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The Wright Brothers have lift off !
The Wright brothers, Orville and
Wilbur, commenced the first
successful flight of an object heavier
than air. It flew for 12 seconds and
covered 120 feet and again for
1 minute covering 852 feet ! -
Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot
Louis Bleriot became world famous for making the first flight across the English Channel in his Model XI 25 horsepower monoplane. -
The idea of air craft carriers
Eugene Ely investigated uses for aviation within the Navy. He decided to try landing and taking off from a ship which he did both successfully. This ignited the future use of air craft carriers. -
The automatic gyrostabilizer
Lawerence Sperry demonstrates the first automatic gryostablizer. Competing in the International Airplane Safety Competition, the crowd was astounded when Sperry let fo og the controls of the plane and stands up with his hands over his hands as the plane remained level. 2 years later Sperry improved the gryostabilizer by adding steering mechanism to create automatic pilot. -
The Birth of the Fighter Plane
French pilot Roland Garros took to the air in an airplane armed with a machine gun that fired through its propeller. Taking down 5 enemy planes, Garros was considered a National hero. However, 4 years later his secrete was revealed to the Germans and duplicated by Fokker. -
The First all Metal Plane
Hugo Junkers was a German engineer who designed the Junkers J 1. It was the first aircraft to use an all-metal skin. Improvements to the J 1 constructed an airframe entirely of Duraluminium. The Junkers J 1 was designed to attack enemy ground targets while remaining impervious to ground fire. The J 1 was created in response to World War 1. -
Airmail
Air Mail was formally established as a new class of service by the United States Post Office Department. The Washington-Philadelphia-New York route was the first. IT was three days faster by plane than by train. -
Lightweight Aircooled Radial Engines
Lightweight aircooled radial engines were invented allowing planes tobe bigger and faster. -
The Jet Engine
Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle are both recognized as being the co-inventors of the jet engine. Hans von Ohain is considered the designer of the first operational turbojet engine. Frank Whittle was the first to register a patent for the turbojet engine in 1930. -
The first passenger plane
The Boeing Model 247 is considered the first modern airliner. It could take ten passengers in its air conditioned comfort. -
Boeing 307
The Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner was the world's first high-altitude commercial transport and the first four-engine airliner in scheduled domestic service. It flew so high that it could fly above the weather and avoid rough winds. -
Heinkel HE178
The first fully jet powered plane by German engineers with Luftwaffe Captain Erich Warsitz at the controls. A major contributer is the engineer Pabst von Ohain. -
Breaking the sound barrier
The Bell X-1 became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound piloted by Captain 'Chuck' Yeager. -
The Area Rule
The 'area rule' also called the transonic area rule was discovered by Richard Whitcomb. It is a design technique used to reduce an aircraft's drag at transonic and supersonic speeds. -
X-15
The X-15 became the first winged aircraft to attain hypersonic velocities of Mach 4, 5, and 6 (four to six times the speed of sound) and to operate at altitudes well above 30,500 meters. The Aircraft was operated by NASA. -
Learjet
Learjet is the first company to manufacture a private, luxary arcraft. Developed by Bill Lear, the Learjet was the first corporate/private jet. It is the first small jet to me massed produced. -
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport aircraft. It is often reffered to as the 'jumbo jet'. The 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years at about 400 passengers. -
Voyager
The Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. Piloted by Dick Rutan, Voager landed after 9 days setting a flight endurance record. -
B-2 Spirit bomber
The B-2 Spirit first liyed on the 17th of July 1989. It primary function is as a muliti-hole heavy bomber and is a long range bomber so it uses less fuel. It was the most expensive plane ever made costing more than one billion to build. -
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is the world's largest passenger airliner. The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner.
101 has been built as of March 2013.
