The Flying Man: Otto Lilienthal, the World’s First Pilot

This biography traces Otto Lilienthal’s long experiment with flight. After years of testing, he made his first airborne journey in 1891 in a glider he had built. The account describes a trial-and-error route to flying and notes that Lilienthal completed more than 2,000 successful flights. His experiments later influenced the Wright brothers and other people working on early aviation. It begins when balloons were the means of reaching the sky.