A person who operates, pilots, or designs aeroplanes; an aviator or early aviation pioneer.
From 'aeroplane' + '-ist' (practitioner). Popular in early 20th-century literature and journalism to describe the new class of pioneering pilots.
The term 'aeroplanist' reveals how exotic and specialized aviation was in the 1910s-1920s—pilots were celebrities and adventurers, not everyday professionals, making them sound like acrobats or magicians!
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