Hiram Maxim tested a huge steam-powered biplane on rails in 1894. The machine generated enough lift to damage its restraining track, though it did not make a controlled free flight. It demonstrated that powered lift at large scale was possible before suitable engines and controls had matured.

Maxim's test embodied the industrial gigantism that fascinated and troubled late Victorian writers. It helps explain why early aviation could appear not only graceful but also monstrous, noisy, and inseparable from military-industrial power.