History of aviation

The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908.

French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldestexisting flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vi-enna.

The history of aviation has extended over more thantwo thousand years, from the earliest forms of aviation,

Leonardo da Vinci's Ornithopter design.

kites and attempts at tower jumping, to supersonic, andhypersonic flight by powered, heavier-than-air jets.Kite flying in China dates back to several hundred yearsBC and slowly spread around the world. It is thought tobe the earliest example of man-made flight. Some kites inChina and Japan were capable of carrying a man into theair. The ancient Chinese also flew small hot-air lanternsand bamboo-copter toys with spinning rotors.Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century dream of flight foundexpression in several rational but unscientific designs,though he did not attempt to construct any of them.The discovery of hydrogen gas in the 18th century led tothe invention of the hydrogen balloon, at almost exactlythe same time that the Montgolfier brothers rediscoveredthe hot-air balloon and began manned flights.[1] Varioustheories in mechanics by physicists during the same pe-riod of time, notably fluid dynamics and Newton’s laws ofmotion, led to the foundation of modern aerodynamics,most notably by Sir George Cayley.Balloons, both free-flying and tethered, began to be usedfor military purposes from the end of the 18th century,with the French government establishing Balloon Com-panies during the Revolution.[2]

The term aviation, noun of action from stem of Latinavis “bird” with suffix -ation, was coined in 1863 byFrench pioneer Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de La Landelle(1812–1886) in “Aviation ou Navigation aérienne sansballons”.[3][4]

Experiments with gliders provided the groundwork for

1

2 1 PRIMITIVE BEGINNINGS

heavier-than-air craft, and by the early 20th-century ad-vances in engine technology and aerodynamics made con-trolled, powered flight possible for the first time. Themodern aeroplane with its characteristic tail was estab-lished by 1909 and from then on the history of the aero-plane became tied to the development of more and morepowerful engines.The first great ships of the air were the rigid dirigibleballoons pioneered by Zeppelin, which soon became syn-onymous with airships and dominated long-distance flightuntil the 1930s, when large flying boats became popular.After World War II, the flying boats were in their turn re-placed by land planes, and the new and immensely pow-erful jet engine revolutionised both air travel and militaryaviation.In the latter part of the 20th century the advent of digitalelectronics produced great advances in flight instrumen-tation and “fly-by-wire” systems. The 21st century sawthe large-scale use of pilotless drones for military, civil-ian and leisure use.

1 Primitive beginnings

Main article: Early flying machines

1.1 Tower jumping

Daedalus working on Icarus' wings.

The origin of mankind’s desire to fly is lost in the distant

past. From the earliest legends there have been storiesof men strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks or otherdevices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically byjumping off a tower. The Greek legend of Daedalus andIcarus is one of the earliest known, others originated fromIndia, China and the European Dark Ages. During thisearly period the issues of lift, stability and control werenot understood, andmost attempts ended in serious injuryor death.In medieval Europe, the earliest recorded tower jumpdates from 852 AD, when Armen Firman made a jumpin Cordoba, Spain, reportedly covering his body with vul-ture feathers and attaching two wings to his arms.[5][6]Eilmer of Malmesbury soon followed and many othershave continued to do so over the centuries. As late as1811, Albrecht Berblinger constructed an ornithopter andjumped into the Danube at Ulm.[7]

1.2 Kites

Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate’s 1635 book The Mys-teryes of Nature and Art.

The kite may have been the first form of man-madeaircraft.[1] It was invented in China possibly as far backas the 5th century BC by Mozi (Mo Di) and Lu Ban(Gongshu Ban).[8] Later designs often emulated flyinginsects, birds, and other beasts, both real and mythical.Some were fitted with strings and whistles to make mu-sical sounds while flying.[9][10][11] Ancient and medievalChinese sources describe kites being used to measure dis-tances, test the wind, lift men, signal, and communicateand send messages.[12]

1.5 The Renaissance 3

Kites spread from China around the world. After its in-troduction into India, the kite further evolved into thefighter kite, where an abrasive line is used to cut downother kites.

1.2.1 Man-carrying kites

Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used exten-sively in ancient China, for both civil and military pur-poses and sometimes enforced as a punishment. An earlyrecorded flight was that of the prisoner Yuan Huangtou,a Chinese prince, in the 6th Century AD.[13] Stories ofman-carrying kites also occur in Japan, following the in-troduction of the kite from China around the seventh cen-tury AD. It is said that at one time there was a Japaneselaw against man-carrying kites.[14]

1.3 Rotor wings

Main article: Bamboo-copter

The use of a rotor for vertical flight has existed since 400BC in the form of the bamboo-copter, an ancient Chinesetoy.[15][16] The similar “moulinet à noix” (rotor on a nut)appeared in Europe in the 14th century AD.[17]

1.4 Hot air balloons

A sky lantern.

From ancient times the Chinese have understood that hot

air rises and have applied the principle to a type of smallhot air balloon called a sky lantern. A sky lantern consistsof a paper balloon under or just inside which a small lampis placed. Sky lanterns are traditionally launched for plea-sure and during festivals. According to Joseph Needham,such lanterns were known in China from the 3rd centuryBC. Their military use is attributed to the general ZhugeLiang (180–234 AD, honorific title Kongming), who issaid to have used them to scare the enemy troops.[18]

There is evidence that the Chinese also “solved the prob-lem of aerial navigation” using balloons, hundreds ofyears before the 18th century.[19]

1.5 The Renaissance

One of Leonardo’s sketches

Eventually some investigators began to discover and de-fine some of the basics of rational aircraft design. Mostnotable of these was Leonardo da Vinci, although hiswork remained unknown until 1797, and so had no influ-ence on developments over the next three hundred years.While his designs were at least rational, they were notbased on particularly good science.[20]

Leonardo studied bird flight, analyzing it and anticipatingmany principles of aerodynamics. He did at least under-stand that “An object offers as much resistance to the airas the air does to the object.”[21] Newton would not pub-lish the Third law of motion until 1687.From the last years of the 15th century on he wroteabout and sketched many designs for flying machinesand mechanisms, including ornithopters, fixed-wing glid-ers, rotorcraft and parachutes. His early designs wereman-powered types including ornithopters and rotorcraft,however he came to realise the impracticality of this andlater turned to controlled gliding flight, also sketchingsome designs powered by a spring.[22]

2 Lighter than air

4 2 LIGHTER THAN AIR

2.1 Beginnings of modern theory

In 1670 Francesco Lana de Terzi published a work thatsuggested lighter than air flight would be possible by usingcopper foil spheres that, containing a vacuum, would belighter than the displaced air to lift an airship. While the-oretically sound, his design was not feasible: the pressureof the surrounding air would crush the spheres. The ideaof using vacuum to produce lift is now known as vacuumairship but remains unfeasible with any current materials.In 1709 Bartolomeu de Gusmão presented a petition toKing John V of Portugal, begging for support for his in-vention of an airship, in which he expressed the greatestconfidence. The public test of the machine, which wasset for June 24, 1709, did not take place. According tocontemporary reports, however, Gusmão appears to havemade several less ambitious experiments with this ma-chine, descending from eminences. It is certain that Gus-mão was working on this principle at the public exhibitionhe gave before the Court on August 8, 1709, in the hallof the Casa da Índia in Lisbon, when he propelled a ballto the roof by combustion.

2.2 Balloons

Main article: History of ballooning

1783 was a watershed year for ballooning and aviation,between June 4 and December 1 five aviation firsts wereachieved in France:

• On 4 June, the Montgolfier brothers demonstratedtheir unmanned hot air balloon at Annonay, France.

• On 27 August, Jacques Charles and the Robertbrothers (Les Freres Robert) launched the world’sfirst unmanned hydrogen-filled balloon, from theChamp de Mars, Paris.

• On 19 October, the Montgolfiers launched the firstmanned flight, a tethered balloon with humans onboard, at the Folie Titon in Paris. The aviators werethe scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, themanufacture manager Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, andGiroud de Villette.

• On 21 November, the Montgolfiers launched thefirst free flight with human passengers. King LouisXVI had originally decreed that condemned crim-inals would be the first pilots, but Jean-FrançoisPilâtre de Rozier, along with the Marquis Françoisd'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honor.They drifted 8 km (5.0 mi) in a balloon poweredby a wood fire.

• On 1 December, Jacques Charles and the Nicolas-Louis Robert launched their manned hydrogen bal-loon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, amid a

crowd of 400,000. They ascended to a height ofabout 1,800 feet (550 m)[15] and landed at sunset inNesles-la-Vallée after a flight of 2 hours and 5 min-utes, covering 36 km. After Robert alighted Charlesdecided to ascend alone. This time he ascendedrapidly to an altitude of about 9,800 feet (3,000 m),where he saw the sun again, suffered extreme painin his ears, and never flew again.

Ballooning became a major “rage” in Europe in the late18th century, providing the first detailed understandingof the relationship between altitude and the atmosphere.Work on developing a steerable (or dirigible) balloon(now called an airship) continued sporadically through-out the 19th century. The first powered, controlled, sus-tained lighter-than-air flight is believed to have takenplace in 1852 when Henri Giffard flew 15 miles (24 km)in France, with a steam engine driven craft.Non-steerable balloons were employed during theAmerican Civil War by the Union Army Balloon Corps.The young Ferdinand von Zeppelin first flew as a balloonpassenger with the Union Army of the Potomac in 1863.In the early 1900s ballooning was a popular sport inBritain. These privately owned balloons usually used coalgas as the lifting gas. This has half the lifting power ofhydrogen so the balloons had to be larger, however coalgas was far more readily available and the local gas workssometimes provided a special lightweight formula for bal-looning events.[23]

2.3 Airships

Main articles: Airship and ZeppelinAirships were originally called “dirigible balloons” andare still sometimes called dirigibles today.Another advance was made in 1884, when the firstfully controllable free-flight was made in a French Armyelectric-powered airship, La France, by Charles Renardand Arthur Krebs. The 170-foot (52 m) long, 66,000-cubic-foot (1,900 m3) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in23 minutes with the aid of an 8½ horsepower electric mo-tor.However, these aircraft were generally short-lived and ex-tremely frail. Routine, controlled flights would not occuruntil the advent of the internal combustion engine (seebelow.)The first aircraft to make routine controlled flights werenon-rigid airships (sometimes called “blimps”.) Themostsuccessful early pioneering pilot of this type of aircraftwas the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont who effectivelycombined a balloon with an internal combustion engine.On October 19, 1901 he flew his airship “Number 6”over Paris from the Parc de Saint Cloud around the EiffelTower and back in under 30 minutes to win the Deutschde la Meurthe prize. Santos-Dumont went on to design

5

Santos-Dumont’s “Number 6” rounding the Eiffel Tower in theprocess of winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, October1901.

and build several aircraft. Subsequent controversy sur-rounding his and others’ competing claims with regard toaircraft overshadowed his great contribution to the devel-opment of airships.At the same time that non-rigid airships were starting tohave some success, the first successful rigid airships werealso being developed. These would be far more capablethan fixed-wing aircraft in terms of pure cargo carryingcapacity for decades. Rigid airship design and advance-ment was pioneered by the German count Ferdinand vonZeppelin.Construction of the first Zeppelin airship began in 1899 ina floating assembly hall on Lake Constance in the Bay ofManzell, Friedrichshafen. This was intended to ease thestarting procedure, as the hall could easily be aligned withthe wind. The prototype airship LZ 1 (LZ for “LuftschiffZeppelin”) had a length of 128 m (420 ft) was driven bytwo 10.6 kW (14.2 hp) Daimler engines and balanced bymoving a weight between its two nacelles.Its first flight, on July 2, 1900, lasted for only 18 minutes,as LZ 1 was forced to land on the lake after the windingmechanism for the balancing weight had broken. Uponrepair, the technology proved its potential in subsequentflights, bettering the 6 m/s speed attained by the Frenchairship La France by 3 m/s, but could not yet convincepossible investors. It would be several years before theCount was able to raise enough funds for another try.

Although airships were used in both World War I and II,and continue on a limited basis to this day, their develop-ment has been largely overshadowed by heavier-than-aircraft.

3 Heavier than air

Main article: Early flying machines

3.1 The 17th and 18th centuries

Italian inventor, Tito Livio Burattini, invited by the PolishKing Władysław IV to his court in Warsaw, built a modelaircraft with four fixed glider wings in 1647.[24] De-scribed as “four pairs of wings attached to an elaborate'dragon'", it was said to have successfully lifted a cat in1648 but not Burattini himself.[25] He promised that “onlythe most minor injuries” would result from landing thecraft.[26] His “Dragon Volant” is considered “the mostelaborate and sophisticated aeroplane to be built beforethe 19th Century”.[27]

The first published paper on aviation was “Sketch of aMachine for Flying in the Air” by Emanuel Sweden-borg published in 1716. This flying machine consistedof a light frame covered with strong canvas and pro-vided with two large oars or wings moving on a hori-zontal axis, arranged so that the upstroke met with noresistance while the downstroke provided lifting power.Swedenborg knew that the machine would not fly, butsuggested it as a start and was confident that the prob-lem would be solved. He wrote: “It seems easier to talkof such a machine than to put it into actuality, for it re-quires greater force and less weight than exists in a humanbody. The science of mechanics might perhaps suggesta means, namely, a strong spiral spring. If these advan-tages and requisites are observed, perhaps in time to comesome one might know how better to utilize our sketch andcause some addition to be made so as to accomplish thatwhich we can only suggest. Yet there are sufficient proofsand examples from nature that such flights can take placewithout danger, although when the first trials are madeyou may have to pay for the experience, and not mindan arm or leg.” Swedenborg would prove prescient in hisobservation that a method of powering of an aircraft wasone of the critical problems to be overcome.

3.2 The 19th Century

Throughout the 19th century, tower jumping was re-placed by the equally fatal but equally popular balloonjumping as a way to demonstrate the continued useless-ness of man-power and flapping wings. Meanwhile, thescientific study of heavier-than-air flight began in earnest.

6 3 HEAVIER THAN AIR

3.2.1 Sir George Cayley and the first modern air-craft

Sir George Cayley was first called the “father of the aero-plane” in 1846.[28] During the last years of the previ-ous century he had begun the first rigorous study of thephysics of flight and would later design the first modernheavier-than-air craft. Among his many achievements,his most important contributions to aeronautics include:

• Clarifying our ideas and laying down the principlesof heavier-than-air flight.

• Reaching a scientific understanding of the principlesof bird flight.

• Conducting scientific aerodynamic experimentsdemonstrating drag and streamlining, movement ofthe centre of pressure, and the increase in lift fromcurving the wing surface.

• Defining the modern aeroplane configuration com-prising a fixed wing, fuselage and tail assembly.

• Demonstrations of manned, gliding flight.

• Setting out the principles of power-to-weight ratioin sustaining flight.

Cayley’s first innovation was to study the basic science oflift by adopting the whirling arm test rig for use in air-craft research and using simple aerodynamic models onthe arm, rather than attempting to fly a model of a com-plete design.In 1799 he set down the concept of the modern aeroplaneas a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems forlift, propulsion, and control.[29][30]

In 1804 Cayley constructed a model glider which was thefirst modern heavier-than-air flying machine, having thelayout of a conventional modern aircraft with an inclinedwing towards the front and adjustable tail at the back withboth tailplane and fin. A movable weight allowed adjust-ment of the model’s centre of gravity.[31]

In 1809, goaded by the farcical antics of his contempo-raries (see above), he began the publication of a landmarkthree-part treatise titled “On Aerial Navigation” (1809–1810).[32] In it he wrote the first scientific statement of theproblem, “The whole problem is confined within theselimits, viz. to make a surface support a given weightby the application of power to the resistance of air.” Heidentified the four vector forces that influence an aircraft:thrust, lift, drag andweight and distinguished stability andcontrol in his designs. He also identified and describedthe importance of the cambered aerofoil, dihedral, diag-onal bracing and drag reduction, and contributed to theunderstanding and design of ornithopters and parachutes.In 1848 he had progressed far enough to construct a gliderin the form of a triplane large and safe enough to carry

“Governable parachute” design of 1852

a child. A local boy was chosen but his name is notknown.[33][34]

He went on to publish in 1852 the design for a full-sizemanned glider or “governable parachute” to be launchedfrom a balloon and then to construct a version capable oflaunching from the top of a hill, which carried the firstadult aviator across Brompton Dale in 1853.Minor inventions included the rubber-powered motor,which provided a reliable power source for research mod-els. By 1808 he had even re-invented the wheel, de-vising the tension-spoked wheel in which all compres-sion loads are carried by the rim, allowing a lightweightundercarriage.[35]

3.2.2 The age of steam

Drawing directly from Cayley’s work, Henson’s 1842 de-sign for an aerial steam carriage broke new ground. Al-though only a design, it was the first in history for apropeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft.1866 saw the founding of the Aeronautical Society ofGreat Britain and two years later the world’s first aeronau-tical exhibition was held at the Crystal Palace, London,where John Stringfellow was awarded a £100 prize for thesteam engine with the best power-to-weight ratio.[36][37]Francis Herbert Wenham presented the first paper to thenewly formedAeronautical Society (later the Royal Aero-

3.2 The 19th Century 7

nautical Society), On Aerial Locomotion. He advancedCayley’s work on cambered wings, making importantfindings. To test his ideas, from 1858 he had constructedseveral gliders, both manned and unmanned, and with upto five stacked wings. He realised that long, thin wings arebetter than bat-like ones because they have more leadingedge for their area. Today this relationship is known asthe aspect ratio of a wing.The latter part of the 19th century became a period ofintense study, characterized by the "gentleman scientists"who represented most research efforts until the 20th cen-tury. Among them was the British scientist-philosopherand inventor Matthew Piers Watt Boulton, who studiedlateral flight control and was the first to patent an aileroncontrol system in 1868.[38][39][40][41]

In 1871 Wenham and Browning made the first wind tun-nel.[42]

Félix du Temple's 1874Monoplane.

Meanwhile, the British advances had galvanised Frenchresearchers. In 1857 Félix du Temple proposed a mono-plane with a tail plane and retractable undercarriage. De-veloping his ideas with a model powered first by clock-work and later by steam, he eventually achieved a shorthop with a full-size manned craft in 1874. It achievedlift-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 hop in history.In 1865 Louis Pierre Mouillard published an influentialbook The Empire Of The Air (l'Empire de l'Air).

Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868.

In 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the firstflight 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 adistance of 200 meters.

Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871

Alphonse Pénaud, a Frenchman living from 1850 to1880, advanced the theory of wing contours and aerody-namics and constructed successful models of aeroplanes,helicopters and ornithopters. In 1871 he flew the firstaerodynamically stable fixed-wing aeroplane, a modelmonoplane he called the “Planophore”, a distance of 40m (130 ft). Pénaud’s model incorporated several of Cay-ley’s discoveries, including the use of a tail, wing dihedralfor inherent stability, and rubber power. The planophorealso had longitudinal stability, being trimmed such thatthe tailplane was set at a smaller angle of incidence thanthe wings, an original and important contribution to thetheory of aeronautics.[44] Pénaud’s later project for anamphibian aeroplane, although never built, incorporatedother modern features. A tailless monoplane with a sin-gle vertical fin and twin tractor propellers, it also featuredhinged rear elevator and rudder surfaces, retractable un-dercarriage and a fully enclosed, instrumented cockpit.

The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879.

Equally authoritative as a theorist was Pénaud’s fellowcountryman Victor Tatin. In 1879 he flew a model which,like Pénaud’s project, was a monoplane with twin tractorpropellers but also had a separate horizontal tail. It waspowered 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 Loco-motion Aérienne (Aerial Locomotion), although the flying

8 3 HEAVIER THAN AIR

machine he later constructed failed to fly.

Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph).

In 1890 the French engineer Clément Ader completedthe first of three steam-driven flying machines, the Éole.On October 9, 1890 Ader made an uncontrolled hopof around 50 m (165 ft); this was the first manned air-plane to take off under its own power.[45] His Avion III of1897, notable only for having twin steam engines, failedto fly:[46] Ader would later claim success and was not de-bunked until 1910 when the French Army published itsreport on his attempt.

Maxim’s flying machine

Sir Hiram Maxim was an American engineer who hadmoved to England. He built his own whirling arm rigand wind tunnel, and constructed a large machine with awingspan of 105 feet (32 m), a length of 145 feet (44 m),fore and aft horizontal surfaces and a crew of three. Twinpropellers were powered by two lightweight compoundsteam engines each delivering 180 hp (130 kW). Overallweight was 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg). It was intended as atest rig to investigate aerodynamic lift: lacking flight con-trols it ran on rails, with a second set of rails above thewheels to restrain it. Completed in 1894, on its third runit broke from the rail, became airborne for several hun-dred feet at two to three feet altitude[47] and was badlydamaged upon falling back to the ground. It was subse-quently repaired, but Maxim abandoned his experimentsshortly afterwards.[48]

3.2.3 Learning to glide

In the last decade or so of the 19th century, a number ofkey figures were refining and defining the modern aero-plane. Lacking a suitable engine, aircraft work focusedon stability and control in gliding flight. In 1879 Biot con-structed a bird-like glider with the help ofMassia and flewin it briefly. It is preserved in the Musee de l'Air, France,and is claimed to be the earliest man-carrying flying ma-chine still in existence.

The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee del'Air.

The Englishman Horatio Phillips made key contributionsto aerodynamics. He conducted extensive wind tunnelresearch on aerofoil sections, proving the principles ofaerodynamic lift foreseen by Cayley and Wenham. Hisfindings underpin all modern aerofoil design.

Otto Lilienthal, May 29, 1895.

Otto Lilienthal became known as the “Glider King” or“Flying Man” of Germany. He duplicated Wenham’swork and greatly expanded on it in 1884, publishing hisresearch in 1889 as Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation(Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst). He alsoproduced a series of hang gliders, including bat-wing,monoplane and biplane forms, such as the DerwitzerGlider and Normal soaring apparatus. Starting in 1891he became the first person to make controlled untetheredglides routinely, and the first to be photographed flyinga heavier-than-air machine, stimulating interest aroundthe world. He rigorously documented his work, includ-ing photographs, and for this reason is one of the bestknown of the early pioneers. Lilienthal made over 2,000glides until his death in 1896 from injuries sustained in aglider crash.Picking up where Lilienthal left off, Octave Chanute tookup aircraft design after an early retirement, and fundedthe development of several gliders. In the summer of

3.4 Whitehead 9

1896 his team flew several of their designs eventually de-ciding 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 midto late 1890s.The invention of the box kite during this period by theAustralian Lawrence Hargrave would lead to the devel-opment of the practical biplane. In 1894 Hargrave linkedfour of his kites together, added a sling seat, and flew16 feet (4.9 m). Later pioneers of manned kite flyingincluded Samuel Franklin Cody in England and CaptainGénie Saconney in France.

3.3 Langley

Main article: Samuel Pierpont LangleyAfter a distinguished career in astronomy and shortly

First failure of Langley’s manned Aerodrome on the PotomacRiver, October 7, 1903

before becoming Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu-tion, Samuel Pierpont Langley started a serious investi-gation into aerodynamics at what is today the Universityof Pittsburgh. In 1891 he published Experiments in Aero-dynamics detailing his research, and then turned to build-ing his designs. He hoped to achieve automatic aero-dynamic stability, so he gave little consideration to in-flight control.[49] On May 6, 1896, Langley’s AerodromeNo. 5 made the first successful sustained flight of an un-piloted, engine-driven heavier-than-air craft of substan-tial size. It was launched from a spring-actuated catapultmounted on top of a houseboat on the Potomac River nearQuantico, Virginia. Two flights were made that after-noon, one of 1,005 metres (3,297 ft) and a second of 700metres (2,300 ft), at a speed of approximately 25 milesper hour (40 km/h). On both occasions the AerodromeNo. 5 landed in the water as planned, because in order tosave weight, it was not equipped with landing gear. OnNovember 28, 1896, another successful flight was madewith the Aerodrome No. 6. This flight, of 1,460 metres(4,790 ft), was witnessed and photographed by AlexanderGraham Bell. The Aerodrome No. 6 was actually Aero-drome No. 4 greatly modified. So little remained of theoriginal 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 theSpanish–American War, the U.S. government grantedhim $50,000 to develop a man-carrying flying machinefor aerial reconnaissance. Langley planned on build-ing a scaled-up version known as the Aerodrome A,and started with the smaller Quarter-scale Aerodrome,which flew twice on June 18, 1901, and then again with anewer and more powerful engine in 1903.With the basic design apparently successfully tested, hethen turned to the problem of a suitable engine. He con-tracted Stephen Balzer to build one, but was disappointedwhen it delivered only 8 hp (6.0 kW) instead of 12 hp (8.9kW) he expected. Langley’s assistant, Charles M. Manly,then reworked the design into a five-cylinder water-cooledradial that delivered 52 hp (39 kW) at 950 rpm, a feat thattook years to duplicate. Now with both power and a de-sign, Langley put the two together with great hopes.To his dismay, the resulting aircraft proved to be too frag-ile. Simply scaling up the original small models resultedin a design that was too weak to hold itself together. Twolaunches in late 1903 both ended with the Aerodrome im-mediately crashing into the water. The pilot, Manly, wasrescued each time. Also, the aircraft’s control system wasinadequate to allow quick pilot responses, and it had nomethod of lateral control, and the Aerodrome's aerial sta-bility was marginal.[49]

Langley’s attempts to gain further funding failed, andhis efforts ended. Nine days after his second abortivelaunch on December 8, the Wright brothers successfullyflew their Flyer. Glenn Curtiss made 93 modificationsto the Aerodrome and flew this very different aircraftin 1914.[49] Without acknowledging the modifications,the Smithsonian Institution asserted that Langley’s Aero-drome was the first machine “capable of flight”.[50]

3.4 Whitehead

Main article: Gustave WhiteheadGustave Weißkopf was a German who emigrated to theU.S., where he soon changed his name to Whitehead.From 1897 to 1915 he designed and built early flyingmachines and engines. On August 14, 1901, two and ahalf years before the Wright Brothers’ flight, he claimedto have carried out a controlled, powered flight in hisNumber 21 monoplane at Fairfield, Connecticut. Theflight was reported in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald localnewspaper. About 30 years later, several people ques-tioned by a researcher claimed to have seen that or otherWhitehead flights.In March 2013 Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, an author-itative source for contemporary aviation, published aneditorial which accepted Whitehead’s flight as the firstmanned, powered, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air craft.[51] The Smithsonian Institution (custodians of

10 3 HEAVIER THAN AIR

The No. 21 monoplane seen from the rear. Whitehead sits be-side it with daughter Rose in his lap; others in the photo are notidentified.

the original Wright Flyer) and many aviation histori-ans continue to maintain that Whitehead did not fly assuggested.[52][53]

3.5 The Wright brothers

Main article: Wright brothers

Using a methodological approach and concentrating onthe controllability of the aircraft, the brothers built andtested a series of kite and glider designs from 1900 to1902 before attempting to build a powered design. Thegliders worked, but not as well as the Wrights had ex-pected based on the experiments and writings of their19th-century predecessors. Their first glider, launched in1900, had only about half the lift they anticipated. Theirsecond glider, built the following year, performed evenmore poorly. Rather than giving up, the Wrights con-structed their own wind tunnel and created a number ofsophisticated devices to measure lift and drag on the 200wing designs they tested.[54] As a result, the Wrights cor-rected earlier mistakes in calculations regarding drag andlift. Their testing and calculating produced a third gliderwith a higher aspect ratio and true three-axis control.They flew it successfully hundreds of times in 1902, andit performed far better than the previous models. By us-ing a rigorous system of experimentation, involving wind-tunnel testing of airfoils and flight testing of full-size pro-totypes, the Wrights not only built a working aircraft, theWright Flyer, but also helped advance the science of aero-nautical engineering.The Wrights appear to be the first to make serious stud-ied attempts to simultaneously solve the power and con-trol problems. Both problems proved difficult, but theynever lost interest. They solved the control problem byinventing wing warping for roll control, combined withsimultaneous yaw control with a steerable rear rudder.

The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, con-trolled aircraft.

Almost as an afterthought, they designed and built a low-powered internal combustion engine. They also designedand carved wooden propellers that were more efficientthan any before, enabling them to gain adequate perfor-mance from their low engine power. Although wing-warping as a means of lateral control was used only brieflyduring the early history of aviation, the principle of com-bining lateral control in combination with a rudder wasa key advance in aircraft control. While many aviationpioneers appeared to leave safety largely to chance, theWrights’ design was greatly influenced by the need toteach themselves to fly without unreasonable risk to lifeand limb, by surviving crashes. This emphasis, as well aslow engine power, was the reason for low flying speed andfor taking off in a head wind. Performance, rather thansafety, was the reason for the rear-heavy design, becausethe canard could not be highly loaded; anhedral wingswere less affected by crosswinds and were consistent withthe low yaw stability.According to the Smithsonian Institution and FédérationAéronautique Internationale (FAI),[55][56] the Wrightsmade the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina,four miles (8 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolinaon December 17, 1903.[57]

The first flight by Orville Wright, of 120 feet (37 m) in12 seconds, was recorded in a famous photograph. Inthe fourth flight of the same day, Wilbur Wright flew 852feet (260 m) in 59 seconds. The flights were witnessedby three coastal lifesaving crewmen, a local businessman,and a boy from the village, making these the first publicflights and the first well-documented ones.[57]

Orville described the final flight of the day: “The firstfew hundred feet were up and down, as before, but bythe time three hundred feet had been covered, the ma-chine was under much better control. The course for thenext four or five hundred feet had but little undulation.However, when out about eight hundred feet the machinebegan pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward,struck the ground. The distance over the groundwasmea-sured to be 852 feet (260 m); the time of the flight was

4.1 European pioneers 11

59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder wasbadly broken, but the main part of the machine was notinjured at all. We estimated that the machine could beput in condition for flight again in about a day or two.”[58]They flew only about ten feet above the ground as a safetyprecaution, so they had little room to maneuver, and allfour flights in the gusty winds ended in a bumpy and un-intended “landing”. Modern analysis by Professor FredE. C. Culick and Henry R. Rex (1985) has demonstratedthat the 1903 Wright Flyer was so unstable as to be al-most unmanageable by anyone but the Wrights, who hadtrained themselves in the 1902 glider.[59]

The Wrights continued flying at Huffman Prairie nearDayton, Ohio in 1904–05. In May 1904 they introducedthe Flyer II, a heavier and improved version of the originalFlyer. On June 23, 1905 they first flew a third machine,the Flyer III. After a severe crash on 14 July 1905, theyrebuilt the Flyer III and made important design changes.They almost doubled the size of the elevator and rudderand 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 slightdihedral. They disconnected the rudder from the wing-warping control, and as in all future aircraft, placed it ona separate control handle. When flights resumed the re-sults were immediate. The serious pitch instability thathampered Flyers I and II was significantly reduced, sorepeated minor crashes were eliminated. Flights with theredesigned Flyer III started lasting over 10 minutes, then20, 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 pi-lot back to the starting point safely and landing withoutdamage. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (39km) in 39 minutes 23 seconds.”[60]

According to the April 1907 issue of the Scientific Amer-ican magazine,[61] the Wright brothers seemed to havethe most advanced knowledge of heavier-than-air naviga-tion at the time. However, the same magazine issue alsoclaimed that no public flight had been made in the UnitedStates before its April 1907 issue. Hence, they devisedthe Scientific American Aeronautic Trophy in order toencourage the development of a heavier-than-air flyingmachine.

4 The Pioneer Era (1903–1914)

Main article: Aviation in the pioneer era

This period saw the development of practical aeroplanesand airships and their early application, alongside bal-loons and kites, for private, sport and military use.

The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie.

4.1 European pioneers

Although full details of the Wright Brothers’ system offlight control had been published in l'Aerophile in January1906 the importance of this advance was not recognised,and European experimenters generally concentrated onattempting to produce inherently stable machines.Short powered flights were performed in France by Ro-manian engineer Traian Vuia on March 18 and August19, 1906 when he flew 12 and 24 meters, respectively, ina self-designed, fully self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft,that possessed a fully wheeled undercarriage.[62][63] Hewas followed by Jacob Ellehammer who built a mono-plane which he tested with a tether in Denmark onSeptember 12, 1906, flying 42 meters.[64]

On September 13, 1906, a day after Ellehammer’s teth-ered flight and three years after the Wright Brothers’flight, the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made a pub-lic flight in Paris with the 14-bis, also known as Oiseaude proie (French for “bird of prey”). This was of canardconfiguration with pronounced wing dihedral, and cov-ered a distance of 60 m (200 ft) on the grounds of theChateau de Bagatelle in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne beforea large crowd of witnesses. This well-documented eventwas the first flight verified by the Aéro-Club de France ofa powered heavier-than-air machine in Europe and wonthe Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for the first officially ob-served flight greater than 25 m (82 ft). On November12, 1906, Santos-Dumont set the first world record rec-ognized by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale byflying 220 m (720 ft) in 21.5 seconds.[65][66] Only onemore brief flight was made by the 14bis in March 1907,after which it was abandoned.[67]

Vlaicu III

12 4 THE PIONEER ERA (1903–1914)

In March 1907 Gabriel Voisin flew the first example ofhis Voisin biplane. On 13 January 1908 a second exam-ple of the type was flown by Henri Farman to win theDeutsch-Archdeacon Grand Prix d'Aviation prize for aflight in which the aircraft flew a distance of more thana kilometer and landed at the point where it had takenoff. The flight lasted 1 minute and 28 seconds.[68]

In 1914, just before the start of World War I, Roma-nia completed the world’s first metal-built aircraft, VlaicuIII.[69] It was captured by the Germans in 1916 and lastseen at a 1942 aviation exhibition in Berlin.[70][71]

4.2 Flight as an established technology

Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris

Santos-Dumont later added ailerons, between the wingsin an effort to gain more lateral stability. His final design,first flown in 1907, was the series of Demoiselle mono-planes (Nos. 19 to 22). The Demoiselle No 19 couldbe constructed in only 15 days and became the world’sfirst series production aircraft. The Demoiselle achieved120 km/h.[72] The fuselage consisted of three speciallyreinforced bamboo booms: the pilot sat a seat betweenthe main wheels of a conventional landing gear whosepair of wire-spoked mainwheels were located at the lowerfront of the airframe, with a tailskid half-way back be-neath the rear fuselage structure. The Demoiselle wascontrolled in flight by a cruciform tail unit hinged on aform of universal joint at the aft end of the fuselage struc-ture to function as elevator and rudder, with roll controlprovided through wing warping (No. 20), with the wingsonly warping “down”.In 1908 Wilbur Wright travelled to Europe, and start-ing in August gave a series of flight demonstrations atLe Mans in France. The first demonstration, made on8 August, attracted an audience including most of themajor French aviation experimenters, who were aston-ished by the clear superiority of the Wright Brothers’aircraft, particularly its ability to make tight controlledturns.[73] The importance of using roll control in making

turns was recognised by almost all the European exper-imenters: Henri Farman fitted ailerons to his Voisin bi-plane and shortly afterwards set up his own aircraft con-struction business, whose first product was the influentialFarman III biplane.The following year saw the widespread recognition ofpowered flight as something other than the preserve ofdreamers and eccentrics. On 25 July Louis Blériot wonworld-wide fame by winning a £1,000 prize offered bythe British Daily Mail newspaper for a flight across theEnglish Channel, and in August around half a millionpeople, including the President of France Armand Fal-lières and David Lloyd George, attended one of the firstaviation meetings, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation atReims.

4.3 Rotorcraft

In 1877, Enrico Forlanini developed an unmannedhelicopter powered by a steam engine. It rose to a heightof 13 meters, where it remained for some 20 seconds,after a vertical take-off from a park in Milan.

Paul Cornu's helicopter, built in 1907, was the first manned fly-ing machine to have risen from the ground using rotating wingsinstead of fixed wings.

The first time a manned helicopter is known to haverisen off the ground was on a tethered flight in 1907by the Breguet-Richet Gyroplane. Later the same yearthe Cornu helicopter, also French, made the first rotary-winged free flight at Lisenux, France. However, thesewere not practical designs.

4.4 Military use

Main article: Early flying machines

Almost as soon as they were invented, airplanes wereused for military purposes. The first country to use themfor military purposes was Italy, whose aircraft made re-connaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights inLibya during the Italian-Turkish war (September 1911 –October 1912). The first mission (a reconnaissance) oc-curred on 23 October 1911. The first bombing missionwas flown on 1 November 1911.[74] Then Bulgaria fol-lowed this example. Its airplanes attacked and reconnoi-tered the Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War1912–13. The first war to see major use of airplanes inoffensive, defensive and reconnaissance capabilities was

13

World War I. The Allies and Central Powers both usedairplanes and airships extensively.While the concept of using the airplane as an offensiveweapon was generally discounted before World War I,[75]the idea of using it for photography was one that was notlost on any of the major forces. All of the major forces inEurope had light aircraft, typically derived from pre-warsporting designs, attached to their reconnaissance depart-ments. Radiotelephones were also being explored on air-planes, notably the SCR-68, as communication betweenpilots and ground commander grew more and more im-portant.

5 World War I (1914–1918)

Main article: Aviation in World War I

German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917

5.1 Combat schemes

See also: Flying ace, List of World War I flying aces,and Aerial victory standards of World War I

It was not long before aircraft were shooting at each other,

but the lack of any sort of steady point for the gun was aproblem. The French solved this problem when, in late1914, Roland Garros attached a fixed machine gun to thefront of his plane, but while Adolphe Pegoud would be-come known as the first "ace", getting credit for five vic-tories, before also becoming the first ace to die in action,it was German Luftstreitkräfte Leutnant Kurt Wintgens,who, on July 1, 1915, scored the very first aerial victoryby a purpose-built fighter plane, with a synchronized ma-chine gun.Aviators were styled as modern-day knights, doing in-dividual combat with their enemies. Several pilots be-came famous for their air-to-air combat; the most wellknown is Manfred von Richthofen, better known as theRed Baron, who shot down 80 planes in air-to-air com-bat with several different planes, the most celebrated ofwhich was the Fokker Dr.I. On the Allied side, René PaulFonck is credited with the most all-time victories at 75,even when later wars are considered.France, Britain, Germany and Italy were the leadingman-ufacturers of fighter planes that saw action during thewar,[76] with German aviation technologist Hugo Junkersshowing the way to the future of much of 20th-centuryaviation, through the pioneering of practical all-metal air-craft in late 1915.

6 Between the World Wars (1918–1939)

Main article: Aviation between the World Wars

The years between World War I and World War II sawgreat advancements in aircraft technology. Airplanesevolved from low-powered biplanes made from wood andfabric to sleek, high-powered monoplanes made of alu-minum, based primarily on the founding work of HugoJunkers during the World War I period and its adoptionby American designer William Bushnell Stout and Sovietdesigner Andrei Tupolev. The age of the great rigid air-ships came and went. The first successful rotorcraft ap-peared in the form of the autogyro, invented by Spanishengineer Juan de la Cierva and first flown in 1919. In thisdesign, the rotor is not powered but is spun like a wind-mill by its passage through the air. A separate powerplantis used to propel the aircraft forwards.After World War I experienced fighter pilots were ea-ger to show off their new skills. Many American pi-lots became barnstormers, flying into small towns acrossthe country and showing off their flying abilities, aswell as taking paying passengers for rides. Eventu-ally the barnstormers grouped into more organized dis-plays. Air shows sprang up around the country, withair races, acrobatic stunts, and feats of air superiority.The air races drove engine and airframe development—

14 6 BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS (1918–1939)

Flagg biplane from 1933.

the Schneider Trophy, for example, led to a series ofever faster and sleeker monoplane designs culminating inthe Supermarine S.6B. With pilots competing for cashprizes, there was an incentive to go faster. Amelia Earhartwas perhaps the most famous of those on the barnstorm-ing/air show circuit. She was also the first female pilotto achieve records such as crossing of the Atlantic andPacific Oceans.

Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930

Other prizes, for distance and speed records, also drovedevelopment forwards. For example, on June 14, 1919,Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Brown co-piloted a Vickers Vimy non-stop from St. John’s,Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland, winning the £13,000($65,000)[77] Northcliffe prize. The first flight across theSouth Atlantic and the first aerial crossing using astro-nomical navigation, was made by the naval aviators GagoCoutinho and Sacadura Cabral in 1922, from Lisbon,Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with only internalmeans of navigation, in an aircraft specifically fitted forhimself with an artificial horizon for aeronautical use, aninvention that revolutionized air navigation at the time(Gago Coutinho invented a type of sextant incorporat-ing two spirit levels to provide an artificial horizon).[78][79]Five years later Charles Lindbergh took the Orteig Prizeof $25,000 for the first solo non-stop crossing of the At-lantic. Months after Lindbergh, Paul Redfern was thefirst to solo the Caribbean Sea and was last seen flyingover Venezuela.

Australian Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was the first tofly 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 (fromOakland to Hawaii) was 2,400 miles, took 27 hours 25minutes and was uneventful. They then flew to Suva, Fiji3,100 miles away, taking 34 hours 30 minutes. This wasthe toughest part of the journey as they flew through amassive lightning storm near the equator. They then flewon to Brisbane in 20 hours, where they landed on 9 June1928 after approximately 7,400 miles total flight. On ar-rival, Kingsford Smith wasmet by a huge crowd of 25,000at Eagle Farm Airport in his hometown of Brisbane. Ac-companying him were Australian aviator Charles Ulm asthe relief pilot, and the Americans James Warner andCaptain Harry Lyon (who were the radio operator, nav-igator and engineer). A week after they landed, Kings-ford Smith and Ulm recorded a disc for Columbia talkingabout their trip. With Ulm, Kingsford Smith later contin-ued his journey being the first in 1929 to circumnavigatethe world, crossing the equator twice.The first lighter-than-air crossings of the Atlantic weremade by airship in July 1919 by His Majesty’s AirshipR34 and crew when they flew from East Lothian, Scot-land to Long Island, New York and then back to Pulham,England. By 1929, airship technology had advanced tothe point that the first round-the-world flight was com-pleted by the Graf Zeppelin in September and in Octo-ber, the same aircraft inaugurated the first commercialtransatlantic service. However, the age of the rigid airshipended following the destruction by fire of the zeppelinLZ 129 Hindenburg just before landing at Lakehurst,New Jersey on May 6, 1937, killing 35 of the 97 peo-ple aboard. Previous spectacular airship accidents, fromthe Wingfoot Express disaster (1919) to the loss of theR101 (1930), the Akron (1933) and the Macon (1935)had already cast doubt on airship safety, but with the dis-asters of the U.S. Navy’s rigids showing the importanceof solely using helium as the lifting medium; followingthe destruction of the Hindenburg, the remaining airshipmaking international flights, theGraf Zeppelinwas retired(June 1937). Its replacement, the rigid airship Graf Zep-pelin II, made a number of flights, primarily over Ger-many, from 1938 to 1939, but was grounded when Ger-many began World War II. Both remaining German zep-pelins were scrapped in 1940 to supply metal for the Ger-man Luftwaffe; the last American rigid airship, the LosAngeles, which had not flown since 1932, was dismantledin late 1939.Meanwhile, in Germany, which was restricted by theTreaty of Versailles in its development of powered air-craft, instead developed gliding as a sport, especiallyat the Wasserkuppe, during the 1920s. In its variousforms, in the 21st century sailplane aviation now has over400,000 participants.[80][81]

In 1929 Jimmy Doolittle developed instrument flight.

15

1929 also saw the first flight of by far the largest planeever built until then: the Dornier Do X with a wing spanof 48 m. On its 70th test flight on October 21 there were169 people on board, a record that was not broken for 20years.Less than a decade after the development of the first prac-tical rotorcraft of any type with the autogyro, in the So-viet Union, Boris N. Yuriev and Alexei M. Cheremukhin,two aeronautical engineers working at the TsentralniyAerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut (TsAGI, Russian: Цен-тра́льный аэрогидродинами́ческий институ́т (ЦАГИ),English: Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), con-structed and flew the TsAGI 1-EA single rotor helicopter,which used an open tubing framework, a four blade mainrotor, and twin sets of 1.8-meter (5.9 ft) diameter anti-torque rotors; one set of two at the nose and one set of twoat the tail. Powered by two M-2 powerplants, up-ratedcopies of the Gnome Monosoupape rotary radial engineof World War I, the TsAGI 1-EA made several success-ful low altitude flights. By 14 August 1932, Cheremukhinmanaged to get the 1-EA up to an unofficial altitude of605 meters (1,985 feet) with what is likely to be the firstsuccessful single-lift rotor helicopter design ever testedand flown.Only five years after the German Dornier Do-X hadflown, Tupolev designed the largest aircraft of the 1930sera, the Maksim Gorky in the Soviet Union by 1934, asthe largest aircraft ever built using the Junkers methodsof metal aircraft construction.In the 1930s development of the jet engine began in Ger-many and in Britain – both countries would go on to de-velop jet aircraft by the end of World War II.

7 World War II (1939–1945)

Main article: Aviation in World War IISee also: Air warfare of World War II, List of aircraft ofWorld War II, List of helicopters used in World War II,and World War II aircraft production

World War II saw a great increase in the pace of de-velopment and production, not only of aircraft but alsothe associated flight-based weapon delivery systems. Aircombat tactics and doctrines took advantage. Large-scale strategic bombing campaigns were launched, fighterescorts introduced and the more flexible aircraft andweapons allowed precise attacks on small targets withdive bombers, fighter-bombers, and ground-attack air-craft. New technologies like radar also allowed more co-ordinated and controlled deployment of air defense.The first jet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 (Ger-many), flown by Erich Warsitz in 1939, followed by theworld’s first operational jet aircraft, the Me 262, in July1942 and world’s first jet-powered bomber, the Arado Ar234, in June 1943. British developments, like the Gloster

Me 262, world first operational jet fighter

Meteor, followed afterwards, but saw only brief use inWorld War II. The first cruise missile (V-1), the first bal-listic missile (V-2), the first (and to date only) operationalrocket-powered combat aircraft Me 163 — with attainedvelocities of up to 1,130 km/h (700 mph) in test flights—and the first vertical take-off manned point-defense inter-ceptor, the Bachem Ba 349 Natter, were also developedby Germany. However, jet and rocket aircraft had onlylimited impact due to their late introduction, fuel short-ages, the lack of experienced pilots and the declining warindustry of Germany.Not only airplanes, but also helicopters saw rapid de-velopment in the Second World War, with the introduc-tion of the Focke Achgelis Fa 223, the Flettner Fl 282synchropter in 1941 in Germany and the Sikorsky R-4 in1942 in the USA.

8 The postwar era (1945–1979)

D.H. Comet, the world’s first jet airliner. As in this picture, it alsosaw RAF service

Main article: Postwar aviation

After World War II, commercial aviation grew rapidly,using mostly ex-military aircraft to transport people andcargo. This growth was accelerated by the glut of heavy

16 8 THE POSTWAR ERA (1945–1979)

A 1945 newsreel covering various firsts in human flight

and super-heavy bomber airframes like the B-29 andLancaster that could be converted into commercial air-craft. The DC-3 also made for easier and longer commer-cial flights. The first commercial jet airliner to fly was theBritish de Havilland Comet. By 1952, the British stateairline BOAC had introduced the Comet into scheduledservice. While a technical achievement, the plane suf-fered a series of highly public failures, as the shape of thewindows led to cracks due to metal fatigue. The fatiguewas caused by cycles of pressurization and depressuriza-tion of the cabin, and eventually led to catastrophic failureof the plane’s fuselage. By the time the problems wereovercome, other jet airliner designs had already taken tothe skies.USSR’s Aeroflot became the first airline in the world tooperate sustained regular jet services on September 15,1956 with the Tupolev Tu-104. The Boeing 707 and DC-8 which established new levels of comfort, safety and pas-senger expectations, ushered in the age of mass commer-cial air travel, dubbed the Jet Age.In October 1947 Chuck Yeager took the rocket-poweredBell X-1 through the sound barrier. Although anecdotalevidence exists that some fighter pilots may have done sowhile dive bombing ground targets during the war, thiswas the first controlled, level flight to exceed the speedof sound. Further barriers of distance fell in 1948 and1952 with the first jet crossing of the Atlantic and thefirst nonstop flight to Australia.The 1945 invention of nuclear bombs briefly increasedthe strategic importance of military aircraft in the ColdWar between East and West. Even a moderate fleet oflong-range bombers could deliver a deadly blow to the en-emy, so great efforts were made to develop countermea-sures. At first, the supersonic interceptor aircraft wereproduced in considerable numbers. By 1955 most de-velopment efforts shifted to guided surface-to-air mis-siles. However, the approach diametrically changed whena new type of nuclear-carrying platform appeared thatcould not be stopped in any feasible way: intercontinentalballistic missiles. The possibility of these was demon-strated in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet

Union. This action started the Space Race between thenations.In 1961, the sky was no longer the limit for manned flight,as Yuri Gagarin orbited once around the planet within108minutes, and then used the descent module of VostokI to safely reenter the atmosphere and reduce speed fromMach 25 using friction and converting the kinetic energyof the velocity into heat. The United States responded bylaunchingAlan Shepard into space on a suborbital flight inaMercury space capsule. With the launch of the AlouetteI in 1963, Canada became the third country to send asatellite in space. The space race between the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union would ultimately lead to thelanding of men on the moon in 1969.In 1967, the X-15 set the air speed record for an aircraftat 4,534 mph (7,297 km/h) or Mach 6.1. Aside fromvehicles designed to fly in outer space, this record wasrenewed by X-43 in the 21st century.

Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the moon

The Harrier Jump Jet, often referred to as just “Har-rier” or “the Jump Jet”, is a British designed militaryjet aircraft capable of Vertical/Short Takeoff and Land-ing (V/STOL) via thrust vectoring. It first flew in 1969,the same year that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin setfoot on the moon, and Boeing unveiled the Boeing 747and the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic passen-ger airliner had its maiden flight. The Boeing 747 wasthe largest commercial passenger aircraft ever to fly, andstill carries millions of passengers each year, though it hasbeen superseded by the Airbus A380, which is capable ofcarrying up to 853 passengers. In 1975 Aeroflot startedregular service on the Tu-144—the first supersonic pas-senger plane. In 1976 British Airways and Air France

17

began supersonic service across the Atlantic, with Con-corde. A few years earlier the SR-71 Blackbird had setthe record for crossing the Atlantic in under 2 hours, andConcorde followed in its footsteps.in 1979 the Gossamer Albatross became the first hu-man powered aircraft to cross the English channel. Thisachievement finally saw the realization of centuries ofdreams of human flight.

9 The digital age (1980–present)

Main article: Aviation in the digital ageThe last quarter of the 20th century saw a change of em-

Concorde,G-BOAB, in storage at London Heathrow Airport fol-lowing the end of all Concorde flying. This aircraft flew for22,296 hours between its first flight in 1976 and final flight in2000.

phasis. No longer was revolutionary progress made inflight speeds, distances and materials technology. Thispart of the century instead saw the spreading of the digi-tal revolution both in flight avionics and in aircraft designand manufacturing techniques.In 1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew an aircraft, theRutan Voyager, around the world unrefuelled, and with-out landing. In 1999 Bertrand Piccard became the firstperson to circle the earth in a balloon.Digital fly-by-wire systems allow an aircraft to be de-signed with relaxed static stability. Initially used to in-crease the manoeuvrability of military aircraft such as theGeneral Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, this is now be-ing used to reduce drag on commercial airliners.In the beginning of the 21st century, digital technologyallowed subsonic military aviation to begin eliminatingthe pilot in favor of remotely operated or completely au-tonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In April2001 the unmanned aircraft Global Hawk flew from Ed-wards AFB in the US to Australia non-stop and unrefu-elled. This is the longest point-to-point flight ever under-taken by an unmanned aircraft, and took 23 hours and23 minutes. In October 2003 the first totally autonomousflight across the Atlantic by a computer-controlled modelaircraft occurred. UAVs are now an established featureof modern warfare, carrying out pinpoint attacks underthe control of a remote operator.

TheU.S. Centennial of Flight Commissionwas establishedin 1999 to encourage the broadest national and interna-tional participation in the celebration of 100 years ofpowered flight.[82] It publicized and encouraged a num-ber of programs, projects and events intended to educatepeople about the history of aviation.Major disruptions to air travel in the 21st century includedthe closing of U.S. airspace due to the September 11 at-tacks, and the closing of most of European airspace afterthe 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.In 2015, André Borschberg flew a record distance of4481 miles (7212 km) from Nagoya, Japan to Honolulu,Hawaii in a solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse 2.[83]

10 See also

• Aviation archaeology

• Claims to the first powered flight

• Early flying machines

• List of firsts in aviation

• Timeline of aviation

11 References

11.1 Notes[1] Crouch, Tom (2004), Wings: A History of Aviation from

Kites to the Space Age, New York, New York: W.W. Nor-ton & Co, ISBN 0-393-32620-9

[2] Hallion (2003)

[3] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=aviation

[4] Vreizh, Skol (2008). Dictionnaire d’histoire de Bretagne(in French). Morlaix. p. 77. ISBN 978-2-915623-45-1.

[5] White 1961, pp. 100–101.

[6] “First Flights”. Saudi Aramco World. 15 (1): 8–9.January–February 1964.

[7] Wragg 1974, p. 57.

[8] Deng & Wang 2005, p. 122.

[9] “Amazing Musical Kites”. Cambodia Philately.

[10] “Kite Flying for Fun and Science” (pdf). The New YorkTimes. 1907.

[11] Sarak, Sim; Yarin, Cheang (2002). “Khmer Kites”. Min-istry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia.

[12] Needham 1965a, p. 127.

[13] Hallion (2003) page 9.

18 11 REFERENCES

[14] Pelham, D.; The Penguin book of kites, Penguin (1976)

[15] Leishman, J. Gordon (2006). Principles of HelicopterAerodynamics. Cambridge aerospace. 18. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 978-0-521-85860-1.

[16] Donahue, Topher (2009). Bugaboo Dreams: A Storyof Skiers, Helicopters and Mountains. Rocky MountainBooks Ltd. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-897522-11-0.

[17] Wragg 1974, p. 10.

[18] Deng & Wang 2005, p. 113.

[19] Ege 1973, p. 6.

[20] Wragg 1974, p. 11.

[21] Fairlie & Cayley 1965, p. 163.

[22] Popham, A.E. (1947). The drawings of Leonardo daVinci(2nd ed.). Jonathan Cape.

[23] Walker (1971) Volume I, Page 195.

[24] Needham, Joseph (1965). Science and Civilisation inChina. IV (part 2). p. 591. ISBN 978-0-521-05803-2.

[25] Harrison, James Pinckney (2000). Mastering the Sky. DaCapo Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-885119-68-1.

[26] Qtd. in O'Conner, Patricia T. (1985-11-17). “In Short:Nonfiction; ManWasMeant to Fly, But Not at First”. TheNew York Times. Retrieved 2009-05-24.

[27] ["Burattini’s Flying Dragon”, FLIGHT International,9 May 1963 | http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1963/1963%20-%200722.html]

[28] Fairlie & Cayley 1965, p. 158.

[29] “Aviation History”. Retrieved 26 July 2009. In 1799 heset forth for the first time in history the concept of themodern aeroplane. Cayley had identified the drag vector(parallel to the flow) and the lift vector (perpendicular tothe flow).

[30] “Sir George Cayley (British Inventor and Scientist)". Bri-tannica. Retrieved 26 July 2009. English pioneer of aerialnavigation and aeronautical engineering and designer ofthe first successful glider to carry a human being aloft.Cayley established the modern configuration of an aero-plane as a fixed-wing flyingmachine with separate systemsfor lift, propulsion, and control as early as 1799.

[31] Gibbs-Smith 2003, p. 35

[32] Cayley, George. “On Aerial Navigation” Part 1, Part 2,Part 3 Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy, 1809–1810. (Via NASA). Raw text. Retrieved: 30 May 2010.

[33] Wragg 1974, p. 60.

[34] Angelucci & Matricardi 1977, p. 14.

[35] Pritchard, J. Laurence. Summary of First Cayley Memo-rial Lecture at the Brough Branch of the Royal Aeronau-tical Society Flight number 2390 volume 66 page 702, 12November 1954. Retrieved: 29 May 2010. “In thinkingof how to construct the lightest possible wheel for aerialnavigation cars, an entirely new mode of manufacturingthis most useful part of locomotive machines occurred tome: vide, to do away with wooden spokes altogether, andrefer the whole firmness of the wheel to the strength ofthe rim only, by the intervention of tight cording.”

[36] Jarrett 2002, p. 53.

[37] Stokes 2002, pp. 163–166, 167–168.

[38] Magoun, F. Alexander; Hodgins, Eric (1931). A Historyof Aircraft. Whittlesey House. p. 308.

[39] “The Cross-licensing Agreement”. NASA. Retrieved2009-03-07.

[40] Yoon, Joe (17 November 2002). “Origins of Control Sur-faces”. AerospaceWeb.

[41] Gibbs-Smith, C.H. (2000) [1960]. Aviation: An Histor-ical Survey From Its Origins To The End Of The SecondWorld War. Science Museum. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-900747-52-3.

[42] Frank H.Wenham, inventor of the wind tunnel, 1871, wasa fan, driven by a steam engine, propelled air down a 12ft (3.7 m) tube to the model.[43]

[43] “Wind Tunnels” (PDF). NASA.

[44] Gibbs-Smith, C.H. (2000). Aviation. London: NMSI. p.56. ISBN 1900747529.

[45] Gibbs-Smith, C.H. (2000). Aviation. London: NMSI. p.74. ISBN 1 900747 52 9.

[46] Jarrett 2002, p. 87.

[47] Flyingmachines.org. Retrieved March 31, 2014.

[48] Gibbs-Smith, C.H. (2000). Aviation. London: NMSI. pp.76–8. ISBN 1 900747 52 9.

[49] Anderson, John David (2004). Inventing Flight: TheWright Brothers & Their Predecessors. JHU Press. p. 145.ISBN 0-8018-6875-0.

[50] Hallion (2003) pages 294–295.

[51] Paul Jackson; Executive Overview: Jane’s All the World’sAircraft: Development & Production – 'Justice delayed isjustice denied' (2013)

[52] Budd Davisson; Who Was First? The Wrights or White-head? Flight Journal (2013)

[53] “Statement Regarding The Gustave Whitehead Claims ofFlight”. flyingmachines.org. Retrieved 30 March 2014.

[54] Dodson, MG (2005), “An Historical and Applied Aero-dynamic Study of the Wright Brothers’ Wind Tunnel TestProgram and Application to Successful Manned Flight”,US Naval Academy Technical Report, USNA-334, re-trieved 2009-03-11

11.2 Bibliography 19

[55] Smithsonian Institution, “The Wright Brothers & The In-vention of the Aerial Age”

[56] " 100 Years Ago, the Dream of Icarus Became Reality.”FAI NEWS, December 17, 2003. Retrieved: January 5,2007. Archived April 27, 2006, at theWaybackMachine.

[57] “Telegram fromOrvilleWright in Kitty Hawk, North Car-olina, to His Father Announcing Four Successful Flights,1903 December 17”. World Digital Library. 1903-12-17.Retrieved 2013-07-21.

[58] Kelly, Fred C. TheWright Brothers: A BiographyChp. IV,p.101–102 (Dover Publications, NY 1943).

[59] Abzug, Malcolm J. and E. Eugene Larrabee.“AirplaneStability and Control, Second Edition: A History ofthe Technologies That Made Aviation Possible.” cam-bridge.org. Retrieved: September 21, 2010.

[60] DaytonMetro LibraryAero Club ofAmerica press release

[61] Reprinted in Scientific American, April 2007, page 8.

[62] “Nouveaux essais de l'Aéroplane Vuia”, L'Aérophile v.141906, pp. 105–106, April 1906

[63] “L'Aéroplane à moteur de M. Vuia”, L'Aérophile v.141906, pp. 195–196, September 1906

[64] Jacob Ellehammer at EarlyAviators.com. RetrievedMarch 7, 2013.

[65] Jines. Ernest. “Santos Dumont in France 1906–1916:The Very Earliest Early Birds.” earlyaviators.com, De-cember 25, 2006. Retrieved: August 17, 2009.

[66] “Cronologia de Santos Dumont” (in Portuguese). santos-dumont.net.Retrieved: October 12, 2010.

[67] Gibbs-Smith, C. H. Aviation: An Historical Survey. Lon-don: NMSI. p. 146. ISBN 1 900747 52 9.

[68] Gibbs-Smith, C. H. Aviation: An Historical Survey. Lon-don: NMSI. p. 154. ISBN 1 900747 52 9.

[69] Jozef Wilczynski, Technology in Comecon: Accelerationof Technological Progress Through Economic Planningand the Market, p. 243

[70] Hundertmark & Steinle (1985), pp.110-114

[71] Gheorghiu, Constantin C. (1960). Aurel Vlaicu, un pre-cursor al aviaţiei româneşti. Bucharest: Editura Tehnică.

[72] Hartmann, Gérard. “Clément-Bayard, sans peur et sansreproche” (French). hydroretro.net. Retrieved: Novem-ber 14, 2010.

[73] Gibbs-Smith, C. H. Aviation: An Historical Survey. Lon-don: NMSI. p. 158. ISBN 1 900747 52 9.

[74] Ferdinando Pedriali. “Aerei italiani in Libia (1911–1912)"(Italian planes in Libya (1911–1912)). Storia Mil-itare (Military History), N° 170/novembre 2007,p.31–40

[75] with the exception of Clément Ader, who had visionaryviews about this: “L'affaire de l'aviation militaire” (Mil-itary aviation concern), 1898 and “La première étape del'aviation militaire en France” (The first step of militaryaviation en France), 1906

[76] WWI airplane statistics by nation

[77] Nevin, David. “Two Daring Flyers Beat the Atlantic be-fore Lindbergh.” Journal of ContemporaryHistory' 28: (1)1993, 105.

[78] CAMBESES JÚNIOR, Manuel, A Primeira TravessiaAérea do Atlântico Sul, Brasília: INCAER, 2008.

[79] History of the Sextant includes a photograph of a GagoCoutinho spirit level attachment.

[80] FAI membership summary, retrieved 2006-08-24

[81] FAI web site

[82] Executive Summary, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commis-sion

[83] 8th leg from Nagoya to Hawaii, Solar Impulse RTW

11.2 Bibliography

• Deng, Yinke; Wang, Pingxing (2005). Ancient Chi-nese Inventions. China Intercontinental Press. ISBN7-5085-0837-8.

• Ege, L. (1973). Balloons and airships. Blandford.

• Fairlie, Gerard; Cayley, Elizabeth (1965). The lifeof a genius. Hodder and Stoughton.

• Hallion, Richard P. (2003). Taking Flight:Inventingthe Aerial Age, from Antiquity through the FirstWorld War. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0195160355.

• Needham, Joseph (1965a). Science and Civilisationin China. IV (part 1).

• Needham, Joseph (1965a). Science and Civilisationin China. IV (part 1).

• White, Lynn Townsend, Jr. (Spring 1961). “Eilmerof Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: ACase Study of Technological Innovation, Its Con-text and Tradition”. Technology and Culture. 2 (2):97–111. doi:10.2307/3101411.

• Wragg, D.W. (1974). Flight before flying. Osprey.ISBN 0850451655.

12 Further reading

• Celebrating a History of Flight, NASA Office ofAerospace Technology HQ, United States Air Force

• Harry Bruno (1944)Wings over America: The Storyof American Aviation, Halcyon House, Garden City,New York.

20 13 EXTERNAL LINKS

• Jourdain, Pierre-Roger (1908), “Aviation In FrancesIn 1908”, Annual Report of the Board of Regentsof the Smithsonian Institution: 145–159, retrieved2009-08-07

• Post, Augustus (September 1910), “How To LearnTo Fly: The Different Machines And What TheyCost”, The World’s Work: A History of Our Time,XX: 13389–13402, retrieved 2009-07-10 Includesphotos, diagrams and specifications of many c.1910 aircraft.

• Squier, GeorgeOwen (1908), “The Present Status ofMilitary Aeronautics”, Annual Report of the Boardof Regents of the Smithsonian Institution: 117–144,retrieved 2009-08-07 Includes photos and specificsof many c. 1908 dirigibles and airplanes.

• Van Vleck, Jenifer (2013). Empire of the Air: Avi-ation and the American Ascendancy. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

13 External links• http://www.flyingmachines.org/

• http://www.thewrightbrothers.org/fivefirstflights.html

• Time line of greatest breakthroughs in manned flightby Jürgen Schmidhuber, Nature 421, 689, 2003

• Prehistory of Flight

• Graphic time-line

• University of Washington Libraries DigitalCollections—Transportation Photographs Anongoing digital collection of photographs depictingvarious modes of transportation in the PacificNorthwest region and Western United States duringthe first half of the 20th century.

• Aviation research at the National Archives—how tofind aviation photos and records.

• Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms, a Na-tional Park Service Discover Our Shared HeritageTravel Itinerary

• Aviation history article.

• Aviation History at Muswell Manor

• Bibliography of Aviation History since 1788 and In-ternational Air Guide (1932)

• Film trailer of A Dream of Flight a documentarythat celebrates the centenary of the first poweredflight by a Briton in Britain, JTC Moore Brabazon,in 1909 on The Isle of Sheppey.

• Wright Brothers’ Early Flight Experiments

• See pictures of strut design airplanes from 1911 atthe University of Houston Digital Library

21

14 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

14.1 Text• History of aviation Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation?oldid=735357655 Contributors: Derek Ross, XJaM,

Christopher Mahan, Rmhermen, Maury Markowitz, Heron, GrahamN, Hephaestos, Olivier, Lisiate, Rbrwr, Frecklefoot, Infrogmation,Qwitchibo, Liftarn, Tannin, Dramatic, Paddu, (, Arpingstone, Paul A, Tiles, Blimpguy, Looxix~enwiki, Ams80, Ahoerstemeier, Docu,G-Man, Notheruser, Rlandmann, Mark Foskey, Александър, Mihai~enwiki, Bogdangiusca, Jiang, Astudent, Cherkash, Smack, GRA-HAMUK, Beachey, Dysprosia, Daniel Quinlan, Audin, Wik, Zoicon5, Maximus Rex, Mrand, Grendelkhan, Thue, Opus33, Pollinator, Lu-mos3, RadicalBender, Mrdice, Pigsonthewing, Fredrik, Tlogmer, Chris 73, RedWolf, Nurg, Chris Roy, Academic Challenger, Wikibot, Rs-duhamel, GreatWhiteNortherner, Alan Liefting, Kurohone, Greyengine5, Wolfkeeper, Dissident, Theon~enwiki, Curps, Zinnmann, Avsa,Per Honor et Gloria, Saaga, Solipsist, Matthead, Bobblewik, Wmahan, Neilc, K7jeb, Gadfium, SarekOfVulcan, Yath, HorsePunchKid,Beland, Vanished user 1234567890, Mukerjee, 1297, Rlquall, Thincat, Sam Hocevar, Clemwang, Trevor MacInnis, Discospinster, RichFarmbrough, FranksValli, Regebro, Dpm64, IlyaHaykinson, Martpol, Shellbell, Bender235, ESkog, Brian0918, CanisRufus, El C, Bikeal,Rgdboer, Bobo192, Mdd, Alansohn, AnnaP, Guy Harris, Denniss, Snowolf, GeorgeStepanek, Wtshymanski, Edgr, Kusma, Gene Nygaard,Tobyc75, A D Monroe III, Velho, Kelly Martin, Woohookitty, LOL, Jpers36, Polyparadigm, JBellis, Chochopk, Fred J, Tabletop, HollyI,Paullb, Stefanomione, Wgmleslie, GraemeLeggett, BD2412, Rjwilmsi, Jmcc150, Swerveut, Stilgar135, ElKevbo, The wub, Daderot, Latka,Ysangkok, Themanwithoutapast, Flowerparty, Leslie Mateus, DrGeoduck, Ahunt, Gareth E. 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14.2 Images• File:1874DuTemple.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/1874DuTemple.jpg License: Public domain

Contributors: ? Original artist: ?• File:A_Vlaicu_III_02.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/A_Vlaicu_III_02.png License:

Public domain Contributors: personal collection Original artist: Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718'title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img alt='wikidata:Q4233718' src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png' width='20' height='11' srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-file-width='1050' data-file-height='590' /></a>

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22 14 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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storage_arp.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyrightclaims). Original artist: No machine-readable author provided. Arpingstone assumed (based on copyright claims).

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