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! style="background:#d6e6f6; border-bottom:solid 2px skyBlue;"|<small>Timeline<br/>of aviation</small>

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|align=center|pre-18th century

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| style="text-align:center; background:skyBlue;"|18th century

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|align=center|19th century

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|align=center|20th century

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|align=center|21st century begins

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This is a list of aviation-related events during the 18th century (January 1, 1701 – December 31, 1800):

1700s–1770s

  • 1709
  • Portuguese Father Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates a practical model of a hot-air balloon made of a paper envelope with burning material suspended below it to King John V of Portugal in the Ambassadors drawing room. Worried that it will set fire to the curtains, servants end its flight by dashing it to the ground. It is the first known demonstration of a practical lighter-than-air craft.
  • 1716
  • Well thought-out glider-project of the Swedish scholar Emanuel Swedenborg. Basis for his construction are bird flight and the glider kite.
  • 1738
  • In his Hydrodynamica the Swiss scholar Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) formulates the principle of the conservation of energy for fluids (Bernoulli's principle), the relationship between pressure and velocity in a flow.
  • 1746
  • English military engineer Benjamin Robins (1707–1751) invented a whirling arm centrifuge to determine drag.
  • 1766
  • British chemist Henry Cavendish determines the specific weight of hydrogen gas.

1780s–1790s

thumb|right|150px|1783: First flight at Annonay.

thumb|right|150px|1783: First manned voyage at Paris.

thumb|right|150px|1783: First gas balloon flight.

thumb|right|150px|1783: Sebastian Lenormand performs a parachute jump.

thumb|right|150px|1785: First crossing of the Channel.

thumb|right|150px|1794: First use in battle.

thumb|right|150px|1797: First high-altitude parachute jump from a balloon.

thumb|150px|[[Pierre Testu-Brissy on Air Horse One (c.1798)]]

  • 1782
  • December 14, The Montgolfier brothers first test fly an unmanned hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly .
  • 1783
  • June 4, Unmanned flight of the Montgolfier brothers 900 m linen hot air balloon at Annonay near Lyon in the Vivarais region of France as a public demonstration. The flight covers 2&nbsp;km and lasts 10 minutes, to an estimated altitude of 1600–2000 metres.
  • March 13 The first public ascent of a manned balloon in Italy takes place with a hot air balloon at the Villa Sormani in Moncucco carrying Paolo Andreani and two locals.
  • April 15, The first ascent of a manned balloon in the British Isles takes place with a hot air balloon at Navan in Ireland.
  • June 4, Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman passenger in a hot-air balloon, at Lyon in France.
  • August 25 & 27, Scottish apothecary James Tytler makes the first balloon ascents in Great Britain, in a hot air balloon from Edinburgh.
  • September 15, Italian Vincenzo Lunardi makes the first hydrogen balloon flight in Britain, from Moorfields in London to South Mimms.
  • September 19, Anne-Jean Robert, Nicolas-Louis Robert and Colin Hullin fly La Carolina, a hydrogen balloon, from Paris to Beuvry.
  • October 4, Englishman James Sadler makes the first hot air balloon flight in England, from Oxford to Woodeaton.
  • October 16, Jean-Pierre Blanchard fits a hand-powered propeller to a balloon flow from London, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft.
  • Pilâtre de Rozier and the chemist Proust rise with a Montgolfière up to .
  • Jean Baptiste Meusnier makes an oblong balloon to explore unknown areas, with an airscrew driven by muscle power.
  • 1785
  • January 7, Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes the first flight across the English Channel. He uses a hydrogen balloon and carries John Jeffries as a passenger, flying from Dover, England, to Guînes, France.
  • June 15, Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Jules Romain become the first known aeronautical fatalities when their balloon crashes during an attempt to cross the English Channel.
  • October 5, Vincenzo Lunardi flies in a gas balloon from George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth in Scotland to Ceres, Fife ( in 1.5 hrs).
  • November 23, Lunardi flies from St Andrew's Square, Glasgow, to Hawick in Scotland.
  • Ukita Kōkichi, Japanese paperhanger, makes artificial wings and tries flying from the top of a bridge.
  • 1789
  • First experiments in Japan to develop an ornithopter-type glider.
  • 1793
  • Military use of a captive balloon at the siege of Mainz, Germany.
  • January 9, Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes probably the first balloon ascent in the Western Hemisphere, lifting off from the prison yard at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, crossing the Delaware River and landing at Deptford, New Jersey, carrying an "aerial passport" endorsed by President George Washington. Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe all witness the flight.
  • May 15, inventor Diego Marín Aguilera, the "father of aviation" in Spain, flies a glider for about .
  • July 30, Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutelle, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau and Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier complete a military hydrogen balloon ordered by the French Committee of Public Safety. They will present it to the committee in October 1793.
  • June 23, The French balloon l'Entreprenant resumes flights, helping to prevent Austrian troops from relieving besieged Austrian forces at Charleroi.
  • August 1, The French ship-of-the-line Orient has gear of the French Armys Company of Aeronauts on board when she is destroyed during the Battle of the Nile.
  • October 15, First balloon ascent on horseback: Pierre Testu-Brissy ascends from Bellevue, Meudon in Paris.
  • 1799
  • Englishman Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) sketches a glider with a rudder unit and an elevator unit. His manuscript is considered to be the starting point of the scientific research on heavier than air flying machines. It is Cayley who helps to sort out the confusion of the time. ..."He knew more than any of his predecessors ... and successors up to the end of the 19th century." – Orville Wright.
  • Birth of John Stringfellow, another English pioneer of heavier than air flying machines (d. 1883).
  • January 15, The French Armys Company of Aeronauts is abolished.