Timeline of aviation in the 19th century

Timelineof aviationpre-18th century18th century19th century20th century21st century begins

This is a list of aviation-related events during the 19th century (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1900):

1800–1859

1802 5 July – André-Jacques Garnerin and Edward Hawke Locker make a balloon flight from Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood to Chingford in just over 15 minutes. 2 December – A manned illuminated balloon is launched from the front of Notre Dame de Paris during the Coronation of Napoleon I. 1803 British Rear Admiral Charles Knowles proposes to the Admiralty that the Royal Navy loft an observation balloon from a ship in order to reconnoitre French preparations for the invasion of Britain in Brest. The proposal is ignored.Layman 1989, p. 31. 18 July – Etienne Gaspar Robertson and his copilot Lhoest ascend from Hamburg, Germany, to an altitude of around in a balloon.Hallion 2003, p.74. 3–4 October – André-Jacques Garnerin covers a distance of from Paris to Clausen, Germany. 7–8 October – Francesco Zambeccari and Pasquale Andreoli make a balloon flight which crashes into the Adriatic Sea. 1804 Sir George Cayley builds a model glider with a main wing and separate, adjustable vertical and horizontal tail surfaces.Gibbs-Smith 2003, p. 35. August/September – The scientists Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean Baptiste Biot use a balloon to conduct experiments on the Earth's magnetic field and the composition of the upper atmosphere.Hallion 2003, p. 75. 23 August – Francesco Zambeccari and Pasquale Andreoli make a second balloon flight which crashes into the Adriatic Sea. 1806 Lord Cochrane flies kites from the Royal Navy 32-gun frigate HMS Pallas to spread propaganda leaflets along the coast of France. It is the first use of an aerial device in European maritime warfare. 1807 Jakob Degen, a clockmaker from Vienna, experiments with an ornithopter with flap-valve wings.Gibbs-Smith 2003 p. 39. 1809 Degen propels a hydrogen-filled balloon by flapping large ornithopter-style wings. September – Sir George Cayley publishes the first part of his seminal paper On Aerial Navigation, setting out for the first time the scientific principles of heavier-than-air flight. 1810 September – Frenchwoman Sophie Blanchard makes a flight starting from Frankfurt, making her the first woman to fly in a balloon in Germany. Chemist Johann Gottfried Reichard makes his first flight in a self-constructed gas balloon from Berlin, making him the second person to fly in a gas balloon in Germany. 1811 16 April – Wilhelmine Reichard makes her first solo flight, starting in Berlin, making her the first native German woman to fly in a balloon. 31 May – Albrecht Berblinger crashes a hang glider (possibly a copy of Degen's) into the Danube. A reproduction built according to the design drawing in 1986 is capable of flight.

1812 21 September – Francesco Zambeccari dies when his balloon catches fire on landing. 1819 6 July – Sophie Blanchard launches fireworks from her balloon in flight during an exhibition at the Tivoli Gardens in Paris. The fireworks ignite the gas in the balloon, which crashes on the roof of a house. She falls to her death, becoming the first woman to die in an aviation accident.Shtashower, Daniel, "Book review: ‘Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air’ by Richard Holmes," washingtonpost.com, December 13, 2013. 1824 25 May – Englishman Thomas Harris dies when his balloon crashes near Carshalton. His female passenger survives. The exact cause is not determined but is apparently due to a valve Harris has designed to release gas from the balloon becoming stuck open. Despite dropping all ballast Harris is unable to stop a precipitous plunge. 1836 7–8 November – Flight of a coal gas balloon (named The Great Balloon of Nassau) by Charles Green covering from London to Weilburg, Germany, in 18 hours with passengers Robert Hollond and Thomas Monck Mason. It is the first overnight balloon flight,Shtashower, Daniel, "The First to Float Above the World," The Washington Post, December 15, 2013, p. B3 (illustration caption).century-of-flight.net Balloons to the Stratosphere and it sets a world ballooning distance record that will stand until 1907 in aviation#1907. 1837 Robert Cocking jumps from a balloon piloted by Charles Green at a height of to demonstrate a parachute of his own design, and is killed in the attempt.Holmes 2014, p. 75 1838 4 September – Charles Green, George Rush, and Edward Spencer ascend to an altitude of over England in the Great Balloon of Nassau before landing at Thaxted. 10 September – Green and Rush ascend to a world record altitude of over England in the Great Balloon of Nassau, reaching speeds of during the flight. 1839 The American John Wise introduces the ripping panel which is still used today. The panel solved the problem of the balloon dragging along the ground at landing and needing to be stopped with the help of anchors.Holmes 2014, p. 102 Charles Green and the astronomer Spencer Rush ascend to in a free balloon.

1840 Louis Anslem Lauriat makes the first manned flight in Canada, at Saint John, New Brunswick, in his balloon Star of the East. 1842 November – English engineer William Samuel Henson makes the first complete drawing of a power-driven aeroplane with steam-engine drive. The patent follows the works of Cayley. The English House of Commons rejects the motion for the formation of an "Aerial Transport Company" with great laughter. 1843 William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow file articles of incorporation for the world's first air transport company, the Aerial Transit Company 1845 William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow build a steam-powered model aircraft, with a wingspan of . 1846 French balloonist Francisque Arban makes his twelfth flight from Rome in April, and is rescued from the sea after a flight from Trieste later in the year. 1848 John Stringfellow flies a powered monoplane model a few dozen feet in a powered glide at an exhibition at Cremorne Gardens in London. 1849 12–25 July – While blockading Venice, the Austrians launch unmanned incendiary balloons equipped with explosive charges from land and as well as from the steamship in an attempt to bombard Venice. Although the experiment is mostly unsuccessful, it is both the first use of balloons for bombardment and the first time a warship makes offensive use of an aerial device.Layman 1989, p. 13. 2–3 September – French balloonist Francisque Arban makes the first (and until 1924 only) balloon flight over the Alps, flying a hydrogen balloon from Marseille to Turin. 7 October – Francisque Arban takes off from Barcelona, but his balloon is blown over the Mediterranean Sea and is lost. Sir George Cayley launches a 10-year-old boy in a small glider being towed by a team of people running down a hill. This is the first known flight by a person in a heavier-than-air machine.Lewis 1962, p.178. 1852 24 September – French engineer Henri Giffard flies from the Paris Hippodrome to Trappes in a steam-powered dirigible,Whitehouse, Arch, The Zeppelin Fighters, New York: Ace Books, 1966, p. 14. reaching a speed of about . 1853 Late June or early July – Sir George Cayley's coachman successfully flies a glider, designed by his employer, some proportion of the distance across Brompton Dale in Yorkshire, becoming the world's first adult aeroplane pilot.Lewis 1962, p. 178. Unimpressed with this honour, the coachman promptly resigns his employment. 1855 First use of the word "aeroplane", in a paper by Joseph Pline. 1856 December – French Captain Jean Marie Le Bris is towed into the air in his Artificial Albatross glider, flying . 1857 Félix Du Temple flies clockwork and steam-powered model aircraft, the first sustained powered flights by heavier-than-air machines. French brothers du Temple de la Croix apply after successful attempts with models for a patent for a power-driven aeroplane. 1858 John Wise and three companions complete a Montgolfière flight over a distance of from St. Louis to Henderson French airman Nadar takes the first aerial photographs.Holmes 2014, p.156

1860s 1860 13 October – Ascending in Samuel Archer Kings balloon The Queen of the Air, James Wallace Black takes eight photographs of Boston from an altitude of . The single clear print is the first successful aerial photograph in the United States and the first clear aerial photograph of a city ever taken anywhere.Infoplease: Famous Firsts in Aviation 1861 The first use of observation balloons in naval warfare takes place during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The United States Navy barge George Washington Parke Custis becomes the first ship configured to conduct air operations, transporting and towing observation balloons along the Potomac River. She continues these operations into early 1862.Layman, R.D., 1989 pp. 115-116. 16 June – Floating above the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the balloon Enterprise with a telegraph key wired directly to the White House, Thaddeus Lowe sends a telegram to President Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate the value of balloons in military reconnaissance. It is the first telegram to be sent from the air.The Magnetic Telegraph Company: Telegram from Balloon Enterprise to the President of the United States, 16 June 1861 The Union Army Balloon Corps will be formed under Lowes command, for observation and artillery direction, and balloons will see major use in the American Civil War over the next four years. 3 August – The United States Army steamship Fanny becomes the first ship to loft a captive manned balloon when a civilian aeronaut, John La Mountain, ascends from her deck to observe Confederate military positions at Hampton Roads, Virginia. He ascends again a few days later either from Fanny or a ship named Adriatic.Layman 1989, p. 115. 1862 With the permission of the British War Office, British Army Captain F. Beaumont and Lieutenant George Grover perform observation balloon trials at Aldershot, assisted by the civilian aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell. It is the first balloon experiment in the British armed forces, although the first official experimentation will not occur until 1878.rafmuseum.org.uk "Early Military Ballooning" Late March – Civilian aeronaut John H. Steiner takes United States Navy officers aloft in an observation balloon from the deck of a flatboat on the Mississippi River so that they can direct the fire of U.S. Navy mortar boats against the Confederate-held Island Number Ten It will be the last aerial guidance of naval gunfire anywhere in the world until 1904.Layman 1989, p. 116. March–May – The George Washington Parke Custis transports and tows observation balloons along the York River in Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign. April – John B. Starkweather ascends several times in a balloon from the deck of the Union paddle steamer May Flower to observe Confederate positions at Port Royal, South Carolina. June – The Confederate States Navy chooses the steamer CSS Teaser to embark a balloon for use in observation of Union Army positions along the James River in Virginia.Layman 1989, p. 14. 1–3 July – The Confederate States Navy steamer Teaser operates a coal-gas silk observation balloon to reconnoitre Union Army positions along the James River in Virginia, the only use of a balloon by the Confederate States Navy. Her capture on 4 July by the steamer ends Confederate naval balloon operations. 5 September – Aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell and English physicist James Glaisher officially reach a height of in a coal gas balloon according to their balloon's barometer,Holmes 2014, pp. 213-5 although later estimates place the maximum altitude they attained at between . The two men nearly die of hypoxia during the flight, Glaisher falling unconscious and Coxwell losing all feeling in his hands. 1863 The Union Army Balloon Corps is disbanded early in the year.