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The maiden flight, also known as first flight, of an
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...
is the first occasion on which it leaves the ground under its own power. The same term is also used for the first launch of
rockets A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entire ...
. The maiden flight of a new aircraft type is always a historic occasion for the type and can be quite emotional for those involved. In the early days of
aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...
it could be dangerous, because the exact
handling Handling may refer to: * Automobile handling, the turning characteristics of land vehicles * Handling of stolen goods, a statutory offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland People * Adam Handling (born 1988), British chef and restaura ...
characteristics of the aircraft were generally unknown. The maiden flight of a new type is almost invariably flown by a highly experienced
test pilot A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.Stinton, Darrol. ''Flying Qualities and Flight Testin ...
. Maiden flights are usually accompanied by a chase plane, to verify items like
altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...
,
airspeed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air. Among the common conventions for qualifying airspeed are: * Indicated airspeed ("IAS"), what is read on an airspeed gauge connected to a Pitot-static system; * Calib ...
, and general airworthiness. A maiden flight is only one stage in the development of an aircraft type. Unless the type is a pure research aircraft (such as the X-15), the aircraft must be tested extensively to ensure that it delivers the desired performance with an acceptable margin of safety. In the case of civilian aircraft, a new type must be certified by a governing agency (such as the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
in the United States) before it can enter operation.


Notable maiden flights (aircraft)

An incomplete list of maiden flights of notable aircraft types, organized by date, follows. * June, 1875 – Thomas Moy's
Aerial Steamer Thomas William Moy (1823–1910) was an English engineer and patent agent best known for his ''Aerial Steamer'' of 1875. Early life Moy was born in the Liberty of the Rolls (now part of Westminster) in London around 1823. In the 1851 census of ...
, London, England (pilotless, tethered) * October 9, 1890 –
Clément Ader Clément Ader (2 April 1841 – 3 May 1925) was a French inventor and engineer who was born near Toulouse in Muret, Haute-Garonne, and died in Toulouse. He is remembered primarily for his pioneering work in aviation. In 1870 he was also one of ...
– took off from
Gretz-Armainvilliers Gretz-Armainvilliers () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrati ...
, Ouest of Paris, France. * August 14, 1901 – Gustave Whitehead from Leutershausen, Bavaria. * May 15, 1902 – Lyman Gilmore – took off from
Grass Valley A grass valley (also vega and valle) is a meadow located within a forested and relatively small drainage basin such as a headwater. Grass valleys are common in North America, where they are created and maintained principally by the work of be ...
, California. * March 31, 1903 – Richard Pearse – took off from Waitohi Flat, Temuka, South Island, New Zealand. * December 17, 1903 – Wright brothers ''
Wright Flyer The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown ...
'' – first heavier-than-air powered aircraft. Took off four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. * March 18, 1906 – Traian Vuia, a Romanian inventor and engineer, who flew 11 meters in his self-named
monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...
at Montesson near Paris, France. * October 23, 1906 –
Alberto Santos-Dumont Alberto Santos-Dumont ( Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavier- ...
14-bis made a manned powered flight in Bagatelle Park, Paris, France, that was the first to be publicly witnessed by a crowd. * July 4, 1908 –
Glenn Curtiss Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early ...
flew the first pre-announced public flight in the United States of America of a heavier-than-air flying machine. He flew 5,080 feet, to win the
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
Trophy and its $2,500 purse (). * December 22, 1916 – Sopwith Camel – this iconic
biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
first took off from Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey. * July 28, 1935 –
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
– World War II American
heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the large ...
. * December 17, 1935 –
Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper versi ...
– propeller-driven passenger and
cargo aircraft A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft usually do not incorporate passenger am ...
of which more than 10,000 were produced. * December 29, 1939 – Consolidated B-24 – World War II American heavy bomber. * November 2, 1947 –
Hughes H-4 Hercules The Hughes H-4 Hercules (commonly known as the ''Spruce Goose''; registration NX37602) is a prototype strategic airlift flying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during ...
– only flight of this oversized flying boat whose common name is ''Spruce Goose''. * July 27, 1949 –
de Havilland Comet The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four ...
– first
jet airliner A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines (passenger jet aircraft). Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly cl ...
. * August 23, 1954 – Lockheed
C-130 Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally des ...
military transport plane. * May 27, 1955 – Sud Aviation Caravelle – first jet airliner with engines mounted in the tail. * March 25, 1958 – Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow – Canadian
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
fighter interceptor. First non-experimental aircraft designed and equipped with a
fly-by-wire Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires, and flight control ...
flight control system. * April 25, 1962 – Lockheed A-12 – supersonic reconnaissance aircraft. * June 29, 1962 –
Vickers VC10 The Vickers VC10 is a mid-sized, narrow-body long-range British jet airliner designed and built by Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd and first flown at Brooklands, Surrey, in 1962. The airliner was designed to operate on long-distance rou ...
– first airliner with 4 engines mounted in the tail. * April 9, 1967 –
Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two ...
– short-to-medium-range airliner. * October 4, 1968 –
Tupolev Tu-154 The Tupolev Tu-154 (russian: Tyполев Ту-154; NATO reporting name: "Careless") is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Rus ...
– Soviet/Russian airliner, still in operation. * December 31, 1968 – Tupolev Tu-144 – Soviet supersonic airliner. * February 9, 1969 –
Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, ...
– first
widebody A wide-body aircraft, also known as a twin-aisle aircraft, is an airliner with a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles with seven or more seats abreast. The typical fuselage diameter is . In the typical wide-body economy cabin ...
airliner. * March 2, 1969 – Anglo-French
Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and t ...
– supersonic airliner. * September 19, 1969 –
Mil Mi-24 The Mil Mi-24 (russian: Миль Ми-24; NATO reporting name: Hind) is a large helicopter gunship, attack helicopter and low-capacity troop transport with room for eight passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and has be ...
– Russian/Soviet-made
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...
used by many countries to this day. * October 28, 1972 –
Airbus A300 The Airbus A300 is a wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Airbus. In September 1967, aircraft manufacturers in the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a large airliner. West ...
– first
Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...
aircraft, short- to medium-range wide-body jet airliner. * February 22, 1987 – Airbus A320 airliner – first civilian aircraft to have an all-digital fly-by-wire system. * December 21, 1988 –
Antonov An-225 Mriya The Antonov An-225 Mriya ( uk, Антонов Ан-225 Мрія, lit=dream' or 'inspiration; NATO reporting name: Cossack) was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. It wa ...
– jet with the longest fuselage and wingspan and overall heaviest aircraft. * June 12, 1994 –
Boeing 777 The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap b ...
– long-range airliner with the most powerful jet engines ever made. * May 20, 2003 – Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne – The first commercial sub-orbital space craft. * April 27, 2005 – Airbus A380double-decker jet airliner, currently largest capacity in the world, took off from Toulouse–Blagnac Airport. * December 11, 2009 – Airbus A400M – military cargo plane, Airbus' first propeller plane. * December 15, 2009 – Boeing 787 ''Dreamliner'' – first major widebody airliner to use non-metal
composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
s for most of its construction. * November 11, 2015 – Mitsubishi Regional Jet – Japanese
twin-engine A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines. A twinjet is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. Fuel efficien ...
regional jet, the first designed and built in Japan, took off from
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Moto ...
, Tokyo. * May 5, 2017 – Comac C919 – Chinese commercial aircraft. * April 13, 2019 – Scaled Composites Stratolaunch – The world's largest airplane * January 25, 2020 –
Boeing 777X The Boeing 777X is the latest series of the long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jetliners in the Boeing 777 family from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The 777X features new GE9X engines, new composite wings with folding wingtips, greater c ...
– The world's longest and largest twin-engine airliner. * April 19, 2021 – Ingenuity – an unmanned robotic helicopter, first aircraft to fly on
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...
.


Notable maiden flights (rockets)

* October 3, 1942 –
V-2 Rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name '' Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develop ...
made its first successful test flight. The nose cone crossed the
Karman line Karman or Kármán is a Hungarian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Harvey Karman (20th century), inventor of the Karman cannula * Janice Karman (born 1954), American film producer, record producer, singer, and voice artist * ...
, widely considered the end of Earth's atmosphere, making it the first human-made object to reach space. * August 3, 1953 – PGM-11 Redstone, designed by
Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...
, was the US's first large
ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within ...
. Launched from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 4 Launch Complex 4 (LC-4) was one of the first series of launch complexes to be built at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Cape Canaveral, Florida. It consisted of two pads, LC-4 which was used for 25 launches of Bomarc, Matador and Redston ...
, it flew for 80 seconds until an engine failure caused it to crash into the sea. * October 4, 1957 – Sputnik, first orbital rocket. * December 22, 1960 – Vostok-K, first human-rated rocket (first manned flight April 12, 1961). * November 9, 1967 –
Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 1 ...
, most powerful rocket launched so far, was used to launch humans to the Moon. * April 12, 1981 –
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
, first partially reusable launch system, largest payload at the time of its maiden flight. * December 21, 2004 –
Delta IV Heavy The Delta IV Heavy (Delta 9250H) is an expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle, the largest type of the Delta IV family. It is the world's third highest-capacity launch vehicle in operation, behind NASA's Space Launch System and SpaceX's Falcon He ...
, largest payload at the time of its maiden flight. * February 6, 2018 –
Falcon Heavy Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that is produced by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. The rocket consists of two strap-on boosters made from Falcon 9 first stages, a center core also made from a Falc ...
, largest payload at the time of its maiden flight, partially reusable.


See also

*
Flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...


References

{{Authority control Aerospace engineering