The first Cayley glider was a triplane hang glider designed with an open section in the centre for self-propelled starts. A young boy is reported to have been gently lifted and carried a few yards.
Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) was first to design an aerofoil and one of his flying machines made the world’s first manned heavier-than-air flight at Brompton Dale, near Scarborough, in 1849. This was more than 54 years before the Wright brothers made the first powered flight from Kitty Hawk Sands in the USA on 17 December 1903. Another machine, which Cayley called a ‘governable parachute’, was flown in 1853 at Brompton Dale, carrying Sir George’s coachman, who on coming back to earth said, “I wish to give notice, I was hired to drive not to fly”.
A young girl who was there wrote later: “the wings acted rather on the principle of the parachute, merely flating the experimentor, who started from a moderate elevation, by a gradual descent towards the earth”.
It was the world’s first aeroplane with inherent stability.
Wing area: 338 sq.ft
Empty weight: 132 lb
All Aero 