[kach22i]

The Airplane:

John Stringfellow (1848), Sir Hiram Maxim (1893), and Samuel Pierpoint Langley(1898?)
http://oldenginehouse.users.btopenworld.com/flight.htm

Gustave Whitehead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead

On August 14, 1901 in Fairfield, Connecticut Whitehead reportedly flew his engine powered Number 21 800 m at 15 m height, according to articles in the Bridgeport Herald, the New York Herald and the Boston Transcript. (See References below for a link to the full article.) No photographs were taken, but a sketch of the plane in the air was made by Dick Howell of the Bridgeport Herald, who was present. This flight precedes the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk, North Carolina flight by more than two years.

The Wright brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two Americans generally credited with building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, they developed their flying machine into the world's first practical fixed-wing aircraft.

The Hovercraft:

Christopher Cockerell
http://www.hovercraft-museum.org/cockerell.html

Melville Whitnel Beardsley:
http://www.geneabase.com/ACV/acv.htm

Walter A. Crowley:
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7987

Charles J. Fletcher
http://www.njinvent.org/1993/inductees_1993/fletcher.html

While serving as a pilot in the U.S. Navy in Norfolk, Va., Charles J. Fletcher sketched the design for a vehicle envisioned to rise above the water or terrain (approximately 10 inches to two feet) depending on available horsepower. The vehicle would generate an airflow trapped against a uniform surface such as the ground or water, freeing it from the surface and eliminating friction. Positive control and movement would be attained using aircraft control techniques and the release of air. What Fletcher called the "Glidemobile" is known today ad the hovercraft. The hovercraft has proven to be a major advance in military land assault vehicles and modern inter-waterway travel. Hovercrafts are manufactured in the U.S. today and by Bell Aerosystems and sell for between $800,00 and $1.5 million each. Fletcher's claim as an inventor of the hovercraft, undocumented because the U.S. military suppressed the patent to keep the idea a secret, was recently validated during resolution of a lawsuit brought by British Hovercraft Ltd. against the United States, seeking royalties of $104 million. Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice found a 1960 edition of Design News which featured an article on Fletcher's hovercraft. Fletcher was tracked down and his records on the project which included 16 mm films of the "Glidemobile," documentation regarding his conceptual drawings, subsequent work, model flight trials, and various news articles proved easy to destroy the Hovercraft Ltd. case. Fletcher earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the academy of Aeronautics at New York University in 1950. He holds 17 aeronautical patents on vertical lift and rocket engines plus five additional patents for industrial products.

Vladimir Levlov
http://milparade.udm.ru/32/062.htm

On October 2, 1935, state trials of the L-1 air-skimmer (this was the official term adopted for the craft) began on the Pleshcheyevo Lake (the Jaroslavl Region, Russia).

Sir John Isaac Thornycroft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft

In the mid-1870s, the British engineer Sir John Isaac Thornycroft built a number of ground effect machine test models based on his idea of using air between the hull of a boat and the water to reduce drag.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft
DI Toivo J. Kaario

Finnish engineer DI Toivo J. Kaario, head inspector of Valtion Lentokonetehdas (VL) airplane engine workshop, began to design an air cushion craft in 1931. He constructed and tested his craft, dubbed pintaliitäjä (Surface Glider), and received its Finnish patents 18630 and 26122. Kaario is considered to have designed and built the first functional ground effect vehicle, but his invention did not receive sufficient funds for further development.