Cayley's man-carrying glider carries a passenger
Poet involved
What happened
In 1853 George Cayley reportedly flew a full-size glider carrying his coachman across a valley at Brompton Dale. The event is often treated as the first man-carrying fixed-wing flight. Even if brief and uncontrolled by modern standards, it proved that a person could be borne by an aeroplane-like wing.
Literary impact
This episode gives literature one of aviation's comic and heroic origin stories: the reluctant passenger lifted by another man's dream. It illuminates Victorian tensions between servant and inventor, risk and progress, experiment and social hierarchy.
Source: Wikipedia
