I don't know anything about Monkey's being taught to fly but I do know that the US Military spent significant amounts of time teaching Alsations to make parachute jumps.
This may sound stange but it was the late 50's when among other things they were researching -
Exploding Frisbees (nasty tendency to slide backwards to the thrower)
Making soldiers braver with LSD (kept running away from imaginary monsters)
The "Davy Crockett" Handlaunched Nuclear Device (1 Mile range)
...So the idea of getting dogs to skydive is actually quite sane by the standards of the time.
They took military German Shepards (Alsations) and trained them to jump through a door while wearing a static line parachute on their backs. After leaving the plane the static line would open the parachute automaticly, leaving the dog to descend earthwards where it would presumably terrify the enemy. After someone let it out of the parachute harness.
All went well initially - the first stick of dogs was dispatched successfully.
The problem was that after their first jump they developed an extreme aversion to aircraft. Maybe it was because they'd only been trained to jump through a door onto the ground, so finding themselves 500ft up in the air must have unnerved them.
theRolfe
[This message has been edited by theRolfe2 (edited 13 June 2001).]