Bland became the first woman in the world known to have designed, built, and piloted her own airplane.
Lilian Bland's flight of the Mayfly on 31 August 1910 is widely regarded as making her the first woman in the world to design, construct, and personally pilot an aircraft of her own creation. This was an extraordinary triple achievement: she conceived the design (reportedly inspired by observing herring gulls in flight and a photograph of a Bleriot monoplane), oversaw and participated in its physical construction, and then took the controls herself for its maiden flight.
At a time when aviation was in its absolute infancy and considered an almost exclusively male pursuit — dominated by figures like the Wright brothers and Louis Blériot — Bland's accomplishment stood out as remarkable evidence that women could excel at the cutting edge of engineering and piloting. She reportedly financed and built much of the aircraft herself, using a whiskey bottle as part of the fuel system in an early improvised petrol feed, and famously wore a specially devised outfit to allow freedom of movement while flying.
This achievement predates many other famous female aviation firsts and is frequently cited in histories of women in aviation, including modern exhibitions and retrospectives celebrating her legacy as 'the flying feminist.' Her story has been increasingly recognized in the twenty-first century as an important, previously under-appreciated chapter in aviation history.