Alphonse Pénaud flew the Planophore, a rubber-powered model aeroplane, in 1871. Its stable flight demonstrated important principles of fixed-wing design, including tail stability and twisted wings. The model influenced later experimenters, including the Wright brothers, who encountered similar toy flying machines.

Pénaud's work shows how toys, wonder, and science fed one another in the nineteenth century. Childhood flight play later became a powerful literary image, linking innocence, invention, and the technological future.