It's pretty amazing what kinds of things can get airborne with enough engines, wings, effort, determination or just sheer creativity. The last hundred years or so have provided a treasure trove of absolutely wild designs, and we've dug deep into the archives to come up with 26 of our favorites.
Now, the category of "things that fly" is pretty broad, so before you get all outraged that we didn't include something, here are the rules: This list isn't going to include hovercraft or ground effect vehicles or anything that wasn't capable (or at least had the intention) of getting airborne and flying at altitude for sustained periods of time.
Also, we're not including concepts here; all of these vehicles made it to at least the prototype stage and successfully flew, even if some of them only flew once and for a very (very) short time. And while you can make all kinds of weird aircraft if they don't have to carry a human, everything on this list is either manned or intended to be scaled up to be manned in the near future.
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