Aircraft

The father of heavier-than-air machines is said to be Sir George Cayley (1773-1857). Cayley carried out a careful study of the way birds fly and, in 1810, wrote a pioneering book on flight, On Aerial Navigation. Cayley's research laid the foundations of the modern science of aerodynamics, the study of the forces experienced by an object flying through the air. In 1853, he constructed his first working aircraft, a glider that his coachman rode above the valleys on the Cayley estate in Yorkshire, England.