1879 Biot-Massia

   Interested in kites as early as 1861, Gaston Biot built a conical tailless kite, and in 1880 a version stabilized by a free-wheeling propeller. In 1881 the Societe Francaise de Navigation Aerienne reviewed a project submitted by Biot and Dandrieux. Earlier, in 1879, financed and probably assisted by Massia, Biot had built a birdlike glider based on the work of Mouillard, and flew it several times at Clamart. The pilot was placed between 2 perpendicularly-arranged metal rectangles, to which were attached V-struts on either side, at the ends of which were fitted 7 long feather-like surfaces which could be swung back and forth to serve as rudders. The tail consisted of 7 more such feathers arranged to lie flat in a flexible frame which could be twisted for vertical control. It was donated to the Musee de l'Air in 1925 and restored in 1960: it is the world's oldest surviving heavier-than-air machine.

   (Span: 8.6 m; length: 4.2 m; wing area: 6.48 sqm; empty weight: 37 kg)
  
   On 7 July 1882, the Count ED Massia wrote Louis Mouillard describing a glider for which, Mouillard wrote Octave Chanute in 1991, Mouillard had given Massia the technical information. The glider proved too heavy, and Massia gave it to Biot, who rebuilt it lighter. In its final version it was of monoplane form, the pilot positioned just forward of the wing and immediately behind a forward control surface; a swallowtail surface extended aft from the trailing edge of the wing. Biot seems to have made this a twisting surface, like his first one. (It is this machine to which Chanute referred, erroneously, as Biot's 1879 design.)