First European to fly a motorized airplane. On June 28, 1908 Jacob Christian Hansen Ellehammer stayed in the air for eleven seconds with his plane, designed and built by himself. Since there was a match linked to this achievement, he received a grand prize of 5000 Deutschmark.
Ellehammer's achievement is even bigger if we realize that he came to this result without the help of other airplane pioneers of his time. He built his first machine in 1905. This machine with 9 horsepower was constructed to fly some rounds around a wooden pole to which it was attached with a cable. It only managed to make some short jumps, the longest in 1906 with 42 meters.
The motorized aircraft that stayed in the air for eleven seconds, was a 35 horsepower, 5-cylinder triplane. Ellehammer used for the construction of this 'Model IV' mahogany, steel pipes and cloth for the wing covers.