Airplane: "Aeroplane" Redirects Here. For Other Uses, See and
Airplane: "Aeroplane" Redirects Here. For Other Uses, See and
Airplane: "Aeroplane" Redirects Here. For Other Uses, See and
"Aeroplane" redirects here. For other uses, see Airplane (disambiguation) and Aeroplane
(disambiguation).
The first flight of an airplane, the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903
2History
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2.1Antecedents
3Propulsion
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3.1Propeller engines
3.2Jet engines
3.3Electric engines
3.4Rocket engines
5Characteristics
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5.1Airframe
5.2Wings
5.2.1Wing structure
5.2.2Wing configuration
5.3Fuselage
5.4.1Flying wing
5.4.3Lifting body
6Safety
7See also
8References
9Bibliography
10External links
History
Main articles: Aviation history and First flying machine
Antecedents
Many stories from antiquity involve flight, such as the Greek legend of Icarus and Daedalus, and
the Vimana in ancient Indian epics. Around 400 BC in Greece, Archytas was reputed to have
designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a
jet of what was probably steam, said to have flown some 200 m (660 ft).[8][9] This machine may have
been suspended for its flight.[10][11]
Some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century poet Abbas ibn
Firnas and the 11th-century monk Eilmer of Malmesbury; both experiments injured their pilots.
[12]
Leonardo da Vinci researched the wing design of birds and designed a man-powered aircraft in
his Codex on the Flight of Birds (1502).
In 1799, George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine
with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control.[13][14] Cayley was building and flying models of
fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803, and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853.[2] In
1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first powered flight, by having his glider "L'Albatros
artificiel" pulled by a horse on a beach.[citation needed] Then Alexander F. Mozhaisky also made some
innovative designs. In 1883, the American John J. Montgomery made a controlled flight in a glider.
[15]
Other aviators who made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, and Octave
Chanute.
Sir Hiram Maxim built a craft that weighed 3.5 tons, with a 110-foot (34 meter) wingspan that was
powered by two 360-horsepower (270 kW) steam engines driving two propellers. In 1894, his
machine was tested with overhead rails to prevent it from rising. The test showed that it had enough
lift to take off. The craft was uncontrollable, which Maxim, it is presumed, realized, because he
subsequently abandoned work on it.[16]
In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave conducted research on wing structures and developed a box
kite that lifted the weight of a man. His box kite designs were widely adopted. Although he also
developed a type of rotary aircraft engine, he did not create and fly a powered fixed-wing aircraft. [17]
Between 1867 and 1896 the German pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal developed heavierthan-air flight. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights.
The Wright brothers flights in 1903 are recognized by the Fdration Aronautique
Internationale (FAI), the standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics, as "the first
sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight".[1] By 1905, the Wright Flyer III was capable
of fully controllable, stable flight for substantial periods. The Wright brothers credited Otto Lilienthal
as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue manned flight.
In 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont made what was claimed to be the first airplane flight unassisted
by catapult[18] and set the first world record recognized by the Aro-Club de France by flying 220
meters (720 ft) in less than 22 seconds.[19] This flight was also certified by the FAI.[20][21]
An early aircraft design that brought together the modern monoplane tractor configuration was
the Blriot VIII design of 1908. It had movable tail surfaces controlling both yaw and pitch, a form of
roll control supplied either by wing warping or by ailerons and controlled by its pilot with
a joystick and rudder bar. It was an important predecessor of his later Blriot XIChannel-crossing
aircraft of the summer of 1909.[22]
In Romania the aircraft, A. Vlaicu nr. 1, was finished in 1909, and was test flown on June 17, 1910.
From the first flight the airplane had no need of changes. The plane was made from a
single aluminum spar 10 m (33 ft) long which supported the entire aircraft, making it very easy to fly.
Ten planes were made for the Romanian Air Force, being the second-ever military air force in the
world.
World War I served as a testbed for the use of the airplane as a weapon. Airplanes demonstrated
their potential as mobile observation platforms, then proved themselves to be machines of war
capable of causing casualties to the enemy. The earliest known aerial victory with a synchronized
machine gun-armed fighter aircraft occurred in 1915, by German Luftstreitkrfte Leutnant Kurt
Wintgens. Fighter aces appeared; the greatest (by number of Aerial Combat victories) was Manfred
von Richthofen.
Following WWI, aircraft technology continued to develop. Alcock and Brown crossed the Atlantic
non-stop for the first time in 1919. The first international commercial flights took place between the
United States and Canada in 1919.[citation needed]
Airplanes had a presence in all the major battles of World War II. They were an essential component
of the military strategies of the period, such as the German Blitzkrieg, The Battle of Britain, and the
American and Japanese aircraft carrier campaigns of the Pacific War.
The first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952. The Boeing 707, the first widely
successful commercial jet, was in commercial service for more than 50 years, from 1958 to 2010.
The Boeing 747 was the world's biggest passenger aircraft from 1970 until it was surpassed by
the Airbus A380 in 2005.
Propulsion
See also: Powered aircraft and Aircraft engine
Propeller engines
Main article: Propeller (aeronautics)
Smaller and older propeller planes make use of reciprocating engines (or piston engines) to turn
a propeller to create thrust. The amount of thrust a propeller creates is determined by its disk area the area in which the blades rotate. If the area is too small, efficiency is poor, and if the area is large,
the propeller must rotate at a very low speed to avoid going supersonic and creating a lot of noise,
and not much thrust. Because of this limitation, propellers are favored for planes which travel at
below mach .5, while jets are a better choice above that speed. Propeller engines may be quieter
than jet engines (though not always) and may cost less to purchase or maintain and so remain
common on light general aviation aircraft such as the Cessna 172. Larger modern propeller planes
such as the Dash 8 use a jet engine to turn the propeller, primarily because an equivalent piston
engine in power output would be much larger and more compl