ABSTRACT
Pioneers and Celebrities The first pilots taught themselves to fly and were often their own mechanics as well. The world’s first aero club was set up in France in 1898-five years before the Wright brothers’ famous 1903 flight. The Aero Club of America was founded in November 1905. Among early aviators were Glenn Curtiss-who flew his June Bug airplane for the first time in 1908-and Louis Blériot, the first airplane pilot to fly from France to England, in 1909. The world’s first international aviation meet, at Reims, France, in the summer of 1909, saw just twentythree airplanes flying.
