Giacomo D'Angelis was a Corsic

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

-India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n aviation

Aviation

Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...

 pioneer who became famous for probably the first flight of an own-built aircraft in 1910.

His great grandson claims that the first flight ever in India took place, started in Madras (Chennai

Chennai

Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

) on March 10, 1910, nine months ahead of the one in Allahabad

Allahabad

Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...

. Giacomo D’Angelis, a confectioner from Corsica, arrived in Madras in 1880 and opened his "Maison Francaise" as chief of cuisine, and his excellent service soon enabled him to open a small hotel in 1906, the latter Hotel d'Angeli. The biplane

Biplane

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...

 has been built by D'Angelis entirely from his own designs, experimenting with a small horse-power engine.

D'Angelis seems to been inspired by Louis Blériot

Louis Blériot

Louis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...

 who was the first to fly across the English Channel in July 1909. D'Angelis tested his aeroplane in Pallavaram

Pallavaram

Pallavapuram Municipality was constituted as a III Grade Municipality on 17.01.1970 vide G.o.No. 55 R.D. & L.A. Department dated 12.01.1970, by Combining the following Town Panchayats and Panchayats.* Zamin Pallavaram Town Panchayat* Issa Pallavaram Town Panchayat...

, Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, and then arranged a public viewing in March 1910 reported by the local newspapers.

Sources

archivosdangelis.blogspot.com

• The Hindu
  The Hindu
  The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
  
  (August 22, 2010): The centenary of a Madras airplane
• kbhargava.com: Aviation in India