This early docudrama uses dramatic reenactment, working models of early flying machines, and archival footage to trace man's attempts to fly from ancient times through the 1930s.

Frederick Culley
as Roger Bacon

Laurence Olivier
as Vincent Lunardi

Franklin Dyall
as Jerome de Ascoli

Henry Victor
as Otto Lilienthal

Hay Petrie
as Tiberius Cavallo

John Turnbull
as Von Zeppelin

Charles Lefeaux
as Louis Bleriot

Bryan Powley
as George Cayley

Alan Wheatley
as Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

John Abbott
as Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier