Aircraft Vehicle

A contra-prop arrangement has a second propeller close behind the first one on the same axis, which rotates in the opposite direction.
A variation on the propeller is to use many broad blades to create a fan. Such fans are traditionally surrounded by a ring-shaped fairing or duct, as ducted fans.
Many kinds of power plant have been used to drive propellers.
The earliest designs used man power to give dirigible balloons some degree of control, and go back to Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1784. Attempts to achieve heavier-than-air man-powered flight did not succeed fully until Paul MacCready's Gossamer Condor in 1977.