George Cayley's 1853 Glider

Ask us Americans to name the father of aviation, and we will probably say it was the Wright brothers.  Ask the French or Brazilians, and they are likely to say Alberto Santos-Dumont.  But ask the Yorkshiremen, and they will make a good case for George Cayley (1773-1857) of Scarborough.  In 1799, he proposed a manned, controllable fixed-wing aircraft, and later defined the four forces acting on any aircraft: weight, lift, thrust, and drag, making him in effect the father of aeronautical science.  In 1804, he built his first glider, a small model with a large forward wing and a small tail, both with control surfaces.  His 1849 glider was larger, but still so small that only a boy could fly it.  

Finally, in 1853, George Cayley built his most successful aircraft, a glider large enough that an adult man could pilot it.  This was flown over Brompton Vale near his hometown of York, and was piloted by either his grandson or a domestic servant, though the exact identity of the pilot has been lost to history.  Fifty years later, building on Cayley's principles, the Wright brothers accomplished the first successful manned flight in a powered heavier-than-air craft over the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  A replica of George Cayley's 1853 glider hangs over the other aircraft at the Yorkshire Air Museum (RAF Elvington Base) as a reminder of Yorkshire's place in aviation history.