Ader Éole

The first aircraft 

Clément Ader's Ader Éole in flight in a drawing published on French magazine L'Illustration in 1891. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The first confirmed manned powered flight was made by a French inventor and engineer Clément Ader (1841–1925) in an uncontrolled monoplane Éole of his own design, on October 9, 1890 (according to some sources on October 8, 1890).
 
   The Ader Éole, also called Avion (French for aeroplane), was a bat-like design aircraft run by a lightweight alcohol-burning steam engine with 4 cylinders with a power rating of 20 hp (15 kW), driving a four-blade a propeller at the front of the aircraft, but lacking any means for the pilot to control the direction of flight. The engine weighed 51 kg. The plane had a length of 6.5 m, the wings had a span of 14 m and all-up weight was 300 kg. It was named Éole in honour of the Greek god of the winds, Aeolus. 

Patent drawings of Clement Ader's Éole. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

   On the afternoon of October 9, 1890, Éole, with Ader at the controls, achieved a short flight of around 50 metres at the Chateau d'Armainvilliers in Brie. It reached a height of around 20 cm. The poor power-to-weight ratio of the steam engine and bad weather were felt to limit the flying height achieved. Éole was incapable of either sustained or controlled flight, but this was the first occasion on which a powered aircraft carrying a human being made a takeoff from level ground. Ader claimed that it took place in front of witnesses and recounted the experience in a book that he published several years later. Ader’s claims for a second hop of about 100 metres in September 1891 are not generally accepted.

 
Clément Ader in 1910


 © 2025, Andrew Mirecki 

 

 

 

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