‘I was shot down over Laos in 1966 in the early phase of the Vietnam War. I never wanted to go to war. I only got into this because I had one burning desire and that was to fly.’ Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Dieter Dengler, 1997
We are not creating a new way to kill: we are creating a new way to fly. Star Trek: Discovery s1e3: Context is for Kings, Captain Lorca to Michael
On a desolate plain near the Peruvian Andes is evidence that thousands of years ago man may have known how to fly. Huge drawings are etched in the ground; they make sense only when viewed from a great height. Miles of what look like modern runways score the desert. (Ancient Astronaut Theory & Nazca & Fly) In Search of s1e3 … Ancient Aviators, History 1977
For almost all of human history the dream of flying remained just that: a dream. But we’re a strange creative species. Over the ages the idea of human flight passed from one mind to another and eventually it would change the world. But the story of how we took to the sky is full of extraordinary accidents and bizarre connections. Jim Al-Khalili, Revolutions: The Ideas that Changed the World I: The Aeroplane, BBC 2019
A story of ingenuity, of wonder, of revolutions. ibid.
At this very moment at least half a million people are flying … The invention of aeroplane has been a true revolution. ibid.
Aviation has shrunk the world. ibid.
The story of human flight is older than you might imagine. ibid.
Leonardo da Vinci: Instead of attaching the wings to the arms, they will be part of a machine that will have beating wings like a bird … He designed more than a dozen machines that flapped their wings. ibid.
George Cayley: the same dream: to build a flying machine … In Scarborough Cayley’s dream would take flight … Cayley had created the first working glider. ibid.
Wilbur and Orville Wright: an obsession with mechanical flight. ibid.
Otto Lilienthal: The dream of a flying man was real at last even though the flight couldn’t be sustained … Lilienthal died knowing that sustained flight should be possible. ibid.
The Wright brothers managed to create an engine that was light enough to power their aeroplane … The world’s first powered flight took place at Kitty Hawk. ibid.
Frank Whittle: a completely new kind of engine … He came up with this: the jet engine. ibid.
London to Dubai is the busiest flight route in the world. Inside Dubai: Playground for the Rich II, BBC 2022
But recently actual sightings of strange figures flying over Los Angeles have people wondering, Is there a real-life mad scientist out there, or up there? The Proof is Out There s2e9, History 2022
This is the largest flying vertebrate ever known: a Pterosaur with a ten-metre wingspan. Planet Dinosaur 6/6: The Great Survivors, BBC 2011
In life he was the most magnificent beast ever to take to the wing; he ruled the skies supreme flying far and wide over the lands of the dinosaurs. This is the story of the last journey this giant ever made. Walking with Dinosaurs s1e4: Giant of the Skies, BBC 1999
Brazil 127,000,000 B.C. ... Pterosaurs have filled the skies for 100,000,000 years, and many species are now huge. ibid.
There is one species that dwarfs them all: he is Ornithocheirus, twelve metres from wing tip to wing tip. ibid.