Sir George Cayley--Thomas Walker
On the fifth of June, 1783, the Montgolfiers' hot-air balloon rose at Versailles, and in its rising divided the study of the conquest of the air into two definite parts, the one being concerned with the propulsion of gas lifted, lighter-than-air vehicles, and the other being crystallised in one sentence by Sir George Cayley: 'The whole problem,' he stated, 'is confined within these limits, viz.: to make a surface support a given weight by the application of power to the resistance of the air.' For about ten years the balloon held the field entirely, being regarded as the only solution of the problem of flight that man could ever compass. So definite for a time was this view on the eastern side of the Channel that for some years practically all the progress that was made in the development of power-driven planes was made in Britain.

In 1800 a certain Dr Thomas Young demonstrated that certain curved surfaces suspended by a thread moved into and not away from a horizontal current of air, but the demonstration, which approaches perilously near to perpetual motion if the current be truly horizontal, has never been successfully repeated, so that there is more than a suspicion that Young's air-current was NOT horizontal. Others had made and were making experiments on the resistance offered to the air by flat surfaces, when Cayley came to study and record, earning such a place among the pioneers as to win the title of 'father of British aeronautics.'