George and William Besler, the sons of a railroad magnate named—wait for it—George William Besler, were not the last innovators to try powering cars with steam engines, but they are among the best-known for it. Indeed, some Australians installed a steam engine in a 1963 Ford Falcon, but the Beslers famously converted one of Henry J. Kaiser’s own cars to steam power in the 1950s. But long before that, the Beslers did something even more remarkable: They built a steam-powered airplane that actually flew.

A number of innovators had penned designs for steam-powered flight, but the Beslers went ahead and made it work in 1933. Using a Travel Air 2000 airframe, they installed a large water tank (boiler) and oil burner in the in the nose that fed steam to the V-Twin engine. There wasn’t much to it and it’s unclear if this was ever intended as more than a demonstration of steam power, but the airplane indeed carried the 150-horsepower engine, which weighed around 500 pounds, without issue. The lack of short-exhaust internal-combustion engine also made it an eerily quiet airplane; several sources suggest that the pilot could call audibly to onlookers at its demonstrations.

Nothing ever went beyond a few demonstration flights in Oakland, however. This particular video’s uploader suggests that steam power wouldn’t have scaled up well as power and capacity demands increased in airplanes. But for a small, two-seater biplane, the 150-horsepower twin got the job done. See some more great Besler Steam Airplane photos here and read a bit more about it on The Old Motor.