When Pigs Fly The phrase "When Pigs Fly" appears to be a
traditional Scottish proverb, one that makes its first printed
appearance in 1586 in an English-Latin dictionary for children.
Although a pig may have been carried aloft in a balloon
ascension prior to the invention of the airplane, the first
"flying pig" I can find took to the skies on November 4th, 1909,
when John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon (great British name,
eh?), carried a small pig in a waste-paper basket on a flight. I
love the sign on the basket: "I am the first pig to fly."