Achieving flight was one of humanity’s oldest dreams, inspiring countless myths until our grasp of the natural world saw us build the first simple aircraft. Invented in China during the period of the Three Kingdoms, the paper balloon, or flying lantern was the first. The balloon was a signaling device and an aerial decoration for special events, and it wasn’t until some fifteen hundred years later that it was used for the first manned flight. The first free flight of the Montgolfier brothers in 1783 made the dream of flight a reality, and became a sensation which saw balloon use spread world wide and set imaginations racing on what would come next.

 In the following century, the balloon would be developed into the dirigible airship, and by 1900, Count Zeppelin would take flight in the first rigid airship. The rigid airship, or Zeppelin, would usher in a new period of aviation, one where aircraft could be directed and stay aloft for long distances. No longer just a scientific curiosity, these airships carried passengers on cross country flights. The Wright Brothers flight from Kitty Hawk in 1903 would prove the practicability of heavier than air flight with their airplanes and  in the years to come they were followed by such pioneers as Santos Dumont and Louis Bleirot. These men and others like them, would push airplane design further in France, developing new methods of control, and creating faster planes capable of traveling greater distances.

By the eve of the Great War, the airship had already earned a reputation as a capable airliner and military reconnaissance aircraft. The airplane hadn’t yet matured, but was soon to enter a period of rapid evolution. What was once a novelty enjoyed by a small number of aviators, and the great crowds they attracted, the airplane became an invaluable tool to the armies which slogged across Western Europe and the Mediterranean. The dream of flight was corrupted into a nightmare, as thousands of young men fought to the death in planes over the trenches, and bombers carried deadly payloads over cities. Yet by its end, the airplane and airship had been refined, and a new generation of aviators created. In the two decades to come, they would deliver on a better promise, as many former military aircraft became mail carriers, and the future was poised to bring aircraft which crossed oceans.