Aviation Pioneers and Aviators

The pilots and early flyers whose flights proved heavier-than-air and long-distance powered flight possible, from the first powered takeoff through the record-setting solo and transatlantic flights that followed. Belongs here: aviators known chiefly for flying rather than for building aircraft manufacturing companies, including contested early-flight claimants recorded as open questions elsewhere in this atlas. Does not belong here: aircraft designers and manufacturers, grouped under aviation industrialists and engineers, or figures from other modes.