History+of+Flight

The **history of [|aviation] ** has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest attempts in [|kites] and [|gliders] to powered [|heavier-than-air], [|supersonic] and [|hypersonic] flight. The first form of man-made flying objects were [|kites]. [|[1]] The earliest known record of kite flying is from around 200 BC in China, when a general flew a kite over enemy territory to calculate the length of tunnel required to enter the region. [|[2]] [|Yuan Huangtou], a Chinese prince, survived by tying himself to the kite. [|[3]] [|Leonardo da Vinci] 's (15th c.) dream of flight found expression in several designs, but he did not attempt to demonstrate his ideas by actually constructing them. With the efforts to analyze the atmosphere in the 17th and 18th century, gases such as [|hydrogen] were discovered which in turn led to the invention of hydrogen balloons. [|[1]] Various theories in [|mechanics] by physicists during the same period of time, notably [|fluid dynamics] and [|Newton's laws of motion], led to the foundation of modern [|aerodynamics]. Tethered balloons filled with hot air were used in the first half of the 19th century and saw considerable action in several mid-century wars, most notably the [|American Civil War], where balloons provided observation during the [|Battle of Petersburg]. Experiments with gliders provided the groundwork for heavier-than-air craft, and by the early 20th century advances in engine technology and aerodynamics made controlled, powered flight possible for the first time

Flight automaton in Greece
Around 400 BC, [|Archytas], the Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman and strategist, designed and built a bird-shaped, apparently steam powered [|[4]] model named "//The Pigeon//" ( [|Greek] : Περιστέρα "Peristera"), which is said to have flown some 200 meters. [|[5]] [|[6]] According to [|Aulus Gellius], the mechanical bird was suspended on a string or pivot and was powered by a "concealed aura or spirit". [|[7]] [|[8]]

[ [|edit] ] Hot air balloons, glider and kites in China
The [|Kongming lantern] (proto hot air balloon) was known in China from ancient times. Its invention is usually attributed to the general [|Zhuge Liang] (180–234 AD, honorific title //Kongming//), who is said to have used them to scare the enemy troops: An oil lamp was installed under a large paper bag, and the bag floated in the air due to the lamp heating the air. ... The enemy was frightened by the light in the air, thinking that some divine force was helping him. [|[9]] However, the device based on a lamp in a paper shell is documented earlier, and according to [|Joseph Needham], hot-air balloons in China were known from the 3rd century BC. In the 5th century BCE [|Lu Ban] invented a 'wooden bird' which may have been a large kite, or which may have been an early [|glider]. In 1st century AD, when [|Wang Mang] tried to recruit specialist as scout to [|Xiong Nu], a man binding himself with bird feather glided about 100 meters, but finally landed. [|[10]] During the Yuan dynasty (13th c.) under rulers like [|Kublai Khan], the rectangular lamps became popular in festivals, when they would attract huge crowds. During the [|Mongol Empire], the design may have spread along the [|Silk Route] into [|Central Asia] and the Middle East. Almost identical floating lights with a rectangular lamp in thin paper scaffolding are common in [|Tibetan] celebrations and in the [|Hindu] festival of lights, [|Diwali]. However, there is no evidence that these were used for human flight.
 * ** [|559] **
 * [|Yuan Huangtou], [|Ye] , first manned kite glide to take off from a tower — [|559] [|[11]]

[ [|edit] ] Gliders in Europe
In the 9th century, at the age of 65, the [|Muslim] [|Andalusian] [|polymath] [|Abbas Ibn Firnas] is said to have flown from the hill Jabal al-'arus by employing a rudimentary [|glider]. While " [|alighting] again on the place whence he had started," he eventually crashed and sustained injury which some contemporary critics attributed to a lack of tail. [|[12]] [|[13]] However, the only source describing the event is from the 17th century. [|[14]] Between 1000 and 1010, the English [|Benedictine] monk [|Eilmer of Malmesbury] flew for about 200 meters using a glider (c. 1010), but he too sustained injuries. [|[14]] The event is recorded in the work of the eminent [|[15]] medieval historian [|William of Malmesbury] in about 1125. [|[14]] Being a fellow monk in the same abbey, William almost certainly obtained his account directly from people there who knew Eilmer himself. [|[14] Some six centuries after Ibn Firnas, [|Leonardo da Vinci] developed a hang glider design in which the inner parts of the wings are fixed, and some control surfaces are provided towards the tips (as in the gliding flight in birds). While his drawings exist and are deemed flightworthy in principle, he himself never flew in it. Based on his drawings, and using materials that would have been available to him, a prototype constructed in the late 20th century was shown to fly. [|[16]] However, his sketchy design was interpreted with modern knowledge of aerodynamic principles, and whether his actual ideas would have flown is not known. A model he built for a test flight in 1496 did not fly, and some other designs, such as the four-person screw-type helicopter, have severe flaws. Italian inventor, [|Tito Livio Burattini], invited by the [|Polish] King [|Władysław IV] to his court in [|Warsaw] , built a model aircraft with four fixed [|glider] wings in 1647. [|[17]] 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. [|[18]] He promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from landing the craft. [|[19]] His "Dragon Volant" is considered "the most elaborate and sophisticated aeroplane to be built before the 19th Century". [|[20]] In 1670 [|Francesco Lana de Terzi] published work that suggested lighter than air flight would be possible by having copper foil spheres that contained a vacuum that would be lighter than the displaced air, lift an [|airship] (rather literal from his drawing). While not being completely off the mark, he did fail to realize that the pressure of the surrounding air would crush the spheres. In 1709 [|Bartolomeu de Gusmão] presented a petition to King [|John V of Portugal], 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 June 24, 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 August 8, 1709, in the hall of the [|Casa da Índia] in [|Lisbon], when he propelled a ball to the roof by combustion.[// [|clarification needed] //]

[ [|edit] ] Lighter than air
Main article: [|History of ballooning] The 1884 // [|La France] //, the first fully controllable airship 1783 was a watershed year for ballooning and aviation, between June 4 and December 1 five aviation firsts were achieved in France: The navigable balloon created by Giffard in 1852 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. Work on developing a steerable (or dirigible) balloon (now called an [|airship] ) 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] flew 15 miles (24 km) in France, with a steam engine driven craft. Non-steerable balloons were employed during the [|American Civil War] by the [|Union Army Balloon Corps]. The young [|Ferdinand von Zeppelin] first flew as a balloon passenger with the Union [|Army of the Potomac] in 1863. 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] and [|Arthur Krebs]. The 170-foot (52 m) long, 66,000-cubic-foot (1,900 m3) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) 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.) 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.
 * On 4 June, the [|Montgolfier brothers] demonstrated their unmanned [|hot air balloon] at [|Annonay], France.
 * On 27 August, [|Jacques Charles] and the [|Robert brothers] (// [|Les Freres Robert] //) launched the world's first (unmanned) hydrogen-filled balloon, from the [|Champ de Mars], Paris.
 * On 19 October, the Montgolfiers launched the first manned flight, a tethered balloon with humans on board, at the // [|Folie Titon] // in Paris. The aviators were the scientist [|Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier], the manufacture manager [|Jean-Baptiste Réveillon] , 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 8 km (5.0 mi) 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] in Paris, amid a crowd of 400,000. They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m)[15] and landed at sunset in [|Nesles-la-Vallée] 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 3,000 metres, where he saw the sun again, suffered extreme pain in his ears, and never flew again.

n 1877, [|Enrico Forlanini] developed an unmanned helicopter powered by a steam engine. It rose to a height of 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 flying machine to have risen from the ground using rotating wings instead of fixed wings.

The first time a [|manned helicopter] is known to have risen off the ground was in late September 1907 within France in a "tethered" test flight, and [|another French helicopter] made the first rotary-winged "free flight" two months later at Lisenux, France. The first successful rotorcraft of any type, however, wasn't a true helicopter, but an [|autogyro] invented by Spanish engineer [|Juan de la Cierva] in 1919. These kind of rotorcraft were mainly used until the development of modern helicopters, when, for some reason, they became largely neglected, although the idea has since been resurrected several times. Since the first practical helicopter was the [|Focke Achgelis Fw 61] (Germany, 1936), the autogyro's golden age only lasted around 20 years.

he years between [|World War I] and [|World War II] saw great advancements in aircraft technology. Aeroplanes 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] during the World War I period. The age of the great airships came and went.

Flagg biplane from 1933.

After World War I experienced fighter pilots were eager to show off their new 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] designs culminating in the [|Supermarine S.6B]. With pilots competing for cash prizes, there was an incentive to go faster. [|Amelia Earhart] 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 crossing of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Qantas De Havilland biplane, ca. 1930

Other prizes, for distance and speed records, also drove development 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) [|[39]] [|Northcliffe prize]. Eight years later [|Charles Lindbergh] took the [|Orteig Prize] of $25,000 for the first //solo// non-stop crossing of the Atlantic. Months after Lindbergh, Paul Redfern was the first to solo the Caribbean Sea and was last seen flying over Venezuela.

Australian [|Charles Kingsford Smith] 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 2,400 miles, took 27 hours 25 minutes and was uneventful. They then flew to Suva, Fiji 3,100 miles 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 7,400 miles 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] 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], Scotland to [|Long Island] , New York and then back to [|Pulham] , 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 dirigible ended following the destruction by fire of the zeppelin [|//Hindenburg//] just before landing at [|Lakehurst, New Jersey] on May 6, 1937, killing 35 of the 97 people aboard. Previous spectacular airship accidents, from the // [|Wingfoot Express] // disaster (1919) to the loss of the [|R101] (1930), the [|//Akron//] (1933) and the [|//Macon//] (1935) had already cast doubt on airship safety; following the destruction of the Hindenburg, the remaining airship making international flights, the // [|Graf Zeppelin] // was retired (June 1937). Its replacement, the dirigible // [|Graf Zeppelin II] //, 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 last American airship, the // [|Los Angeles] //, which had not flown since 1932, was dismantled in late 1939.

Meanwhile in Germany, which was restricted by the [|Treaty of Versailles] in its development of powered aircraft, instead developed [|gliding] as a sport, especially at the [|Wasserkuppe], during the 1920s. In its various forms, this activity now has over 400,000 participants. [|[40]] [|[41]]

In 1929 [|Jimmy Doolittle] developed [|instrument flight].

1929 also saw the first flight of by far the largest plane ever built until then: the [|Dornier Do X] with a wing span of 48 m. On its 70th test flight on October 21 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 // [|Tsentralniy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut] // (TsAGI, [|Russian] : Центра́льный аэрогидродинами́ческий институ́т (ЦАГИ), English: Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), 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 1.8-meter (6-foot) 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-EA made several successful low altitude flights. By 14 August 1932, Cheremukhin managed to get the 1-EA up to an unofficial altitude of 605 meters (1,985 ft) with what is likely to be the first successful single-lift rotor helicopter design ever tested and flown.

In the 1930s development of the [|jet engine] began in Germany and in Britain - both countries would go on to develop jet aircraft by the end of World War II.