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For Félix du Temple's invention, see Monoplane (1874)

The low-wing of a de Havilland Dove.

The mid-wing of a de Havilland Vampire T11.

The high-wing of a de Havilland Canada Dash 8.

The high (or "parasol") wing of a Dornier Do 24 flying boat.

A monoplane is an aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the "ordinary" form for a fixed wing aircraft.

The main distinction in types of monoplane is how the wings attach to the fuselage:

• low-wing, the wing lower surface is level with (or below) the bottom of the fuselage
• mid-wing, the wing is mounted mid-way up the fuselage
• shoulder-wing, the wing is mounted above the fuselage middle
• high-wing, the wing upper surface is level with or above the top of the fuselage

The term parasol monoplane, is more or less obsolete - it used to be applied to a high-wing monoplane, especially one where the wing was mounted well above the fuselage.

Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane.

Probably the first monoplane was the Monoplane built in 1874 by Felix du Temple de la Croix, a large plane made of aluminium in Brest, France, with a wingspan of 13 meters and a weight of only 80 kilograms (without the pilot). Several trials were made with the plane, and it is generally recognized that it achieved lift off under its own power after a ski-jump run, glided for a short time and returned safely to the ground, possibly making it the first successful powered flight in history, depending on the definition — since the flight was only a short distance and a short time, and of course was not truly under control.

Another early monoplane was constructed by Romanian inventor Traian Vuia, who made a flight of 12 m (40 feet) on March 18, 1906.

Richard Pearse of New Zealand had built a monoplane in which he made attempts at controlled powered flight on the 31st of March 1903, although the lack of outside knowledge of his achievements meant that his design had almost no influence in the general development of the aeroplane.

The first successful aircraft were biplanes, but many important pioneering aircraft were monoplanes, for instance Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel in 1909 in a mid-wing monoplane of his own design. The Fokker Eindecker of 1915 was a successful fighter aircraft.

Nonetheless, monoplanes generally went out of fashion from about 1914, and remained so until the 1930s. This was by no means as strange as it might seem in retrospect. In the days when most aeroplane wings were thin, lightly built structures, braced by struts, steel wire or cables - the biplane wing had very real structural and aerodynamic advantages. Early monoplane wings tended to be liable to twist in flight, rendering proper lateral control very difficult. They were also much more liable to breakage in flight.

Once all metal construction and the cantilever wing became common, however, the day of the biplane very quickly ended, and the monoplane became the usual configuration for an aeroplane. Most military aircraft of WW2 were monoplanes, as have been virtually all piston and jet powered aircraft since.

• Biplane
• Triplane