The article deals with the dawn of aviation in the early XX century before the First world war. The attention is paid to the airplanes of the monoplane type, analyzed varieties of airplanes, especially their designs. There were involved as materials the specialized literature on the history of the development of airplanes, as well as reference and scientific literature. The study used a set of scientific methods: multi-factoriality and integration, chronology, typology, comparison, etc., which together provide the reliable results on the studied problem. For example, studying the experience of the development of world and national aeronautics, we paid attention to the features of their designs, which subsequently allowed the use of prototypes, both for civil and military purposes. In conclusion, the authors state that the development of monoplanes in the ХХ century, for the most part, took place in european countries. The first experiments of 1906 led after 2-3 years to a series of successes, among which there was the first flight over the English Channel and reaching a speed of 100 km/h. At the same time, there was an increased public interest to the aeronautics, all this in general created the necessary conditions for further improvements of monoplanes. Already by the beginning of the First world war, the accumulated experience was sufficient to apply airplanes effectively on the battlefield.