---
title: "Which came first, the aeroplane or the Ford Motor Company?"
description: "the aeroplane and the Ford Motor Company both date from 1903. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-ford/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the aeroplane or the Ford Motor Company?

**Which came first, the aeroplane or the Ford Motor Company?: Both the same year**

Both 1903

Both arrived in 1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. Ford Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit.

## Side by side

|  | the aeroplane | the Ford Motor Company |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1903 | 1903 |
| Date | 1903-12-17 | 1903-06-16 |
| Category | invention | company |
| What happened | The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. | Ford Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit. |

## the aeroplane

The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime.

## the Ford Motor Company

Ford was incorporated in June 1903, fourteen years after Nintendo and six months before the Wright brothers flew. The Model T followed in 1908 and the moving assembly line in 1913, which cut the time to build a car from twelve hours to about ninety minutes. Ford was Henry Ford's third attempt at a car company; the first two failed.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the aeroplane or the Ford Motor Company?

Both date from 1903.

### When did the aeroplane start?

1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

### When did the Ford Motor Company start?

1903. Ford Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]