Reuben Jasper Spalding’s flying machine never actually flew, but neither did Leonardo da Vinci’s. The Colorado-based inventor devised a breathtaking design for a manned-flight contraption in 1889 (patent here), and even if there wasn’t much chance the sun would get the opportunity to melt its wings, it was still an impressive apparatus. From an article about a rediscovered model of the contrivance, in the October 12, 1903 Brooklyn Daily Eagle: