanical-toys.com/History%20page.htm Automata history] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215232219/http://www.mechanical-toys.com/History%20page.htm |date=15 February 2015 }}. Automata.co.uk.</ref>

One of the earliest attempts with [[Glider aircraft|gliders]] was by 11th-century monk [[Eilmer of Malmesbury]], which failed. A 17th-century account states that 9th-century poet [[Abbas Ibn Firnas]] made a similar attempt, though no earlier sources record this event.<ref>White, Lynn. "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition." ''[[Technology and Culture]]'', Volume 2, Issue 2, 1961, pp. 97–111 (97–99 resp. 100–101).</ref>
[[Image:LeBris1868.jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Marie Le Bris|Le Bris]] and his glider, Albatros II, photographed by [[Nadar (photographer)|Nadar]], 1868]]

In 1799, [[Sir George Cayley]] laid out the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing machine with systems for lift, propulsion, and control.<ref>{{cite web
| title = Aviation History
| url = http://www.aviation-history.com/early/cayley.htm
| access-date = 26 July 2009
| quote = In 1799 he set forth for the first time in history the concept of the modern aeroplane. Cayley had identified the drag vector (parallel to the flow) and the lift vector (perpendicular to the flow).
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090413155148/http://aviation-history.com/early/cayley.htm
| archive-date = 13 April 2009
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Sir George Cayley (British Inventor and Scientist)|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/100795/Sir-George-Cayley-6th-Baronet|encyclopedia=[[Britannica]]|access-date=26 July 2009|quote=English pioneer of aerial navigation and aeronautical engineering and designer of the first successful glider to carry a human being aloft. Cayley established the modern configuration of an aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control as early as 1799.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090311002545/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/100795/Sir-George-Cayley-6th-Baronet|archive-date=11 March 2009|url-status=live}}</ref> Cayley was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803, and built a successful passenger-carrying [[Glider aircraft|glider]] in 1853.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/100795/Sir-George-Cayley-6th-Baronet "Cayley, Sir George: Encyclopædia Britannica 2007."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090311002545/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/100795/Sir-George-Cayley-6th-Baronet |date=11 March 2009 }} ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', 25 August 2007.</ref> In 1856, Frenchman [[Jean-Marie Le Bris]] made the first powered flight, had his glider L'Albatros artificiel towed by a horse along a beach.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gibbs-Smith|first=Charles Harvard|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52566384|title=Aviation : an historical survey from its origins to the end of the Second World War|date=2003|publisher=Science Museum|isbn=1-900747-52-9|location=London|oclc=52566384}}</ref> In 1884, American [[John J. Montgomery]] made controlled flights in a glider as a part of a series of gliders he built between 1883 and 1886.<ref name=Quest>{{cite book |last1=Harwood |first1=Craig |last2=Fogel |first2=Gary |title=Quest for Flight: John J. Montgomery and the Dawn of Aviation in the West |year=2012 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman, Oklahoma |isbn=978-0806142647}}</ref> Other aviators who made similar flights at that time were [[Otto Lilienthal]], [[Percy Pilcher]], and protégés of [[Octave Chanute]].

In the 1890s, [[Lawrence Hargrave]] conducted research on wing structures and developed a [[box kite]] that lifted the weight of a man. His designs were widely adopted. He also developed a type of rotary aircraft engine, but did not create a powered fixed-wing aircraft.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Australian Dictionary of Biography|last=Inglis|first=Amirah|publisher=[[Melbourne University Press]]|volume=9|chapter=Hargrave, Lawrence (1850–1915)|access-date=28 December 2014|chapter-url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hargrave-lawrence-6563|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229064955/http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hargrave-lawrence-6563|archive-date=29 December 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>