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Jun 14, 1485
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. -
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 stability. He tried a biplane design to add strength to the glider. He also r -
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.
After more than 2500 flights, -
1891 Otto Lilienthal pt.2
he was killed when he lost control because of a sudden strong wind and crashed into the ground. 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. -
Orville and Wilbur Wright and the First Airplane pt.2
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.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. -
Orville and Wilbur Wright and the First Airplane pt.3
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 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.
