John Stringfellow (1799 – 13 December 1883) was a British early aeronautical inventor, known for his work on the aerial steam carriage[1] with William Samuel Henson.

[4] The initial designs were flawed, with Stringfellow's ideas centred on monoplane and triplane models and Henson's ideas centred on an underpowered steam-powered vehicle, however In 1848 Stringfellow achieved the first ever powered flight using an unmanned 10 ft wingspan steam-powered monoplane, built in a disused lace factory in Chard, Somerset.

[5] Employing two contra-rotating propellers on the first attempt, made indoors, the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft.

The second attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guide wire to fly freely, achieving some thirty yards of straight and level powered flight.

In 1868 he was elected a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and used his prize money to build a larger workspace for continuing his experiments.