In 1841 Alexander Mozhaisky graduated from the Navy School. He served in the navy from 1841 to 1862 and from 1879 to 1882, and in civil departments in charge of the peasant reform from 1862 to 1879. In 1882 he retired in the major general's rank (the rear admiral from 1886).
From 1856 he was interested in the possibility of flights: he thoroughly studied the flight of birds and kites, the work of airscrew propellers, and started investigating the possibility of creating the aircraft. In 1876 he demonstrated successful flights of aircraft models.
On November 3, 1881 Alexander Mozhaisky was granted Russia's first privilege to the airplane invented by him. In 1881 he started construction of the plane with two 20 and 10 hp steam-engines on the military field in Krasnoe Selo near St. Petersburg). The construction was completed in the summer of 1882. The few remaining sources specify that during one of the tests the plane took off and made a short flight. It was the first-ever flight of a heavier-than-air.