Today is the 150th anniversary of Sir George Cayley's definitive paper for the first manned aircraft, published in the Mechanics' Magazine of the same day in 1852.

This aircraft was flown "sometime after June" in 1853, probably by his coachman, at Brompton-by-Sawdon near Scarborough.

Blue plaques adorn his London house in Hertford Street, down the side of the Park Lane Hilton, near the Royal Aeronautical Society and at Brompton-by-Sawdon and his Scarborough house in Paradise Street. Apart from those architectural marks his pioneering work, 50 years before the Wright Brothers, is insufficiently recognised in Britain.

It is an injustice that Sir George, acknowledged by the Wright brothers and commemorated in the Smithsonian and San Diego museums as "The Father Of Aeronautics", remains almost unknown in his native Britain.

Doubtless he will, yet again, be passed over by the world's media in 2003 which marks the 150th anniversary of the first manned flight in Yorkshire because, by coincidence, it is also 100 years since the Wright brothers' flight at Kittyhawk in 1903.

Cayley enthusiasts, in universities and industry, plan to rectify the situation by commissioning a bronze bust of Sir George and commemorating the first flight by the Royal Aeronautical Society and BAE Systems.

We hope also to persuade the National Portrait Gallery to display his portrait and explain his importance next year.

Ian Wormald,

Main Street, Elvington, York.

Updated: 10:22 Wednesday, September 25, 2002