History of aircraft

History of aircraft
Myths and Legends of Flight

Greek Legend - Pegasus
Bellerophon the Valiant, son of the King of Corinth, captured Pegasus, a winged horse. Pegasus
took him to a battle with the triple headed monster, Chimera.
Icarus and Daedalus - An Ancient Greek Legend

Daedalus was an engineer who was imprisoned by King Minos. With his son, Icarus, he made
wings of wax and feathers. Daedalus flew successfully from Crete to Naples, but Icarus, tired to
fly too high and flew too near to the sun. The wings of wax melted and Icarus fell to his death in
the ocean.
King Kaj Kaoos of Persia

King Kaj Kaoos attached eagles to his throne and flew around his kingdom.
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great harnessed four mythical wings animals, called Griffins, to a basket and flew
around his realm.
Early Efforts of Flight

Around 400 BC – China The discovery of the kite that could fly in the air by the Chinese started
humans thinking about flying. Kites were used by the Chinese in religious ceremonies. They
built many colorful kites for fun, also. More sophisticated kites were used to test weather
conditions. Kites have been important to the invention of flight as they were the forerunner to
balloons and gliders.
Hero and the Aeolipile
The ancient Greek engineer, Hero of Alexandria, worked with air

pressure and steam to create sources of power. One experiment that he
developed was the aeolipile which used jets of steam to create rotary
motion.
Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire below the kettle
turned the water into steam, and the gas traveled through pipes to the
sphere. Two L-shaped tubes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed
the gas to escape, which gave a thrust to the sphere that caused it to
rotate.
Aeolipile
1485 Leonardo da Vinci - The Ornithopter
Leonardo da Vinci made the first real studies of flight in
the 1480's. He had over 100 drawings that illustrated his
theories on flight.
The Ornithopter flying machine was never actually

created. It was a design that Leonardo da Vinci created
Leonardo da Vinci's to show how man could fly. The modern day helicopter
Ornithopter is based on this concept.
1783 - Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier- the First Hot Air Balloon
The brothers, Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier,
were inventors of the first hot air balloon. They used the
smoke from a fire to blow hot air into a silk bag. The silk bag
was attached to a basket. The hot air then rose and allowed the
balloon to be lighter-than-air.
In 1783, the first passengers in the colorful balloon were a

sheep, rooster and duck. It climbed to a height of about 6,000
feet and traveled more than 1 mile.
After this first success, the brothers began to send men up in

One of The balloons. The first manned flight was on November 21, 1783,
Montgolfier's Balloons the passengers were Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and
Francois Laurent.
1799 - 1850's - George Cayley

George Cayley worked to discover a way that man could fly. He
designed many different versions of gliders that used the
movements of the body to control. A young boy, whose name is
not known, was the first to fly one of his gliders.
Over 50 years he made improvements to the gliders. He changed

the shape of the wings so that the air would flow over the wings
correctly. He designed a tail for the gliders to help with the
One Version of a Glider stability. He tried a biplane design to add strength to the glider.
He also recognized that there would be a need for power if the
flight was to be in the air for a long time.
One of the many drawings of gliders
Cayley wrote On Ariel Navigation which shows that a fixed-wing aircraft with a power system
for propulsion and a tail to assist in the control of the airplane would be the best way to allow
man to fly.
1891 Otto Lilienthal

German engineer, Otto Lilienthal, studied aerodynamics and
worked to design a glider that would fly. He was the first person to
design a glider that could fly a person and was able to fly long
distances.
He was fascinated by the idea of flight. Based on his studies of

birds and how they fly, he wrote a book on aerodynamics that was
published in 1889 and this text was used by the Wright Brothers as
the basis for their designs.
One of Lilienthal's
Gliders
After more than 2500 flights, he was killed when he lost control
because of a sudden strong wind and crashed into the ground.
Lilienthal's Glider in Flight

1891 Samuel P. Langley
Samuel Langley was an astronomer, who realized that power

was needed to help man fly. He built a model of a plane, which
he called an aerodrome, that included a steam-powered engine.
In 1891, his model flew for 3/4s of a mile before running out of
fuel.
Langley received a $50,000 grant to build a full sized

aerodrome. It was too heavy to fly and it crashed. He was very
Langley's Aerodrome disappointed. He gave up trying to fly. His major contributions
to flight involved attempts at adding a power plant to a glider.
He was also well known as the director of the Smithsonian
Institute in Washington, DC
Model of Langley Aerodrome
1894 Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute published Progress in Flying Machines in 1894. It gathered and analyzed all the
technical knowledge that he could find about aviation accomplishments. It included all of the
world's aviation pioneers. The Wright Brothers used this book as a basis for much of their
experiments. Chanute was also in contact with the Wright Brothers and often commented on
their technical progress.
Orville and Wilbur Wright and the First Airplane
Orville and Wilbur Wright were very deliberate in their quest for flight. First, they read about all
the early developments of flight. They decided to make "a small contribution" to the study of
flight control by twisting their wings in flight. Then they began to test their ideas with a kite.
They learned about how the wind would help with the flight and how it could affect the surfaces
once up in the air.
The next step was to test the shapes of gliders much like
George Cayley did when he was testing the many
different shapes that would fly. They spent three years
testing and learning about how gliders could be
controlled at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
A Drawing of a Wright
Brothers Glider (1900)
They designed and used a wind tunnel to test

the shapes of the wings and the tails of the
gliders. In 1902, with a perfected glider shape,
they turned their attention to how to create a
propulsion system that would create the thrust
needed to fly.
The early engine that they designed generated

almost 12 horsepower. That's the same power
as two hand-propelled lawn mower engines!
Picture of the actual 12 horsepower
engine used in flight
The "Flyer" lifted from level ground to the north of Big

Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, at 10:35 a.m., on
December 17, 1903. Orville piloted the plane which
The Wright Brother's Flyer weighed about six hundred pounds.
The first heavier-than-air flight traveled one
hundred twenty feet in twelve seconds. The two
brothers took turns flying that day with the fourth
and last flight covering 850 feet in 59 seconds. But
the Flyer was unstable and very hard to control.
The brothers returned to Dayton, Ohio, where they

worked for two more years perfecting their design.
Finally, on October 5, 1905, Wilbur piloted the
Flyer III for 39 minutes and about 24 miles of
Actual Flight of The Flyer at circles around Huffman Prairie. He flew the first
Kitty Hawk practical airplane until it ran out of gas.
Humankind was now able to fly! During the next century, many new airplanes and engines were
developed to help transport people, luggage, cargo, military personnel and weapons. The 20th
century's advances were all based on this first flights by the American Brothers from Ohio.

History of aircraft

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History of aircraft

Myths and Legends of Flight

Icarus and Daedalus - An Ancient Greek Legend

King Kaj Kaoos of Persia

Alexander the Great

Early Efforts of Flight

Hero and the Aeolipile

The ancient Greek engineer, Hero of Alexandria, worked with air

The Ornithopter flying machine was never actually

In 1783, the first passengers in the colorful balloon were a

After this first success, the brothers began to send men up in

1799 - 1850's - George Cayley

Over 50 years he made improvements to the gliders. He changed

1891 Otto Lilienthal

He was fascinated by the idea of flight. Based on his studies of

Lilienthal's Glider in Flight

Samuel Langley was an astronomer, who realized that power

Langley received a $50,000 grant to build a full sized

Model of Langley Aerodrome

1894 Octave Chanute

They designed and used a wind tunnel to test

The early engine that they designed generated

The "Flyer" lifted from level ground to the north of Big

The brothers returned to Dayton, Ohio, where they

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