Who is the father of aeronautics?

   Sir George Cayley has been called the father of aeronautics. This is the science of flight, including the principies and techniques of building and flying balloons, airships and airplanes, as well as aerodynamics , the science of air in motion and the movement of bodies through the air.
   This early nineteenth century Englishman denounced ornithopters as impractical. Drawing upon an earlier discovery, Cayley decided that it would be possible to make a plane fly through the air if the plane were light enough, and if air could be forced against its wings by moving the plane through the air.
   He solved the problem of making the plane light by using diagonal bracing to reinforce the wings and body instead of using solid pieces of wood. The second problem, moving the ship through the air, was to be solved by a propeller-driven engine. Since there was no engine light enough or powerful enough, Cayley designed his own. It was an internal combustion engine which would use "oil of tar," or gasoline, as we now call it. But the fuel was too costly and Cayley was forced to abandon his en­gine. It was not until almost a hundred years later that such an engine was successfully built.

Cayley glider