Fixed-wing aircraft: Encyclopedia II - Fixed-wing aircraft - History

Fixed-wing aircraft - History

The dream of flight goes back, for Man, to the days of pre-history. Many legends, beliefs and myths of antiquity involve flight, such as the legend of Icarus. Leonardo of the Vinci, among others visionary inventors, drew an airplane, in the 15th century. With the first flight made by man (Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois d'Arlandes) in an aircraft lighter than air, a balloon, the biggest challenge became to create other craft, capable of controlled flight.

Years of research by many eager people who dreamed of flight produced very slow, but continuous, progress. On August 28 of 1883, John J. Montgomery became the first person to make a controlled flight in a glider. Other aviators who had made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher and Octave Chanute. Sir George Cayley, the inventor of the science of aerodynamics, was building and flying models of fixed wing aircraft as early as 1803, and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853, but it is known the first practical self-powered aeroplanes were designed and constructed by Clément Ader. On October 9, 1890, Ader attempted to fly the Éole, which succeeded in taking off and flying a distance of approximately 50 meters before witnesses. In August 1892 the Avion II flew for a distance of 200 metres, and on October 14, 1897, Avion III flew a distance of more than 300 metres.

On August 28, 1903 in Hanover, the German Karl Jatho made his first flight. The Wright Brothers made their first successful test flights in December 17, 1903 and by 1904 Flyer III was capable of fully-controllable stable flight for substantial periods. Strictly, its wings were not completely fixed, as it depended for stability on a flexing mechanism named wing warping. This was soon superseded by the competitive development of ailerons, attached to an otherwise rigid wing.

In some countries today, particularly Brazil, Santos-Dumont is considered to be the "Father of Aviation", because of the official and of public character of the 14-bis flight and/or technical points such as the plane's integral landing gear and its ability to take off on open ground.

The 14 Bis, was the first to take off, fly, and land without the use of catapults, high winds, or other external assistance. Most Brazilians, and many other admirers of Alberto Santos-Dumont consider him, instead of the Wright Brothers, to be the true inventor of the airplane, although the very concept of the invention of the first flying machine has substantial ambiguity.

Wars in Europe, in particular, the First World War, served as initial tests for the use of the airplane as a weapon. First seen by generals and commanders as a "toy", the airplane proved to be a machine of war capable of causing serious casualties to enemy lines. In the first war, great aces appeared, of which the greatest was the German Red Baron. On the side of the allies, the ace with the biggest amount of downed aircraft was René Fonck, of France.

After the First World War, airplanes gained innumerable technological advances. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in solo flight nonstop, on May 20, 1927. The first commercial flights took place between the United States and Canada, in 1919. The turbine or the jet engine was in development in the 1930's, military jet airplanes began operating in the 1940's.

Airplanes played a primary role in the Second World War, having a presence, either major or minor, in all the known major battles of the war, especially in the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the battles of the Pacific and D-Day. They were also an essential part of several of the new military strategies of the time period, such as the German Blitzkrieg or the American and Japanese Aircraft carriers.

In October of 1947, Chuck Yeager, in the Bell X-1, was the first person to exceed the speed of sound. The Boeing X-43 is an experimental scramjet with a world speed record for a jet-powered aircraft - Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph.

Airplanes, in a civil military role, continued to feed and supply Berlin in 1948, when access to railroads and roads to the city, completely surrounded by Eastern Germany, were blocked, by order of the Soviet Union.

The first commercial jet, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952, and the first successful commercial jet, the Boeing 707, is still in use 50 years later. Boeing 707 would develop into the later in Boeing 737. The Boeing 727 was another widely used passenger airplane, and the Boeing 747, was the biggest commercial airplane in the world up to 2005, when it was surpassed by the Airbus A380.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki