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The history of aviation extends for more than two thousand years, from the earliest forms of
aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes airplane, fixed-wing and helicopter, rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as aerostat, lighter- ...
such as
kite A kite is a tethered heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create lift and drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have a bridle and tail to guide the fac ...
s and attempts at tower jumping to
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound ( Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
and
hypersonic In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds 5 times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above. The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since ind ...
flight by powered,
heavier-than-air An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...
jets. Kite flying in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
dates back to several hundred years BC and slowly spread around the world. It is thought to be the earliest example of man-made flight.
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
's 15th-century dream of flight found expression in several rational designs, but which relied on poor science. The discovery of
hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...
gas in the 18th century led to the invention of the
hydrogen balloon Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
, at almost exactly the same time that the
Montgolfier brothers The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune ...
rediscovered the
hot-air balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...
and began manned flights. Various theories in
mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objec ...
by physicists during the same period of time, notably
fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) a ...
and
Newton's laws of motion Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in mo ...
, led to the foundation of modern
aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dy ...
, most notably by
Sir George Cayley Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was an English engineer, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aeri ...
. Balloons, both free-flying and tethered, began to be used for military purposes from the end of the 18th century, with the French government establishing Balloon Companies during the
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
.Hallion (2003) Experiments with gliders provided the groundwork for heavier-than-air craft, most notably by
Otto Lilienthal Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders, therefore making ...
, and by the early 20th century, advances in engine technology and aerodynamics made controlled, powered flight possible for the first time, thanks to the successful efforts of the Wright brothers. The modern
aeroplane An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spec ...
with its characteristic tail was established by 1909 and from then on the history of the aeroplane became tied to the development of more and more powerful engines. The first great ships of the air were the rigid dirigible balloons pioneered by
Ferdinand von Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
, which soon became synonymous with
airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...
s and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s, when large
flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fuselag ...
s became popular. After
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the flying boats were in their turn replaced by land planes, and the new and immensely powerful
jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...
revolutionised both air travel and
military aviation Military aviation comprises military aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling aerial warfare, including national airlift ( air cargo) capacity to provide logistical supply to forces stationed in a war thea ...
. In the latter part of the 20th century, the advent of digital electronics produced great advances in flight instrumentation and "fly-by-wire" systems. The 21st century saw the large-scale use of pilotless drones for military, civilian and leisure use. With digital controls, inherently unstable aircraft such as flying wings became possible.


Etymology

The term aviation, noun of action from stem of Latin avis "bird" with suffix -ation meaning action or progress, was coined in 1863 by French pioneer Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de La Landelle (1812–1886) in "Aviation ou Navigation aérienne sans ballons".


Primitive beginnings


Tower jumping

Since antiquity, there have been stories of men strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. The Greek legend of
Daedalus In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdi ...
and
Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; grc, Ἴκαρος, Íkaros, ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos sus ...
is one of the earliest known; others originated from ancient Asia and the European Middle Age. During this early period, the issues of lift, stability and control were not understood, and most attempts ended in serious injury or death. The Andalusian scientist
Abbas ibn Firnas Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini ( ar, أبو القاسم عباس بن فرناس بن ورداس التاكرني; c. 809/810 – 887 A.D.), also known as Abbas ibn Firnas ( ar, عباس ابن فرناس), Latinized Armen ...
(810–887 AD) is claimed to have made a jump in
Córdoba, Spain Córdoba (; ),, Arabic: قُرطبة DIN: . or Cordova () in English, is a city in Andalusia, Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. It is the third most populated municipality in Andalusia and the 11th overall in the country. The ...
, covering his body with
vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
feathers and attaching two wings to his arms. The 17th-century
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
n historian
Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (), (1577-1632) was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his , a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholar ...
, quoting a poem by Muhammad I of Córdoba's 9th-century court poet Mu'min ibn Said, recounts that Firnas flew some distance before landing with some injuries, attributed to his lacking a tail (as birds use to land). Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", ''Technology and Culture'' 2 (2), pp. 97–111 01/ref> Writing in the 12th century,
William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as " ...
stated that the 11th-century Benedictine monk
Eilmer of Malmesbury Eilmer of Malmesbury (also known as Oliver due to a scribe's miscopying, or Elmer, or Æthelmær) was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings. Life Eilmer was a monk of Malm ...
attached wings to his hands and feet and flew a short distance, but broke both legs while landing, also having neglected to make himself a tail. Many others made well-documented jumps in the following centuries. As late as 1811, Albrecht Berblinger constructed an
ornithopter An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, ...
and jumped into the Danube at Ulm.


Kites

The
kite A kite is a tethered heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create lift and drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have a bridle and tail to guide the fac ...
may have been the first form of man-made
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...
. It was invented in China possibly as far back as the 5th century BC by
Mozi Mozi (; ; Latinized as Micius ; – ), original name Mo Di (), was a Chinese philosopher who founded the school of Mohism during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (the early portion of the Warring States period, –221 BCE). The ancie ...
(Mo Di) and
Lu Ban Lu Ban (–444BC). was a Chinese architect or master carpenter, structural engineer, and inventor, during the Zhou Dynasty. He is revered as the Chinese Deity (Patron) of builders and contractors. Life Lu Ban was born in the state of Lu; a few ...
(Gongshu Ban). Later designs often emulated flying insects, birds, and other beasts, both real and mythical. Some were fitted with strings and whistles to make musical sounds while flying. Ancient and medieval Chinese sources describe kites being used to measure distances, test the wind, lift men, signal, and communicate and send messages. Kites spread from China around the world. After its introduction into
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, the kite further evolved into the fighter kite, which has an abrasive line used to cut down other kites.


Man-carrying kites

Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China, for both civil and military purposes and sometimes enforced as a punishment. An early recorded flight was that of the prisoner
Yuan Huangtou Yuan Huangtou (; died in 559) was the son of emperor Yuan Lang of Northern Wei dynasty of China. At that time, paramount general Gao Yang took control of the court of Northern Wei's branch successor state Eastern Wei and set the emperor as a pupp ...
, a Chinese prince, in the 6th century AD. Stories of man-carrying kites also occur in Japan, following the introduction of the kite from China around the seventh century AD. It is said that at one time there was a Japanese law against man-carrying kites.Pelham, D.; ''The Penguin book of kites'', Penguin (1976)


Rotor wings

The use of a
rotor Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering * Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator *Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...
for vertical flight has existed since 400 BC in the form of the
bamboo-copter The bamboo-copter, also known as the bamboo dragonfly or Chinese top (Chinese ''zhuqingting'' (竹蜻蜓), Japanese ''taketonbo'' ), is a toy helicopter rotor that flies up when its shaft is rapidly spun. This helicopter-like top originated in ...
, an ancient Chinese toy. The similar "moulinet à noix" (rotor on a nut) appeared in Europe in the 14th century AD.


Hot air balloons

From ancient times the Chinese have understood that hot air rises and have applied the principle to a type of small
hot air balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries ...
called a
sky lantern A sky lantern (), also known as Kǒngmíng lantern (), or Chinese lantern, is a small hot air balloon made of paper, with an opening at the bottom where a small fire is suspended. In Asia and elsewhere around the world, sky lanterns have bee ...
. A sky lantern consists of a paper balloon under or just inside which a small lamp is placed. Sky lanterns are traditionally launched for pleasure and during festivals. According to
Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, i ...
, such lanterns were known in China from the 3rd century BC. Their military use is attributed to the general
Zhuge Liang Zhuge Liang ( zh, t=諸葛亮 / 诸葛亮) (181 – September 234), courtesy name Kongming, was a Chinese statesman and military strategist. He was chancellor and later regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. He is ...
(180–234 AD, honorific title ''Kongming''), who is said to have used them to scare the enemy troops. There is evidence that the Chinese also "solved the problem of aerial navigation" using balloons, hundreds of years before the 18th century.


Renaissance

Eventually, after Ibn Firnas's construction, some investigators began to discover and define some of the basics of rational aircraft design. Most notable of these was
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
, although his work remained unknown until 1797, and so had no influence on developments over the next three hundred years. While his designs are rational, they are not scientific. He particularly underestimated the amount of power that would be needed to propel a flying object, basing his designs on the flapping wings of a bird rather than an engine-powered propeller. Leonardo studied bird and bat flight, claiming the superiority of the latter owing to its unperforated wing. He analyzed these and anticipating many principles of aerodynamics. He understood that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object."
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...
would not publish his third law of motion until 1687. From the last years of the 15th century until 1505, Leonardo wrote about and sketched many designs for flying machines and mechanisms, including ornithopters, fixed-wing gliders, rotorcraft (perhaps inspired by whirligig toys), parachutes (in the form of a wooden-framed pyramidal tent) and a wind speed gauge. His early designs were man-powered and included ornithopters and rotorcraft; however he came to realise the impracticality of this and later turned to controlled gliding flight, also sketching some designs powered by a spring. In an essay titled ''Sul volo'' (''On flight''), Leonardo describes a flying machine called "the bird" which he built from starched linen, leather joints, and raw silk thongs. In the ''
Codex Atlanticus The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was u ...
'', he wrote, "Tomorrow morning, on the second day of January, 1496, I will make the thong and the attempt." According to one commonly repeated, albeit presumably fictional story, in 1505 Leonardo or one of his pupils attempted to fly from the summit of
Monte Ceceri Monte Ceceri is a hill near Fiesole, Tuscany. It is part of a nature reserve to the northeast of the city of Florence, within the Metropolitan City of Florence. History Monte Ceceri was named for the swans that would once frequent the a ...
.


Lighter than air


Beginnings of modern theories

In 1670,
Francesco Lana de Terzi Francesco Lana de Terzi (1631 in Brescia, Lombardy – 22 February 1687, in Brescia, Lombardy) was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician, naturalist and aeronautics pioneer. Having been professor of physics and mathematics at Brescia, he first ...
published a work that suggested lighter than air flight would be possible by using copper foil spheres that, containing a vacuum, would be lighter than the displaced air to lift an
airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...
. While theoretically sound, his design was not feasible: the pressure of the surrounding air would crush the spheres. The idea of using a vacuum to produce lift is now known as
vacuum airship A vacuum airship, also known as a vacuum balloon, is a hypothetical airship that is evacuated rather than filled with a lighter-than-air gas such as hydrogen or helium. First proposed by Italian Jesuit priest Francesco Lana de Terzi in 1670, the ...
but remains unfeasible with any current
materials Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geolog ...
. In 1709,
Bartolomeu de Gusmão Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (December 1685 – 18 November 1724) was a Brazilian-born Portuguese priest and naturalist, who was a pioneer of lighter-than-air airship design. Early life Gusmão was born at Santos, then part of the Portugues ...
presented a petition to King
John V of Portugal Dom John V ( pt, João Francisco António José Bento Bernardo; 22 October 1689 – 31 July 1750), known as the Magnanimous (''o Magnânimo'') and the Portuguese Sun King (''o Rei-Sol Português''), was King of Portugal from 9 December 17 ...
, begging for support for his invention of an airship, in which he expressed the greatest confidence. The public test of the machine, which was set for 24 June 1709, did not take place. According to contemporary reports, however, Gusmão appears to have made several less ambitious experiments with this machine, descending from eminences. It is certain that Gusmão was working on this principle at the public exhibition he gave before the Court on 8 August 1709, in the hall of the
Casa da Índia The Casa da Índia (, English: ''India House'' or ''House of India'') was a Portuguese state-run commercial organization during the Age of Discovery. It regulated international trade and the Portuguese Empire's territories, colonies, and factor ...
in
Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...
, when he propelled a ball to the roof by combustion.


Balloons

1783 was a watershed year for ballooning and aviation. Between 4 June and 1 December, five aviation firsts were achieved in France: * On 4 June, the
Montgolfier brothers The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune ...
demonstrated their unmanned
hot air balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries ...
at
Annonay Annonay (; oc, Anonai) is a commune and largest city in the north of the Ardèche department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France. It is the most populous commune in the Ardèche department although it is not the capital ...
, France. * On 27 August,
Jacques Charles Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking ...
and the
Robert brothers Les Frères Robert were two French brothers. Anne-Jean Robert (1758–1820) and Nicolas-Louis Robert (1760–1820) were the engineers who built the world's first hydrogen balloon for professor Jacques Charles, which flew from central Paris o ...
('' Les Freres Robert'') launched the world's first unmanned hydrogen-filled balloon, from the
Champ de Mars The Champ de Mars (; en, Field of Mars) is a large public greenspace in Paris, France, located in the seventh ''arrondissement'', between the Eiffel Tower to the northwest and the École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after t ...
, Paris. * On 19 October, the Montgolfiers launched the first manned flight, a tethered balloon with humans on board, at the ''
Folie Titon __NOTOC__ Folie or Folies may refer to: Places * Condé-Folie, commune in the Picardie region of France * Fains-la-Folie, commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in north-central France * Folies, commune in the Somme département in the Picardie r ...
'' in Paris. The aviators were the scientist
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier () was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He made the first manned free balloon flight with François Laurent d'Arlandes on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier bal ...
, the manufacture manager
Jean-Baptiste Réveillon Jean-Baptiste Réveillon (1725–1811) was a French wallpaper manufacturer. In 1789 Réveillon made a statement on the price of bread that was misinterpreted by the Parisian populace as advocating lower wages. He fled France after his home and his w ...
, and Giroud de Villette. * On 21 November, the Montgolfiers launched the first free flight with human passengers. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, along with the Marquis François d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honor. They drifted in a balloon-powered by a wood fire. * On 1 December, Jacques Charles and the Nicolas-Louis Robert launched their manned hydrogen balloon from the
Jardin des Tuileries The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace ...
in Paris, as a crowd of 400,000 witnessed. They ascended to a height of about 5and landed at sunset in
Nesles-la-Vallée Nesles-la-Vallée () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. See also *Communes of the Val-d'Oise department The following is a list of the 184 communes of the Val-d'Oise department of France. The comm ...
after a flight of 2 hours and 5 minutes, covering 36 km. After Robert alighted Charles decided to ascend alone. This time he ascended rapidly to an altitude of about , where he saw the sun again, suffered extreme pain in his ears, and never flew again. Ballooning became a major "rage" in Europe in the late 18th century, providing the first detailed understanding of the relationship between altitude and the atmosphere. Non-steerable balloons were employed during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
by the
Union Army Balloon Corps The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Union Army during the American Civil War, established by presidential appointee Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. It was organized as a civilian operation, which employed a group of prominent American aeronau ...
. The young
Ferdinand von Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
first flew as a balloon passenger with the Union
Army of the Potomac The Army of the Potomac was the principal Union Army in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was created in July 1861 shortly after the First Battle of Bull Run and was disbanded in June 1865 following the surrender of the Confede ...
in 1863. In the early 1900s, ballooning was a popular sport in Britain. These privately owned balloons usually used
coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...
as the lifting gas. This has half the lifting power of hydrogen so the balloons had to be larger, however, coal gas was far more readily available and the local gas works sometimes provided a special lightweight formula for ballooning events.


Airships

Airships were originally called "dirigible balloons" and are still sometimes called dirigibles today. Work on developing a steerable (or dirigible) balloon continued sporadically throughout the 19th century. The first powered, controlled, sustained lighter-than-air flight is believed to have taken place in 1852 when
Henri Giffard Baptiste Jules Henri Jacques Giffard (8 February 182514 April 1882) was a French engineer. In 1852 he invented the steam injector and the powered Giffard dirigible airship. Career Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector a ...
flew in France, with a steam engine driven craft. Another advance was made in 1884, when the first fully controllable free-flight was made in a French Army electric-powered airship, '' La France'', by
Charles Renard Charles Renard (1847–1905) born in Damblain, Vosges, was a French military engineer. Airships After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 he started work on the design of airships at the French army aeronautical department. Together with A ...
and
Arthur Krebs Arthur Constantin Krebs (16 November 1850 in Vesoul, France – 22 March 1935 in Quimperlé, France) was a French officer and pioneer in automotive engineering. Life Collaborating with Charles Renard, he piloted Timeline of aviation - 19 ...
. The long, airship covered in 23 minutes with the aid of an 8½ horsepower electric motor. However, these aircraft were generally short-lived and extremely frail. Routine, controlled flights would not occur until the advent of the internal combustion engine (see below.) The first aircraft to make routine controlled flights were
non-rigid airship A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hydr ...
s (sometimes called "blimps".) The most successful early pioneering pilot of this type of aircraft was the Brazilian
Alberto Santos-Dumont Alberto Santos-Dumont ( Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavie ...
who effectively combined a balloon with an internal combustion engine. On 19 October 1901, he flew his airship ''Number 6'' over Paris from the
Parc de Saint Cloud The Parc de Saint-Cloud, officially the ''Domaine National de Saint-Cloud'', is a ''domaine national'' (national estate), located mostly within Saint-Cloud, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, near Paris, France. The park, which covers , was a natu ...
around the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed ...
and back in under 30 minutes to win the
Deutsch de la Meurthe prize Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe (; 25 September 1846 – 24 November 1919), born Salomon Henry Deutsch, was a successful French petroleum businessman (known as the "Oil King of Europe"Howard, Fred, ''Wilbur & Orville: A Biography'', Dover Publicati ...
. Santos-Dumont went on to design and build several aircraft. The subsequent controversy surrounding his and others' competing claims with regard to aircraft overshadowed his great contribution to the development of airships. At the same time that non-rigid airships were starting to have some success, the first successful rigid airships were also being developed. These would be far more capable than fixed-wing aircraft in terms of pure cargo carrying capacity for decades. Rigid airship design and advancement was pioneered by the German count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
. Construction of the first
Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
airship began in 1899 in a floating assembly hall on Lake Constance in the Bay of Manzell,
Friedrichshafen Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''K ...
. This was intended to ease the starting procedure, as the hall could easily be aligned with the wind. The prototype airship '' LZ 1'' (LZ for "Luftschiff Zeppelin") had a length of was driven by two Daimler engines and balanced by moving a weight between its two nacelles. Its first flight, on 2 July 1900, lasted for only 18 minutes, as LZ 1 was forced to land on the lake after the winding mechanism for the balancing weight had broken. Upon repair, the technology proved its potential in subsequent flights, bettering the 6 m/s speed attained by the French airship ''La France'' by 3 m/s, but could not yet convince possible investors. It would be several years before the Count was able to raise enough funds for another try. German airship passenger service known as
DELAG DELAG, acronym for ''Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft'' (German for "German Airship Travel Corporation"), was the world's first airline to use an aircraft in revenue service. It operated a fleet of zeppelin rigid airships manufacture ...
(Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) was established in 1910. Although airships were used in both World War I and II, and continue on a limited basis to this day, their development has been largely overshadowed by heavier-than-air craft.


Heavier than air


17th and 18th centuries

Italian inventor
Tito Livio Burattini Tito Livio Burattini ( pl, Tytus Liwiusz Burattini, 8 March 1617 – 17 November 1681) was an inventor, architect, Egyptologist, scientist, instrument-maker, traveller, engineer, and nobleman, who spent his working life in Poland and Lithuan ...
, invited by the Polish King
Władysław IV Władysław is a Polish given male name, cognate with Vladislav. The feminine form is Władysława, archaic forms are Włodzisław (male) and Włodzisława (female), and Wladislaw is a variation. These names may refer to: Famous people Mononym * ...
to his court in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
, built a model aircraft with four fixed
glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding ...
wings in 1647. Described as "four pairs of wings attached to an elaborate 'dragon'", it was said to have successfully lifted a cat in 1648 but not Burattini himself. He promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from landing the craft.Qtd. in His "Dragon Volant" is considered "the most elaborate and sophisticated aeroplane to be built before the 19th Century". The first published paper on aviation was "Sketch of a Machine for Flying in the Air" by
Emanuel Swedenborg Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758). Swedenborg had a ...
published in 1716. This flying machine consisted of a light frame covered with strong canvas and provided with two large oars or wings moving on a horizontal axis, arranged so that the upstroke met with no resistance while the downstroke provided lifting power. Swedenborg knew that the machine would not fly, but suggested it as a start and was confident that the problem would be solved. He wrote: "It seems easier to talk of such a machine than to put it into actuality, for it requires greater force and less weight than exists in a human body. The science of mechanics might perhaps suggest a means, namely, a strong spiral spring. If these advantages and requisites are observed, perhaps in time to come someone might know how better to utilize our sketch and cause some addition to be made so as to accomplish that which we can only suggest. Yet there are sufficient proofs and examples from nature that such flights can take place without danger, although when the first trials are made you may have to pay for the experience, and not mind an arm or leg". Swedenborg would prove prescient in his observation that a method of powering of an aircraft was one of the critical problems to be overcome. On 16 May 1793, the Spanish inventor Diego Marín Aguilera managed to cross the river Arandilla in Coruña del Conde, Castile, flying 300 – 400 m, with a flying machine.


19th century

Balloon jumping replaced tower jumping, also demonstrating with typically fatal results that man-power and flapping wings were useless in achieving flight. At the same time scientific study of heavier-than-air flight began in earnest. In 1801, the French officer André Guillaume Resnier de Goué managed a 300-metre glide by starting from the top of the city walls of
Angoulême Angoulême (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Engoulaeme''; oc, Engoleime) is a commune, the prefecture of the Charente department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Angoumoisins ...
and broke only one leg on arrival. In 1837 French mathematician and brigadier general Isidore Didion stated, "Aviation will be successful only if one finds an engine whose ratio with the weight of the device to be supported will be larger than current steam machines or the strength developed by humans or most of the animals".


Sir George Cayley and the first modern aircraft

Sir George Cayley Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was an English engineer, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aeri ...
was first called the "father of the aeroplane" in 1846. During the last years of the previous century he had begun the first rigorous study of the physics of flight and would later design the first modern heavier-than-air craft. Among his many achievements, his most important contributions to aeronautics include: * Clarifying our ideas and laying down the principles of heavier-than-air flight. * Reaching a scientific understanding of the principles of bird flight. * Conducting scientific aerodynamic experiments demonstrating drag and streamlining, movement of the centre of pressure, and the increase in lift from curving the wing surface. * Defining the modern aeroplane configuration comprising a fixed-wing, fuselage and tail assembly. * Demonstrations of manned, gliding flight. * Setting out the principles of power-to-weight ratio in sustaining flight. Cayley's first innovation was to study the basic science of lift by adopting the whirling arm test rig for use in aircraft research and using simple aerodynamic models on the arm, rather than attempting to fly a model of a complete design. In 1799, he set down the concept of the modern aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. In 1804, Cayley constructed a model glider which was the first modern heavier-than-air flying machine, having the layout of a conventional modern aircraft with an inclined wing towards the front and adjustable tail at the back with both tailplane and fin. A movable weight allowed adjustment of the model's
centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...
. In 1809, goaded by the farcical antics of his contemporaries (see above), he began the publication of a landmark three-part treatise titled "On Aerial Navigation" (1809–1810).''Cayley, George''. "On Aerial Navigation
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
''Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy'', 1809–1810. (Via
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
)
Raw text
. Retrieved: 30 May 2010.
In it he wrote the first scientific statement of the problem, "The whole problem is confined within these limits, viz. to make a surface support a given weight by the application of power to the resistance of air". He identified the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: ''
thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...
'', ''
lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...
'', '' drag'' and ''
weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar qua ...
'' and distinguished stability and control in his designs. He also identified and described the importance of the cambered
aerofoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...
, dihedral, diagonal bracing and drag reduction, and contributed to the understanding and design of
ornithopter An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, ...
s and
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, w ...
s. In 1848, he had progressed far enough to construct a glider in the form of a
triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement ma ...
large and safe enough to carry a child. A local boy was chosen but his name is not known. He went on to publish in 1852 the design for a full-size manned glider or "governable parachute" to be launched from a balloon and then to construct a version capable of launching from the top of a hill, which carried the first adult aviator across Brompton Dale in 1853. Minor inventions included the rubber-powered motor, which provided a reliable power source for research models. By 1808, he had even re-invented the wheel, devising the tension-spoked wheel in which all compression loads are carried by the rim, allowing a lightweight undercarriage.Pritchard, J. Laurence
Summary of First Cayley Memorial Lecture at the Brough Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society
''
Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...
'' number 2390 volume 66 page 702, 12 November 1954. Retrieved: 29 May 2010. "In thinking of how to construct the lightest possible wheel for aerial navigation cars, an entirely new mode of manufacturing this most useful part of locomotive machines occurred to me: vide, to do away with wooden spokes altogether, and refer the whole firmness of the wheel to the strength of the rim only, by the intervention of tight cording."


Age of steam

Drawing directly from Cayley's work, Henson's 1842 design for an aerial steam carriage broke new ground. Although only a design, it was the first in history for a propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft. 1866 saw the founding of the
Aeronautical Society of Great Britain The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest aeronautical society in the world. Members, Fellows, ...
and two years later the world's first aeronautical exhibition was held at the
Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...
, London, where
John Stringfellow John Stringfellow (1799 – 13 December 1883) was a British early aeronautical inventor, known for his work on the aerial steam carriage with William Samuel Henson. Life Stringfellow was born in Attercliffe, England to Martha ée Gil ...
was awarded a £100 prize for the steam engine with the best power-to-weight ratio.Jarrett 2002, p. 53.Stokes 2002, pp. 163–166, 167–168. In 1848, Stringfellow achieved the first powered flight using an unmanned wingspan steam-powered monoplane built in a disused lace factory in Chard, Somerset. Employing two contra-rotating propellers on the first attempt, made indoors, the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft. The second attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guidewire to fly freely, achieving thirty yards of straight and level powered flight.
Francis Herbert Wenham __NOTOC__ Francis Herbert Wenham (1824, Kensington – 1908) was a British marine engineer who studied the problem of human flight and wrote a perceptive and influential academic paper, which he presented to the first meeting of the Royal Aeronaut ...
presented the first paper to the newly formed Aeronautical Society (later the
Royal Aeronautical Society The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest aeronautical society in the world. Members, Fellows, ...
), ''On Aerial Locomotion''. He advanced Cayley's work on cambered wings, making important findings. To test his ideas, from 1858 he had constructed several gliders, both manned and unmanned, and with up to five stacked wings. He realised that long, thin wings are better than bat-like ones because they have more leading edge for their area. Today this relationship is known as the aspect ratio of a wing. The latter part of the 19th century became a period of intense study, characterized by the "
gentleman scientist An independent scientist (historically also known as gentleman scientist) is a financially independent scientist who pursues scientific study without direct affiliation to a public institution such as a university or government-run research and ...
s" who represented most research efforts until the 20th century. Among them was the British scientist-philosopher and inventor
Matthew Piers Watt Boulton Matthew Piers Watt Boulton (22 September 1820 – 30 June 1894), also published under the pseudonym M. P. W. Bolton, was a British classicist, elected member of the UK's Metaphysical Society, an amateur scientist and an inventor, bes ...
, who studied lateral flight control and was the first to patent an aileron control system in 1868. In 1871, Wenham made the first
wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...
using a fan, driven by a steam engine, to propel air down a tube to the model. Meanwhile, the British advances had galvanised French researchers. In 1857,
Félix du Temple Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
proposed a monoplane with a tailplane and retractable undercarriage. Developing his ideas with a model powered first by clockwork and later by steam, he eventually achieved a short hop with a full-size manned craft in 1874. It achieved lift-off under its own power after launching from a ramp, glided for a short time and returned safely to the ground, making it the first successful powered glide in history. In 1865,
Louis Pierre Mouillard Louis Pierre Mouillard (September 30, 1834 – September 20, 1897) was a French artist and innovator who worked on human mechanical flight in the second half of the 19th century. He based much of his work on the investigation of birds in Algeri ...
published an influential book The Empire Of The Air (''l'Empire de l'Air''). In 1856, Frenchman
Jean-Marie Le Bris Jean Marie Le Bris (March 25, 1817, Concarneau – February 17, 1872, Douarnenez) was a French aviator, born in Concarneau, Brittany who built two glider aircraft and performed at least one flight on board of his first machine in late 1856. His na ...
made the first flight higher than his point of departure, by having his glider "''L'Albatros artificiel'' pulled by a horse on a beach. He reportedly achieved a height of 100 meters, over a distance of 200 meters.
Alphonse Pénaud Alphonse Pénaud (31 May 1850 – 22 October 1880), was a 19th-century French pioneer of aviation design and engineering. He was the originator of the use of twisted rubber to power model aircraft, and his 1871 model airplane, which he called ...
, a Frenchman, advanced the theory of wing contours and aerodynamics and constructed successful models of aeroplanes, helicopters and ornithopters. In 1871 he flew the first aerodynamically stable fixed-wing aeroplane, a model monoplane he called the "Planophore", a distance of . Pénaud's model incorporated several of Cayley's discoveries, including the use of a tail, wing dihedral for inherent stability, and rubber power. The planophore also had longitudinal stability, being trimmed such that the tailplane was set at a smaller angle of incidence than the wings, an original and important contribution to the theory of aeronautics. Pénaud's later project for an amphibian aeroplane, although never built, incorporated other modern features. A tailless monoplane with a single vertical fin and twin tractor propellers, it also featured hinged rear elevator and rudder surfaces, retractable undercarriage and a fully enclosed, instrumented cockpit. Equally authoritative as a theorist was Pénaud's fellow countryman
Victor Tatin Victor Tatin (1843–1913) was a French engineer who created an early airplane, the ''Aéroplane'', in 1879. The craft was the first model airplane to take off using its own power after a run on the ground. The model had a span of and weighed . ...
. In 1879, he flew a model which, like Pénaud's project, was a monoplane with twin tractor propellers but also had a separate horizontal tail. It was powered by compressed air. Flown tethered to a pole, this was the first model to take off under its own power. In 1884, Alexandre Goupil published his work ''La Locomotion Aérienne'' (''Aerial Locomotion''), although the flying machine he later constructed failed to fly. In 1890, the French engineer
Clément Ader Clément Ader (2 April 1841 – 3 May 1925) was a French inventor and engineer who was born near Toulouse in Muret, Haute-Garonne, and died in Toulouse. He is remembered primarily for his pioneering work in aviation. In 1870 he was also one of ...
completed the first of three steam-driven flying machines, the Éole. On 9 October 1890, Ader made an uncontrolled hop of around ; this was the first manned airplane to take off under its own power. His Avion III of 1897, notable only for having twin steam engines, failed to fly:Jarrett 2002, p. 87. Ader would later claim success and was not debunked until 1910 when the French Army published its report on his attempt. Sir
Hiram Maxim Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American- British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curl ...
was an American engineer who had moved to England. He built his own whirling arm rig and wind tunnel and constructed a large machine with a wingspan of , a length of , fore and aft horizontal surfaces and a crew of three. Twin propellers were powered by two lightweight compound
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...
s each delivering . The overall weight was . It was intended as a test rig to investigate aerodynamic lift: lacking flight controls it ran on rails, with a second set of rails above the wheels to restrain it. Completed in 1894, on its third run it broke from the rail, became airborne for about 200 yards at two to three feet of altitude and was badly damaged upon falling back to the ground. It was subsequently repaired, but Maxim abandoned his experiments shortly afterwards.


Learning to glide; Otto Lilienthal and the first human flights

Around the last decade of the 19th century, a number of key figures were refining and defining the modern aeroplane. Lacking a suitable engine, aircraft work focused on stability and control in gliding flight. In 1879, Biot constructed a bird-like glider with the help of Massia and flew in it briefly. It is preserved in the Musee de l'Air, France, and is claimed to be the earliest man-carrying flying machine still in existence. The Englishman
Horatio Phillips Horatio Frederick Phillips (1845 – 1924) was an English aviation pioneer, born in Streatham, Surrey. He was famous for building multiplane flying machines with many more sets of lifting surfaces than are normal on modern aircraft. However he ...
made key contributions to aerodynamics. He conducted extensive wind tunnel research on
aerofoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...
sections, proving the principles of aerodynamic lift foreseen by Cayley and Wenham. His findings underpin all modern aerofoil design. Between 1883 and 1886, the American
John Joseph Montgomery John Joseph Montgomery (February 15, 1858 – October 31, 1911) was an American inventor, physicist, engineer, and professor at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, who is best known for his invention of controlled heavier-than-a ...
developed a series of three manned gliders, before conducting his own independent investigations into aerodynamics and circulation of lift.
Otto Lilienthal Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders, therefore making ...
became known as the "Glider King" or "Flying Man" of Germany. He duplicated Wenham's work and greatly expanded on it in 1884, publishing his research in 1889 as ''Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation'' (''Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst''), which is seen as one of the most important works in aviation history. He also produced a series of
hang glider Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered ...
s, including bat-wing, monoplane and biplane forms, such as the
Derwitzer Glider The Derwitzer Glider was a glider that was developed by Otto Lilienthal, so named because it was tested near Derwitz in Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the s ...
and Normal soaring apparatus, which is considered to be the first air plane in series production, making the ''Maschinenfabrik Otto Lilienthal'' the first air plane production company in the world. Starting in 1891, he became the first person to make controlled untethered glides routinely, and the first to be photographed flying a heavier-than-air machine, stimulating interest around the world. Lilienthal's work led to him developing the concept of the modern wing. His flight attempts in the year 1891 are seen as the beginning of human flight and because of that he is often referred to as either the "father of aviation" or "father of flight". He rigorously documented his work, including photographs, and for this reason is one of the best known of the early pioneers. Lilienthal made over 2,000 glides until his death in 1896 from injuries sustained in a glider crash. Picking up where Lilienthal left off,
Octave Chanute Octave Chanute (February 18, 1832 – November 23, 1910) was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided many budding enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers, with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying ...
took up aircraft design after an early retirement, and funded the development of several gliders. In the summer of 1896, his team flew several of their designs eventually deciding that the best was a biplane design. Like Lilienthal, he documented and photographed his work. In Britain Percy Pilcher, who had worked for Maxim, built and successfully flew several gliders during the mid to late 1890s. The invention of the
box kite A box kite is a high performance kite, noted for developing relatively high lift; it is a type within the family of cellular kites. The typical design has four parallel struts. The box is made rigid with diagonal crossed struts. There are two s ...
during this period by the Australian
Lawrence Hargrave Lawrence Hargrave, MRAeS, (29 January 18506 July 1915) was a British-born Australian engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer. Biography Lawrence Hargrave was born in Greenwich, England, the second son of John Fletc ...
would lead to the development of the practical
biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...
. In 1894, Hargrave linked four of his kites together, added a sling seat, and was the first to obtain lift with a heavier than air aircraft, when he flew up . Later pioneers of manned kite flying included
Samuel Franklin Cody Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody; 6 March 1867 – 7 August 1913, born Davenport, Iowa, USA)) was a Wild West showman and early pioneer of manned flight. He is most famous for his work on the large kites known a ...
in England and Captain Génie Saconney in France.


Frost

William Frost from Pembrokeshire,
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
started his project in 1880 and after 16 years, he designed a flying machine and in 1894 won a patent for a "Frost Aircraft Glider". Spectators witnessed the craft fly at Saundersfoot in 1896, traveling 500 yards before colliding with a tree and falling in a field.


Langley

After a distinguished career in
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
and shortly before becoming Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
,
Samuel Pierpont Langley Samuel Pierpont Langley (August 22, 1834 – February 27, 1906) was an American aviation pioneer, astronomer and physicist who invented the bolometer. He was the third secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a professor of astronomy a ...
started a serious investigation into aerodynamics at what is today the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
. In 1891, he published ''Experiments in Aerodynamics'' detailing his research, and then turned to building his designs. He hoped to achieve automatic aerodynamic stability, so he gave little consideration to in-flight control. On 6 May 1896, Langley's ''Aerodrome No. 5'' made the first successful sustained flight of an unpiloted, engine-driven heavier-than-air craft of substantial size. It was launched from a spring-actuated catapult mounted on top of a houseboat on the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia. Two flights were made that afternoon, one of and a second of , at a speed of approximately . On both occasions, the ''Aerodrome No. 5'' landed in the water as planned, because, in order to save weight, it was not equipped with landing gear. On 28 November 1896, another successful flight was made with the ''Aerodrome No. 6''. This flight, of , was witnessed and photographed by
Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...
. The ''Aerodrome No. 6'' was actually ''Aerodrome No. 4'' greatly modified. So little remained of the original aircraft that it was given a new designation. With the successes of the ''Aerodrome No. 5'' and ''No. 6'', Langley started looking for funding to build a full-scale man-carrying version of his designs. Spurred by the
Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...
, the U.S. government granted him $50,000 to develop a man-carrying flying machine for aerial reconnaissance. Langley planned on building a scaled-up version known as the Aerodrome A, and started with the smaller Quarter-scale Aerodrome, which flew twice on 18 June 1901, and then again with a newer and more powerful engine in 1903. With the basic design apparently successfully tested, he then turned to the problem of a suitable engine. He contracted Stephen Balzer to build one, but was disappointed when it delivered only instead of the he expected. Langley's assistant,
Charles M. Manly Charles Matthews Manly (1876–1927) was an American engineer. Manly helped Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley build The Great Aerodrome, which was intended to be a manned, powered, winged flying machine. Manly made major ...
, then reworked the design into a five-cylinder water-cooled radial that delivered at 950 rpm, a feat that took years to duplicate. Now with both power and a design, Langley put the two together with great hopes. To his dismay, the resulting aircraft proved to be too fragile. Simply scaling up the original small models resulted in a design that was too weak to hold itself together. Two launches in late 1903 both ended with the ''Aerodrome'' immediately crashing into the water. The pilot, Manly, was rescued each time. Also, the aircraft's control system was inadequate to allow quick pilot responses, and it had no method of lateral control, and the ''Aerodrome''s aerial stability was marginal. Langley's attempts to gain further funding failed, and his efforts ended. Nine days after his second abortive launch on 8 December, the Wright brothers successfully flew their ''Flyer''.
Glenn Curtiss Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early a ...
made 93 modifications to the ''Aerodrome'' and flew this very different aircraft in 1914. Without acknowledging the modifications, the Smithsonian Institution asserted that Langley's ''Aerodrome'' was the first machine "capable of flight".


Whitehead

Gustave Weißkopf was a German who emigrated to the U.S., where he soon changed his name to Whitehead. From 1897 to 1915, he designed and built early flying machines and engines. On 14 August 1901, two and a half years before the Wright Brothers' flight, he claimed to have carried out a controlled, powered flight in his Number 21 monoplane at Fairfield, Connecticut. The flight was reported in the ''Bridgeport Sunday Herald'' local newspaper. About 30 years later, several people questioned by a researcher claimed to have seen that or other Whitehead flights. In March 2013, ''
Jane's All the World's Aircraft ''Jane's All the World's Aircraft'' (now stylized Janes) is an aviation annual publication founded by John Frederick Thomas Jane in 1909. Long issued by Sampson Low, Marston in Britain (with various publishers in the U.S.), it has been published b ...
'', an authoritative source for contemporary aviation, published an editorial which accepted Whitehead's flight as the first manned, powered, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air craft. The
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
(custodians of the original ''
Wright Flyer The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown b ...
'') and many aviation historians continue to maintain that Whitehead did not fly as suggested.


Pearse

Richard Pearse was a New Zealand farmer and inventor who performed pioneering aviation experiments. Witnesses interviewed many years afterward claimed that Pearse flew and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903, nine months before the Wright brothers flew.  Documentary evidence for these claims remains open to interpretation and dispute, and Pearse himself never made such claims. In a newspaper interview in 1909, he said he did not "attempt anything practical ... until 1904". If he did fly in 1903, the flight appears to have been poorly controlled in comparison to the Wrights'.


Wright brothers

Using a methodical approach and concentrating on the controllability of the aircraft, the brothers built and tested a series of kite and glider designs from 1898 to 1902 before attempting to build a powered design. The gliders worked, but not as well as the Wrights had expected based on the experiments and writings of their predecessors. Their first full-size glider, launched in 1900, had only about half the lift they anticipated. Their second glider, built the following year, performed even more poorly. Rather than giving up, the Wrights constructed their own
wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...
and created a number of sophisticated devices to measure lift and drag on the 200 wing designs they tested. As a result, the Wrights corrected earlier mistakes in calculations regarding drag and lift. Their testing and calculating produced a third glider with a higher aspect ratio and true three-axis control. They flew it successfully hundreds of times in 1902, and it performed far better than the previous models. By using a rigorous system of experimentation, involving wind-tunnel testing of airfoils and flight testing of full-size prototypes, the Wrights not only built a working aircraft the following year, the ''
Wright Flyer The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown b ...
'', but also helped advance the science of aeronautical engineering. The Wrights appear to be the first to make serious studied attempts to simultaneously solve the power and control problems. Both problems proved difficult, but they never lost interest. They solved the control problem by inventing
wing warping Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite direc ...
for roll control, combined with simultaneous yaw control with a steerable rear rudder. Almost as an afterthought, they designed and built a low-powered internal combustion engine. They also designed and carved wooden propellers that were more efficient than any before, enabling them to gain adequate performance from their low engine power. Although wing-warping as a means of lateral control was used only briefly during the early history of aviation, the principle of combining lateral control in combination with a rudder was a key advance in aircraft control. While many aviation pioneers appeared to leave safety largely to chance, the Wrights' design was greatly influenced by the need to teach themselves to fly without unreasonable risk to life and limb, by surviving crashes. This emphasis, as well as low engine power, was the reason for low flying speed and for taking off in a headwind. Performance, rather than safety, was the reason for the rear-heavy design because the canard could not be highly loaded; anhedral wings were less affected by crosswinds and were consistent with the low yaw stability. According to the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
and
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintain ...
(FAI), the Wrights made the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight at
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina Kill Devil Hills is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,633 at the 2020 census, up from 6,683 in 2010. It is the most populous settlement in both Dare County and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The ...
, four miles (8 km) south of
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Kitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States, and is a part of what is known as North Carolina's Outer Banks. The population was 3,708 at the 2020 Census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk. History ...
on 17 December 1903. The first flight by Orville Wright, of in 12 seconds, was recorded in a famous photograph. In the fourth flight of the same day, Wilbur Wright flew in 59 seconds. The flights were witnessed by three coastal lifesaving crewmen, a local businessman, and a boy from the village, making these the first public flights and the first well-documented ones. Orville described the final flight of the day: "The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be ; the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two". They flew only about ten feet above the ground as a safety precaution, so they had little room to manoeuvre, and all four flights in the gusty winds ended in a bumpy and unintended "landing". Modern analysis by Professor Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Rex (1985) has demonstrated that the 1903 ''Wright Flyer'' was so unstable as to be almost unmanageable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves in the 1902 glider. The Wrights continued flying at Huffman Prairie near
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County, Ohio, Greene County. The 2020 United S ...
in 1904–05. In May 1904 they introduced the Flyer II, a heavier and improved version of the original Flyer. On 23 June 1905, they first flew a third machine, the
Flyer III The Wright Flyer III was the third powered aircraft by the Wright Brothers, built during the winter of 1904–05. Orville Wright made the first flight with it on June 23, 1905. The Flyer III had an airframe of spruce construction with a wing ...
. After a severe crash on 14 July 1905, they rebuilt the Flyer III and made important design changes. They almost doubled the size of the
elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They ...
and rudder and moved them about twice the distance from the wings. They added two fixed vertical vanes (called "blinkers") between the elevators and gave the wings a very slight dihedral. They disconnected the rudder from the wing-warping control, and as in all future aircraft, placed it on a separate control handle. When flights resumed the results were immediate. The serious pitch instability that hampered Flyers I and II was significantly reduced, so repeated minor crashes were eliminated. Flights with the redesigned Flyer III started lasting over 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. Flyer III became the first practical aircraft (though without wheels and needing a launching device), flying consistently under full control and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur flew in 39 minutes 23 seconds." According to the April 1907 issue of the ''
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'' magazine, the Wright brothers seemed to have the most advanced knowledge of heavier-than-air navigation at the time. However, the same magazine issue also claimed that no public flight had been made in the United States before its April 1907 issue. Hence, they devised the Scientific American Aeronautic Trophy in order to encourage the development of a heavier-than-air flying machine.


Pioneer Era (1903–1914)

This period saw the development of practical aeroplanes and airships and their early application, alongside balloons and kites, for private, sport and military use.


Pioneers in Europe

Although full details of the Wright Brothers' system of flight control had been published in l'Aerophile in January 1906, the importance of this advance was not recognised, and European experimenters generally concentrated on attempting to produce inherently stable machines. Short powered flights were performed in France by Romanian engineer
Traian Vuia Traian Vuia or Trajan Vuia (; August 17, 1872 – September 3, 1950) was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, built and tested the first tractor monoplane. He was the first to demonstrate that a flying machine could rise into the ...
on 18 March and 19 August 1906 when he flew 12 and 24 meters, respectively, in a self-designed, fully self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft, that possessed a fully wheeled undercarriage. He was followed by
Jacob Ellehammer Jacob Christian Hansen-Ellehammer (14 June 1871 – 20 May 1946) was a Danish watchmaker and inventor born in Bakkebølle, Denmark. He is remembered chiefly for his contributions to powered flight. Following the end of his apprenticeship as a ...
who built a monoplane which he tested with a tether in Denmark on 12 September 1906, flying 42 meters. On 13 September 1906, a day after Ellehammer's tethered flight and three years after the Wright Brothers' flight, the Brazilian
Alberto Santos-Dumont Alberto Santos-Dumont ( Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavie ...
made a public flight in Paris with the
14-bis The ''14-bis'' (french: Quatorze-bis), (), also known as ("bird of prey" in French), was a pioneer era, canard-style biplane designed and built by Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. In 1906, near Paris, the ''14-bis'' made a m ...
, also known as ''Oiseau de proie'' (French for "bird of prey"). This was of canard configuration with pronounced wing dihedral, and covered a distance of on the grounds of the Chateau de Bagatelle in Paris'
Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
before a large crowd of witnesses. This well-documented event was the first flight verified by the
Aéro-Club de France The Aéro-Club de France () was founded as the Aéro-Club on 20 October 1898 as a society 'to encourage aerial locomotion' by Ernest Archdeacon, Léon Serpollet, Henri de la Valette, Jules Verne and his wife, André Michelin, Albert de Dion, ...
of a powered heavier-than-air machine in Europe and won the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for the first officially observed flight greater than . On 12 November 1906, Santos-Dumont set the first world record recognized by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale by flying in 21.5 seconds. Only one more brief flight was made by the 14-bis in March 1907, after which it was abandoned. In March 1907,
Gabriel Voisin Gabriel Voisin (5 February 1880 – 25 December 1973) was a French aviation pioneer and the creator of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained (1 km), circular, controlled flight, which was made ...
flew the first example of his Voisin biplane. On 13 January 1908, a second example of the type was flown by
Henri Farman Henri Farman (26 May 1874– 17 July 1958) was a British-French aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer with his brother Maurice Farman. Before dedicating himself to aviation he gained fame as a sportsman, specifically in cycling and moto ...
to win the Deutsch-Archdeacon ''Grand Prix d'Aviation'' prize for a flight in which the aircraft flew a distance of more than a kilometer and landed at the point where it had taken off. The flight lasted 1 minute and 28 seconds.


Flight as an established technology

Santos-Dumont later added
aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...
s between the wings in an effort to gain more lateral stability. His final design, first flown in 1907, was the series of Demoiselle monoplanes (Nos. 19 to 22). The ''Demoiselle No 19'' could be constructed in only 15 days and became the world's first series production aircraft. The Demoiselle achieved 120 km/h.Hartmann, Gérard
"Clément-Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche" (French).
''hydroretro.net''. Retrieved: 14 November 2010.
The fuselage consisted of three specially reinforced bamboo booms: the pilot sat in a seat between the main wheels of a
conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...
whose pair of wire-spoked mainwheels were located at the lower front of the airframe, with a tailskid half-way back beneath the rear fuselage structure. The Demoiselle was controlled in flight by a
cruciform tail __NOTOC__ The cruciform tail is an aircraft empennage configuration which, when viewed from the aircraft's front or rear, looks much like a cross. The usual arrangement is to have the horizontal stabilizer intersect the vertical tail somewhere ...
unit hinged on a form of
universal joint A universal joint (also called a universal coupling or U-joint) is a joint or coupling connecting rigid shafts whose axes are inclined to each other. It is commonly used in shafts that transmit rotary motion. It consists of a pair of hinges ...
at the aft end of the fuselage structure to function as elevator and rudder, with roll control provided through wing warping (No. 20), with the wings only warping "down". In 1908, Wilbur Wright travelled to Europe, and starting in August gave a series of flight demonstrations at
Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le ...
in France. The first demonstration, made on 8 August, attracted an audience including most of the major French aviation experimenters, who were astonished by the clear superiority of the Wright Brothers' aircraft, particularly its ability to make tight controlled turns. The importance of using roll control in making turns was recognised by almost all the European experimenters: Henri Farman fitted ailerons to his Voisin biplane and shortly afterwards set up his own aircraft construction business, whose first product was the influential
Farman III The Farman III, also known as the Henry Farman 1909 biplane, was an early French aircraft designed and built by Henry FarmanLouis Blériot Louis Charles Joseph Blériot ( , also , ; 1 July 1872 – 1 August 1936) was a French aviator, inventor, and engineer. He developed the first practical headlamp for cars and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of th ...
won worldwide fame by winning a £1,000 prize offered by the British ''
Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'' newspaper for a flight across the
English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...
, and in August around half a million people, including the President of France
Armand Fallières Clément Armand Fallières (; 6 November 1841 – 22 June 1931) was a French statesman who was President of France from 1906 to 1913. He was born at Mézin in the ''département'' of Lot-et-Garonne, France, where his father was clerk of ...
and
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...
, attended one of the first aviation meetings, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation at
Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded b ...
. In 1914, pioneering aviator Tony Jannus captained the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, the world's first commercial passenger airline. Historians disagree about whether the
Wright brothers patent war The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent they received for their method of airplane flight control. The Wright brothers were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and mak ...
impeded development of the aviation industry in the United States compared to Europe. The patent war ended during World War I when the government pressured the industry into forming a
patent pool In patent law, a patent pool is a consortium of at least two companies agreeing to cross-license patents relating to a particular technology. The creation of a patent pool can save patentees and licensees time and money, and, in case of blocking ...
, and major litigants had left the industry.


Rotorcraft

In 1877, Enrico Forlanini developed an unmanned
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...
powered by a steam engine. It rose to a height of 13 meters, where it remained for 20 seconds, after a vertical take-off from a park in Milan. The first time a manned helicopter is known to have risen off the ground was on a tethered flight in 1907 by the Breguet-Richet Gyroplane. Later the same year the
Cornu helicopter The Cornu helicopter was an experimental helicopter built in France, and is widely credited with the first free flight of a rotary-wing aircraft when it took to the air on 13 November 1907. Built by bicycle-maker Paul Cornu, it was an open-frame ...
, also French, made the first rotary-winged free flight at Lisieux, France. However, these were not practical designs.


Military use

Almost as soon as they were invented, airplanes were used for military purposes. The first country to use them for military purposes was
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, whose aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights in Libya during the
Italian-Turkish war The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...
(September 1911 – October 1912). The first mission (a reconnaissance) occurred on 23 October 1911. The first bombing mission was flown on 1 November 1911. Then
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
followed this example. Its airplanes attacked and reconnoitered the Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War 1912–13. The first war to see major use of airplanes in offensive, defensive and reconnaissance capabilities was
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. The
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
and
Central Powers The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in W ...
both used airplanes and airships extensively. While the concept of using the airplane as an offensive weapon was generally discounted before World War I, the idea of using it for photography was one that was not lost on any of the major forces. All of the major forces in Europe had light aircraft, typically derived from pre-war sporting designs, attached to their
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...
departments.
Radiotelephone A radiotelephone (or radiophone), abbreviated RT, is a radio communication system for conducting a conversation; radiotelephony means telephony by radio. It is in contrast to ''radiotelegraphy'', which is radio transmission of telegrams (messa ...
s were also being explored on airplanes, notably the
SCR-68 The SCR-68 ( SCR was a military term meaning Set, Complete, Radio) was a military radiotelephone used by the US Army Signal Corps as an aircraft radio in the waning months of World War I.Stoller, H. M Engineering Dept, Western Electric Company, Inc. ...
, as communication between pilots and ground commander grew more and more important.


World War I (1914–1918)


Combat schemes

It was not long before aircraft were shooting at each other, but the lack of any sort of steady point for the gun was a problem. The French solved this problem when, in late 1914, Roland Garros attached a fixed machine gun to the front of his plane, but while Adolphe Pegoud would become known as the first " ace", getting credit for five victories before also becoming the first ace to die in action, it was German
Luftstreitkräfte The ''Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte'' (, German Air Force)—known before October 1916 as (Flyer Troops)—was the air arm of the Imperial German Army. In English-language sources it is usually referred to as the Imperial German Air Service, alth ...
Leutnant () is the lowest Junior officer rank in the armed forces the German-speaking of Germany (Bundeswehr), Austrian Armed Forces, and military of Switzerland. History The German noun (with the meaning "" (in English "deputy") from Middle High Ge ...
Kurt Wintgens ''Leutnant'' Kurt Wintgens (1 August 1894 – 25 September 1916) was a German World War I fighter ace. He was the first military fighter pilot to score a victory over an opposing aircraft, while piloting an aircraft armed with a synchronized mac ...
who, on 1 July 1915, scored the very first aerial victory by a purpose-built fighter plane, with a synchronized machine gun. Aviators were styled as modern-day knights, doing individual combat with their enemies. Several pilots became famous for their air-to-air combat; the most well known is
Manfred von Richthofen Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron, was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of ...
, better known as the "Red Baron", who shot down 80 planes in
air-to-air combat Air combat manoeuvring (also known as ACM or dogfighting) is the tactical art of moving, turning and/or situating one's fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. Air combat manoeuvres ...
with several different planes, the most celebrated of which was the
Fokker Dr.I The Fokker Dr.I (''Dreidecker'', "triplane" in German), often known simply as the Fokker Triplane, was a World War I fighter aircraft built by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. The Dr.I saw widespread service in the spring of 1918. It became famous as th ...
. On the Allied side,
René Paul Fonck René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name ( Renée being the femin ...
is credited with the most all-time victories at 75, even when later wars are considered. France, Britain, Germany, and Italy were the leading manufacturers of fighter planes that saw action during the war, with German aviation technologist
Hugo Junkers Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and ...
showing the way to the future through his pioneering use of all-metal aircraft from late 1915.


Between the World Wars (1918–1939)

The years between
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
and
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
saw great advancements in aircraft technology. Airplanes evolved from low-powered biplanes made from wood and fabric to sleek, high-powered monoplanes made of aluminum, based primarily on the founding work of
Hugo Junkers Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and ...
during the World War I period and its adoption by American designer
William Bushnell Stout William Bushnell Stout (March 16, 1880 – March 20, 1956) was a pioneering American inventor, engineer, developer and designer whose works in the automotive and aviation fields were groundbreaking. Known by the nickname "Bill", Stout designed an ...
and Soviet designer
Andrei Tupolev Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev (russian: Андрей Николаевич Туполев; – 23 December 1972) was a Russian and later Soviet aeronautical engineer known for his pioneering aircraft designs as Director of the Tupolev Design ...
. The age of the great rigid airships came and went. The first successful rotorcraft appeared in the form of the
autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. Whi ...
, invented by Spanish engineer
Juan de la Cierva Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva (; 21 September 1895 in Murcia, Spain – 9 December 1936 in Croydon, United Kingdom) was a Spanish civil engineer, pilot and a self taught aeronautical engineer. His most famous accomplis ...
and first flown in 1919. In this design, the rotor is not powered but is spun like a windmill by its passage through the air. A separate powerplant is used to propel the aircraft forwards. After World War I, experienced fighter pilots were eager to show off their skills. Many American pilots became barnstormers, flying into small towns across the country and showing off their flying abilities, as well as taking paying passengers for rides. Eventually, the barnstormers grouped into more organized displays. Air shows sprang up around the country, with air races, acrobatic stunts, and feats of air superiority. The air races drove engine and airframe development—the Schneider Trophy, for example, led to a series of ever faster and sleeker
monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
designs culminating in the Supermarine S.6B. With pilots competing for cash prizes, there was an incentive to go faster.
Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
was perhaps the most famous of those on the barnstorming/air show circuit. She was also the first female pilot to achieve records such as the crossing of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Other prizes, for distance and speed records, also drove development forwards. For example, on 14 June 1919, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant
Arthur Brown Arthur Brown may refer to: Entertainment * Arthur William Brown (1881–1966), Canadian commercial artist * H. Arthur Brown (1906–1992), American orchestral conductor * Arthur Brown (musician) (born 1942), English rock singer * Arthur Brown, ak ...
co-piloted a
Vickers Vimy The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy bomber aircraft developed and manufactured by Vickers Limited. Developed during the latter stages of the First World War to equip the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), the Vimy was designed by Reginald Kirshaw "Rex" ...
non-stop from St. John's,
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
to Clifden, Ireland, winning the £13,000 ($65,000) Northcliffe prize. The first flight across the South Atlantic and the first aerial crossing using astronomical navigation, was made by the naval aviators
Gago Coutinho Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho, GCTE, GCC, generally known simply as Gago Coutinho (; 17 February 1869 – 18 February 1959) was a Portuguese geographer, cartographer, naval officer, historian and aviator. An aviation pioneer, Gago Coutinho and Sac ...
and
Sacadura Cabral Artur de Sacadura Freire Cabral, GCTE (23 May 1881 – 15 November 1924), known simply as Sacadura Cabral (), was a Portuguese aviation pioneer. He, together with fellow aviator Gago Coutinho, conducted the first flight across the South A ...
in 1922, from
Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...
,
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
, to
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, with only internal means of navigation, in an aircraft specifically fitted for himself with an
artificial horizon The attitude indicator (AI), formerly known as the gyro horizon or artificial horizon, is a flight instrument that informs the pilot of the aircraft orientation relative to Earth's horizon, and gives an immediate indication of the smallest or ...
for aeronautical use, an invention that revolutionized air navigation at the time (Gago Coutinho invented a type of
sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of ce ...
incorporating two spirit levels to provide an artificial horizon).CAMBESES JÚNIOR, Manuel, ''A Primeira Travessia Aérea do Atlântico Sul'', Brasília: INCAER, 2008
Five years later
Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
received the
Orteig Prize The Orteig Prize was a reward offered to the first Allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa.Bak. Pages 28 and 29. Several famous aviators made unsuccessful attempts at the New York–Paris flight before the rel ...
of $25,000 for the first ''solo'' non-stop crossing of the Atlantic. This caused what was known in aviation at the time as the "Lindbergh boom", where the volume of mail moving by air increased 50 percent, applications for pilots' licenses tripled, and the number of planes quadrupled all within six months of the flight. A. Scott Berg, as cited in Belfiore 2007, p. 17. About three months after Lindbergh, Paul Redfern was the first to solo the Caribbean Sea and went missing flying over Venezuela. Australian Sir
Charles Kingsford Smith Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith (9 February 18978 November 1935), nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. Kingsford Smith was b ...
was the first to fly across the larger Pacific Ocean in the Southern Cross. His crew left Oakland, California to make the first trans-Pacific flight to Australia in three stages. The first (from Oakland to Hawaii) was , took 27 hours 25 minutes, and was uneventful. They then flew to Suva, Fiji away, taking 34 hours 30 minutes. This was the toughest part of the journey as they flew through a massive lightning storm near the equator. They then flew on to Brisbane in 20 hours, where they landed on 9 June 1928 after approximately total flight. On arrival, Kingsford Smith was met by a huge crowd of 25,000 at Eagle Farm Airport in his hometown of Brisbane. Accompanying him were Australian aviator
Charles Ulm Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm (18 October 1898 – 3 December 1934) was a pioneer Australian aviator. He partnered with Charles Kingsford Smith in achieving a number of aviation firsts, serving as Kingsford Smith's co-pilot on the first transpaci ...
as the relief pilot, and the Americans James Warner and Captain Harry Lyon (who were the radio operator, navigator and engineer). A week after they landed, Kingsford Smith and Ulm recorded a disc for Columbia talking about their trip. With Ulm, Kingsford Smith later continued his journey being the first in 1929 to circumnavigate the world, crossing the equator twice. The first lighter-than-air crossings of the Atlantic were made by airship in July 1919 by His Majesty's Airship R34 and crew when they flew from
East Lothian East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the his ...
, Scotland to
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
, New York and then back to
Pulham Pulham is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in south-west England. It is situated in the Blackmore Vale, southeast of Sherborne. In the 2011 Census the civil parish had 105 dwellings, 103 households and a population of 269. P ...
, England. By 1929, airship technology had advanced to the point that the first round-the-world flight was completed by the '' Graf Zeppelin'' in September and in October, the same aircraft inaugurated the first commercial transatlantic service. However, the age of the rigid airship ended following the destruction by fire of the zeppelin LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' just before landing at
Lakehurst, New Jersey Lakehurst is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 2,654,Wingfoot Express The Wingfoot Express was Walt Arfons and Tom Green's jet-powered land speed record car, driven by Green to a record on October 2, 1964, after Walt suffered a heart attack just prior. The Express was powered by a Westinghouse J46 engine and hit t ...
'' disaster (1919) to the loss of the
R101 R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air M ...
(1930), the ''Akron'' (1933) and the ''Macon'' (1935) had already cast doubt on airship safety, but with the disasters of the U.S. Navy's rigids showing the importance of solely using
helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic ta ...
as the lifting medium; following the destruction of the Hindenburg, the remaining airship making
international flight An international flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in different countries. Regular international passenger air service began in August 1919 with a flight going from Lond ...
s, the '' Graf Zeppelin'' was retired (June 1937). Its replacement, the rigid airship ''
Graf Zeppelin II The ''Graf Zeppelin'' (; Registration: D-LZ 130) was the last of the German rigid airships built by Zeppelin Luftschiffbau during the period between the World Wars, the second and final ship of the ''Hindenburg'' class, and the second zeppe ...
'', made a number of flights, primarily over Germany, from 1938 to 1939, but was grounded when Germany began World War II. Both remaining German zeppelins were scrapped in 1940 to supply metal for the German
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
; the last American rigid airship, the ''
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
'', which had not flown since 1932, was dismantled in late 1939. Meanwhile, Germany, which was restricted by the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...
in its development of powered aircraft, developed gliding as a sport, especially at the Wasserkuppe, during the 1920s. In its various forms, in the 21st-century sailplane aviation now has over 400,000 participants. Fritz von Opel was instrumental in popularizing rockets as means of propulsion for vehicles and planes. In the 1920s, he initiated together with Max Valier, co-founder of the "Verein für Raumschiffahrt", the world's first rocket program, Opel-RAK, leading to speed records for automobiles, rail vehicles and the first manned rocket-powered flight in September 1929. To build the world's first rocket glider, Opel and Valier collaborated with Wasserkuppe pioneers Lippisch, Stamer and Hatry. Months earlier in 1928, one of his rocket-powered ground prototypes, the Opel RAK2, reached piloted by von Opel himself at the AVUS speedway in Berlin a record speed of 238 km/h, watched by 3000 spectators and world media, among them Fritz Lang, director of ''Metropolis (1927 film), Metropolis'' and ''Woman in the Moon'', world boxing champion Max Schmeling and many more sports and show business celebrities. A world record for rail vehicles was reached with RAK3 and a top speed of 256 km/h. After these successes on land and successful glider tests at Wasserkuppe, on 30 September 1929, von Opel piloted the world's first public rocket-powered flight using a dedicated Opel RAK.1 rocket plane designed by Julius Hatry. World media reported on these efforts, including UNIVERSAL Newsreel of the US, causing immense global public attention. The Great Depression led to an end of the Opel-RAK program, but Max Valier continued the efforts. After switching from solid-fuel to liquid-fuel rockets, he died while testing and is considered the first fatality of the dawning space age. In 1929, Jimmy Doolittle#Instrument flight, Jimmy Doolittle developed Flight instruments, instrument flight. 1929 also saw the first flight of by far the largest plane ever built until then: the Dornier Do X with a wingspan of 48 m. On its 70th test flight on 21 October 1929, there were 169 people on board, a record that was not broken for 20 years. Less than a decade after the development of the first practical rotorcraft of any type with the autogyro, in the Soviet Union, Boris N. Yuriev and Alexei M. Cheremukhin, two aeronautical engineers working at the ''TsAGI, Tsentralniy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut'', constructed and flew the TsAGI 1-EA single rotor helicopter, which used an open tubing framework, a four-blade main rotor, and twin sets of diameter anti-torque rotors; one set of two at the nose and one set of two at the tail. Powered by two M-2 powerplants, up-rated copies of the Gnome Monosoupape rotary radial engine of World War I, the TsAGI 1-E
made several successful low altitude flights
By 14 August 1932, Cheremukhin managed to get the 1-EA up to an unofficial altitude of with what is likely to be the first successful single-lift rotor helicopter design ever tested and flown. Only five years after the German Dornier Do-X had flown, Tupolev designed the largest aircraft of the 1930s era, the Tupolev ANT-20, ''Maksim Gorky'' in the Soviet Union by 1934, as the largest aircraft ever built using the Junkers methods of metal aircraft construction. In the 1930s, development of the
jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...
began in Germany and in Britain – both countries would go on to develop jet aircraft by the end of World War II. After enrolling in the Military Aviation Academy in Eskisehir in 1936 and undertaking training at the First Aircraft Regiment, Sabiha Gökçen, flew fighter and bomber planes becoming the first Turkish, female aviator and the world's first, female, combat pilot. During her flying career, she achieved some 8,000 hours, 32 of which were combat missions.


World War II (1939–1945)

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
saw a great increase in the pace of development and production, not only of aircraft but also the associated flight-based weapon delivery systems. Air combat tactics and doctrines took advantage. Large-scale strategic bombing campaigns were launched, Fighter aircraft#World War II, fighter escorts introduced and the more flexible aircraft and weapons allowed precise attacks on small targets with dive bombers, fighter-bombers, and ground-attack aircraft. New technologies like radar also allowed more coordinated and controlled deployment of air defense. The first jet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 (Germany), flown by Erich Warsitz in 1939, followed by the world's first operational jet aircraft, the Me 262, in July 1942 and world's first jet-powered bomber, the Arado Ar 234, in June 1943. British developments, like the Gloster Meteor, followed afterwards, but saw only brief use in World War II. The first cruise missile (V-1 flying bomb, V-1), the first ballistic missile (V-2 rocket, V-2), the first (and to date only) operational rocket-powered combat aircraft Messerschmitt Me 163, Me 163—with attained velocities of up to in test flights—and the first vertical take-off manned point-defense interceptor, the Bachem Ba 349 ''Natter'', were also Vergeltungswaffe, developed by Germany. However, jet and rocket aircraft had only limited impact due to their late introduction, fuel shortages, the lack of experienced pilots and the declining war industry of Germany. Not only airplanes, but also helicopters saw rapid development in the Second World War, with the introduction of the Focke Achgelis Fa 223, the Flettner Fl 282 synchropter in 1941 in Germany and the Sikorsky R-4 in 1942 in the USA.


Postwar era (1945–1979)

After World War II, commercial aviation grew rapidly, using mostly ex-military aircraft to transport people and cargo. This growth was accelerated by the glut of heavy and super-heavy bomber airframes like the B-29 and Avro Lancaster, Lancaster that could be converted into commercial aircraft. The DC-3 also made for easier and longer commercial flights. The first commercial jet airliner to fly was the British de Havilland Comet. By 1952, the British state airline British Overseas Airways Corporation, BOAC had introduced the Comet into scheduled service. While a technical achievement, the plane suffered a series of highly public failures, as the shape of the windows led to cracks due to metal fatigue. The fatigue was caused by cycles of pressurization and depressurization of the cabin and eventually led to catastrophic failure of the plane's fuselage. By the time the problems were overcome, other jet airliner designs had already taken to the skies. USSR's Aeroflot became the first airline in the world to operate sustained regular jet services on 15 September 1956 with the Tupolev Tu-104. The Boeing 707 and DC-8 which established new levels of comfort, safety and passenger expectations, ushered in the age of mass commercial air travel, dubbed the Jet Age. In October 1947, Chuck Yeager took the rocket-powered Bell X-1 through the sound barrier. Although anecdotal evidence exists that some fighter pilots may have done so while dive-bombing ground targets during the war, this was the first controlled, level flight to exceed the speed of sound. Further barriers of distance fell in 1948 and 1952 with the first jet crossing of the Atlantic and the first nonstop flight to Australia. The 1945 invention of nuclear bombs briefly increased the strategic importance of military aircraft in the Cold War between East and West. Even a moderate fleet of long-range bombers could deliver a deadly blow to the enemy, so great efforts were made to develop countermeasures. At first, the supersonic interceptor aircraft were produced in considerable numbers. By 1955, most development efforts shifted to guided surface-to-air missiles. However, the approach diametrically changed when a new type of nuclear-carrying platform appeared that could not be stopped in any feasible way: intercontinental ballistic missiles. The possibility of these was demonstrated in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. This action started the Space Race between the nations. In 1961, the sky was no longer the limit for manned flight, as Yuri Gagarin orbited once around the planet within 108 minutes, and then used the descent module of Vostok 1, Vostok I to safely Atmospheric reentry, reenter the atmosphere and reduce speed from Mach number, Mach 25 using friction and converting the kinetic energy of the velocity into heat. The United States responded by launching Alan Shepard into space on a suborbital flight in a Mercury program, Mercury space capsule. With the launch of the Alouette I in 1963, Canada became the third country to send a satellite into space. The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union would ultimately lead to Apollo 11, the landing of men on the Moon in 1969. In 1967, the X-15 set the air speed record for an aircraft at or Mach number, Mach 6.1. Aside from vehicles designed to fly in outer space, this record was renewed by NASA X-43, X-43 in the 21st century. The Harrier jump jet, often referred to as just "Harrier" or "the jump jet", is a British designed military jet aircraft capable of Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing (V/STOL) via thrust vectoring. It first flew in 1969, the same year that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon, and Boeing unveiled the Boeing 747 and the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic passenger airliner had its maiden flight. The Boeing 747 was the largest commercial passenger aircraft ever to fly, and still carries millions of passengers each year, though it has been superseded by the Airbus A380, which is capable of carrying up to 853 passengers. In 1975, Aeroflot started regular service on the Tu-144—the first supersonic passenger plane. In 1976, British Airways and Air France began supersonic service across the Atlantic, with Concorde. A few years earlier the SR-71 Blackbird had set the record for crossing the Atlantic in under 2 hours, and Concorde followed in its footsteps. In 1979, the Gossamer Albatross became the first human-powered aircraft to cross the English channel. This achievement finally saw the realization of centuries of dreams of human flight.


Digital age (1980–present)

The last quarter of the 20th century saw a change of emphasis. No longer was revolutionary progress made in flight speeds, distances and materials technology. This part of the century instead saw the spreading of the digital revolution both in flight avionics and in aircraft design and manufacturing techniques. In 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew an aircraft, the Rutan Voyager, around the world unrefuelled, and without landing. In 1999, Bertrand Piccard became the first person to circle the earth in a balloon. Digital fly-by-wire systems allow an aircraft to be designed with relaxed static stability. Initially used to increase the manoeuvrability of military aircraft such as the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, this is now being used to reduce drag on commercial airliners. The ''U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission'' was established in 1999 to encourage the broadest national and international participation in the celebration of 100 years of powered flight. It publicized and encouraged a number of programs, projects and events intended to educate people about the history of aviation.


21st century

21st-century aviation has seen increasing interest in fuel savings and fuel diversification, as well as low cost airlines and low cost carrier terminal, facilities. Additionally, much of the developing world that did not have good access to air transport has been steadily adding aircraft and facilities, though severe congestion remains a problem in many up and coming nations. Around 20,000 city pairs are served by commercial aviation, up from less than 10,000 as recently as 1996. There appears to be newfound interest in returning to the supersonic era whereby waning demand in the turn of the 20th century made flights unprofitable, as well as the final commercial stoppage of the Concorde due to reduced demand following a fatal accident and rising costs. At the beginning of the 21st century, digital technology allowed subsonic military aviation to begin eliminating the pilot in favor of remotely operated or completely autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In April 2001 the unmanned aircraft Global Hawk flew from Edwards AFB in the US to Australia non-stop and unrefuelled. This is the longest point-to-point flight ever undertaken by an unmanned aircraft and took 23 hours and 23 minutes. In October 2003, the first totally autonomous flight across the Atlantic by a computer-controlled model aircraft occurred. UAVs are now an established feature of modern warfare, carrying out pinpoint attacks under the control of a remote operator. Major disruptions to air travel in the 21st century included the Closings and cancellations following the September 11 attacks, closing of U.S. airspace due to the September 11 attacks, and the closing of most of European airspace after the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. In 2015, André Borschberg and Solar Impulse, Bertrand Piccard flew a record distance of from Nagoya, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii in a solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse, Solar Impulse 2. The flight took nearly five days; during the nights the aircraft used its batteries and the potential energy gained during the day. On 14 July 2019, Frenchman Franky Zapata attracted worldwide attention when he participated at the Bastille Day military parade riding his invention, a jet-powered Flyboard Air. He subsequently succeeded in crossing the English Channel on his device on 4 August 2019, covering the 35-kilometre (22 mi) journey from Sangatte in northern France to St Margaret's Bay in Kent, UK, in 22 minutes, with a midpoint fueling stop included. 24 July 2019 was the busiest day in aviation, for Flightradar24 recorded a total of over 225,000 flights that day. It includes helicopters, private jets, gliders, sight-seeing flights, as well as personal aircraft. The website has been tracking flights since 2006. On 10 June 2020, the Pipistrel Velis Electro became the first electric aeroplane to secure a type certificate from EASA. In the early 21st Century, the first fifth-generation military fighters were produced, starting with the F-22 Raptor and currently Russia, America and China have 5th gen aircraft (2019). The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the aviation industry due to Travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting travel restrictions as well as slump in demand among travelers, and may also affect the future of air travel. For example, the mandatory use of Surgical mask, face masks on airplanes has become a common feature of flying since 2020.


Mars

On 19 April 2021,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
successfully flew an unmanned
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...
on Mars, making it humanity's first controlled powered flight on another planet. The Ingenuity helicopter, ''Ingenuity'' helicopter rose to a height of 3 meters, and hovered in a stable holding position for 30 seconds, after a vertical take-off that was filmed by its accompanying rover, Perseverance rover, ''Perseverance''. On 22 April 2021, ''Ingenuity'' made a second, more complex flight, which was also observed by ''Perseverance.''. As a homage to all of its aerial predecessors, the ''Ingenuity'' helicopter carries with it a postage sized fragment from the wing of the 1903 ''
Wright Flyer The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown b ...
''.


See also

* Aviation archaeology * Claims to the first powered flight * List of firsts in aviation * Timeline of aviation


References


Bibliography

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Further reading


Celebrating a History of Flight
NASA Office of Aerospace Technology HQ, United States Air Force * Harry Bruno (1944) ''Wings over America: The Story of American Aviation'', Halcyon House, Garden City, New York. * * Hynes, Samuel (1988). ''Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator''. New York: Frederic C. Beil / Annapolis:Naval Institute Press. * Includes photos, diagrams and specifications of many c. 1910 aircraft. * Includes photos and specifics of many c. 1908 dirigibles and airplanes. * Van Vleck, Jenifer (2013). ''Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


External links

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Articles

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Media

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aviation History History of aviation, Articles containing video clips History of industries History of science by discipline History of technology