Inventing Aviation main page
This site gathers and analyzes data about the processes leading to the invention of the airplane and the start of the airplane industry around the world. Our data on aero patents and publications extend from the time that controlled flight was a dream to the time when it worked, becomes the core technology of a startup industry, and then a major industry supplying the military in WWI. We keep pages on each of many items related to those technologies and the early industry and the people who made it happen. Data is integrated qualitatively and quantitatively, approached from multiple angles and sources, antique or modern, analogue or digital. We aim for complete coverage of these items up to 1916, and a few thereafter.
The invention of feasible aviation is a polar case of highly uncertain innovation, insofar as there was not confidence that controllable aircraft could be built and how they would be designed. We can infer that there was high uncertainty from the fact that few firms were involved in the experimentation and research until its viability was proven in 1903-06.
We track “innovation” activity, whether or not invention or product "succeeds". Patents are countable, and we have learned the techniques to combine patents from different countries together. Some are literally re-filings of the same invention in a new country. We try to characterize high quality patents and low quality patents. High quality patents have inventions that are original, useful, implementable, and are more likely to be cited by later patents.
Most of the pages have a row of structured (table) data on them, and explanatory text.
Here are some of the tables and lists on this site:
- 15,772 Patents at least 13,440 of which are related to aviation: Wiki pages available as Structured data
- 2,428 Technology/patent categories: Wiki pages, Structured data
- 25,169 Publications about aeronautics and aviation back then or histories of that time -- Wiki pages, Structured data
- 468 Companies: Wiki pages, Structured data
- 939 Not-for-profit organizations -- clubs, research groups, government labs: Wiki pages, Structured data
- 141 Events (exhibitions, conferences, meetings, and prizes: Wiki pages, Structured data
- 2,273 Aero inventors, patentees, and authors -- Structured data
- 683 Letters and telegrams between aero experimenters -- Structured data
- 15 Airships -- Structured data
- 18 Airplanes -- Structured data
Wiki features help keep track. Many reports here automatically capture new items as they are added based on their links and categories. We keep some items that turn out not to be related, in order to make clear why they are left out of some analyses
Work in progress
Further notes and connections
We track institutions and factors that support or otherwise relate to aero innovation in this period, e.g. patent institutions, patent agents, national diffeences, administrative culture, patent classification systems, etc. These factors influence what data we see, too. The relevant inventors, authors, and other players were connected in information networks, and/or “social networks”. The incipient airplane industry builds on earlier networks associated with ballooning, and this affects the Industrialization of manufacturing aircraft.
If you want use or add to the data please cite this wiki as a dataset or contact us -- see About this site.
