abufletcher

It was a very tight race for "first manned flight." In the 1890's a kite-maker from my area, who the Japanese call the "Father of Flight," Chuuhachi Ninomiya, designed an odd curved wing, sequiplane aircraft but was unable to convince the Japanese military to loan him an engine for it. A clubmate built a small model of it with a small Saito engine and it did fly...just barely. Curiously, Ninomiya's manned design was inspired by insects rather than birds. But he also build flex-tail glider (models) resembling a crow.

And, of course, there were many other "contestants" in the First-to-Fly race.