Henry Dale

What makes people want to fly? Nowadays we hardly think twice about stepping onto a plane and flying at high speed across: the world. But until the Wright Brothers' momentous exploit in 1903, no one had ever made a controlled powered flight, and the consequences for the history of the world in the 20th century were surely never imagined.

For the intrepid aeronautical pioneers whose stories are told here the prospect of being able to soar like a bird was challenge enough. They invented all manner of machines for the purpose. To our eyes these often look outlandish, impractical, or fanciful. A very few, such as the hot-air balloon and zeppelin, were successful, although with limited potential for development. Most were outright - if heroic - failures, and for some would-be flyers their failures led to death.

But those experimenters who sought to apply science to the problem - from Leonardo da Vinci to Cayley, Lilienthal and Langley - contributed to a body of knowledge upon which the Wrights were able to draw. Their success, and all that followed, owed much to the resourceful inventors of the early flying machines.

Discoveries and Inventions is a series focussing on areas of everyday life that have been radically changed by technological innovation, drawing on source material from the British Library's wide-ranging collections.

Series editor Rodney Dale has spent a lifetime writing books at all levels on engineering and technology topics.

Author Henry Dale specialized in aircraft simulator maintenance and computers before turning to writing. His experience of parachuting and hang-gliding has brought him closer to the pioneers of flight.

In 2004, he rowed across the Atlantic Ocean from La Gomera to Barbados.