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Airplanes invented!
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane. -
The First Auto-pilot!?
Lawrence Sperry demonstrates an automatic gyrostabilizer at Lake Keuka, Hammondsport, New York. A gyroscope linked to sensors keeps the craft level and traveling in a straight line without aid from the human pilot. Two years later Sperry and his inventor father, Elmer, add a steering gyroscope to the stabilizer gyro and demonstrate the first "automatic pilot." -
First Modern Commercial Airline
In February, Boeing introduces the 247, a twin-engine 10-passenger monoplane that is the first modern commercial airliner. It can carry passengers and cargo. -
First Practical Radar
British scientist Sir Robert Watson-Watt patents the first practical radar (for radio detection and ranging) system for meteorological applications. During World War II radar is successfully used in Great Britain to detect incoming aircraft and provide information to intercept bombers. -
Jet Engines
Jet engines designed independently by Britain’s Frank Whittle and Germany’s Hans von Ohain make their first test runs. (Seven years earlier, Whittle, a young Royal Air Force officer, filed a patent for a gas turbine engine to power an aircraft, but the Royal Air Ministry was not interested in developing the idea at the time.) Two years later, on August 27, the first jet aircraft, the Heinkel HE 178, takes off, powered by von Ohain’s HE S-3 engine. -
WW2 Spurs Innovation
The British develop airplane-detecting radar just in time for the Battle of Britain. At the same time the Germans develop radiowave navigation techniques. The both sides develop airborne radar, useful for attacking aircraft at night. German engineers produce the first practical jet fighter, the twin-engine ME 262, and the Boeing Company modifies its B-17 into the high-altitude Flying Fortress. In Britain the Instrument Landing System for landing in bad weather is put into use. -
Discovery of the area rule of aircraft design
Richard Whitcomb, an engineer at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, discovers and experimentally verifies an aircraft design concept known as the area rule. A revolutionary method of designing aircraft to reduce drag and increase speed without additional power, the area rule is incorporated into the development of almost every American supersonic aircraft. He later invents winglets, which increase the lift-to-drag ratio of transport airplanes and other vehicles. -
First aircraft produced through computer-aided design and engineering
Boeing debuts the twin-engine 777, the biggest two-engine jet ever to fly and the first aircraft produced through computer-aided design and engineering. Only a nose mockup was actually built before the vehicle was assembled—and the assembly was only 0.03 mm out of alignment when a wing was attached. -
Modern Planes
Modern planes with the help of a century of research are able to carry many passengers as well as cargo and pets/animals!
