John Joeseph Montgomery

Quotes:
"On August 28, 1883 he made the first manned, controlled, heavier-than-air flights of the United States, in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, California (after European pioneers such as George Cayley's coachman in 1853, or Jean-Marie Le Bris in 1856). Later, in 1905, Montgomery's pilot Daniel Maloney made a series of remarkable flights in the vicinity of Aptos and Santa Clara using tandem wing Montgomery gliders launched from balloons. These flights demonstrated the controllability of the Montgomery design and were the highest flights achieved by man to date. John Montgomery filed for patent on April 26, 1905 for his invention of an aeroplane. He was a member of the Aero Club of Illinois and member of the research committee of the Technical Board of the Aeronautical Society of New York."

-Wikipedia, John Joeseph Montgomery

"As a child, John Joseph Montgomery witnessed the flight of the Avitor Hermes, Jr., in 1869. He began his own aerial experiments in late August of 1883, attempting to fly in a wing-flapping monoplane glider. Montgomery recalled in 1905 that the wing-flapping glider was "the first and only real disappointment in the study." In 1884 he constructed a monoplane glider with curved wing surfaces, in which he made a glide of some considerable length, from Otay Mesa, near San Diego, California. However, the particulars of that flight have remained somewhat obscure and no written record of the time documenting the event has survived. Many sources have apparently confused Montgomery's 1883 wing-flapping glider with his 1884-1885 curved wing surface glider, and have thus erroneously stated that the 1883 experiment was with the curved wing surface glider. No depiction of the 1883 flapping-wing monoplane glider appears to have survived."

-FLYING MACHINES

Definition:
Montgomery was an influential part of the human discovery of flight. A stepping stone that later engineers (most notably the Wright Brothers) used to reach the ultimate goal: self-propelled flight. His advances in glider flight--a nonpowered flight source-- influenced the outcome of every powered plane to come out.

Related

 * The "Evergreen"
 * Tandem-Wing Glider