JT Aviation College, Kolkata
(Affiliated with MAKAUT, West Bengal)
3 Years BBA CBCS Structure
Semester - II
Paper Code: BBA(AM) – 201
Module: 1 Introduction to Aviation History
Chapter – 1
Beginning of Aviation in the World
Birds have been flying in the sky since the dawn of time. They have been flying
carefree, however it is only in recent times that man has learnt to fly with the help of
machines in what is known as the science and art of aviation.
The term aviation, noun of action from stem of Latin avis means "bird" with
suffix -ation meaning action or progress, was created in 1863 by French pioneer
Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de La Landelle.
Throughout history, countless records have demonstrated man’s
fascination with flight. They have been intrigued (curious) and inspired by the beauty
of birds and their ability to fly.
Birds first took to the air about 150 million years ago whereas, humans made
many attempts to achieve it and humans began to share airspace with birds only 100
years ago.
In the early days of flying the pilot was known as an aviator because he could fly
in a craft that was heavier than air. Today, one uses the term pilot to designate an
aviator.
While the first untethered human flight occurred in the late 1700s, ideas
and designs for man-carrying flight contraptions (machines/devices) can be
traced to as far back as 428 BC. Stories of people attempting to fly can be found
throughout various ancient cultures. Similar sto ries can be found in India, China
and Europe.
While the first untethered human flight occurred in the late 1700s, ideas
and designs for man-carrying flight contraptions (machines/devices) can be
traced to as far back as 428 BC.
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Daedalus flew successfully from Crete to Naples, but Icarus, tied 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. The story may have ended in tragedy, but it showed that men have always
wanted to fly.
As per Greek Legend - PegasusBellerophonthe Valiant, son of the King of Corinth,
captured Pegasus, a winged horse. Pegasus took him to a battle with the triple headed
monster, Chimera.
King Kaj Kaoos of Persia attached eagles to his throne and flew around his
kingdom.
Alexander the Great harnessed four mythical wings animals, called Griffins, to a
basket and flew around his realm.
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There are religious stories of chariots that fly through air and of winged angels.
Flying creatures that were half human and half beast appear in legends. Birds and
fantastic winged creatures pulled boats and other vehicles through air.
From the earliest legends there have been stories of men strapping bird like
wings or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a
tower.
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Stories of men strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks or other devices to
themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. During this early
period the issues of lift, stability and control were not understood, and most attempts
ended in serious injury or death.
The history of aviation extends for more than two thousand years, from the
earliest forms of aviation such as kites and attempts at tower jumping
to supersonic and hypersonic flight by powered, heavier-than-air jets.
Leonardo da Vinci:
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the world’s greatest inventors,
painters, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor and architect. He was also
admired for his technical imaginations, as he conceptualized flying machines, a type of
armoured fighting vehicle, etc. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the
world of manufacturing unannounced, such as an automated bobbin winder and a
machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He made substantial discoveries in
anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics and tribology but he did not
publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.
Famous Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci developed the
early drafts for a rational aircraft. Among his inventions were the parachute and
the aerial screw. Although his work remained unknown until 1797 and so had no
influence on developments over the next three hundred years. While his designs are
rational, they are not scientific,and particularly underestimate the amount of power that
would be needed.
Leonardo studied bird and bat flight and claimed the superiority of the latter
owing to its unperforated wing. He analysed these and anticipating many principles of
aerodynamics. Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight for much of his
life, producing many studies, including Codex on the Flight of Birds as well as plans for
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several flying machines, such as a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a
helical rotor.
A design for a flying machine (c. 1488), An aerial screw (c. 1489), suggestive
first presented in the Codex on the Flight of a helicopter, from the Codex
of Birds. Atlanticus.
Leonardo also understood that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as
the air does to the object." Isaac Newton would not publish his third law of motion until
1687.
Abbas ibn Firnas:
Abbas ibn Firnas was influenced by Armen Firman, who in 852 had attempted to
fly by jumping off a minaret (tower) of the grand mosque in Qurtuba, wearing a
contraption (device) fabricated out of a wooden frame and silk. The contraption
reduced his fall and Armen got away with minor injuries from what may be referred to
as the world’s first parachute attempt.
Abbas ibn Firnas witnessed the jump and went on to make a scientific study of
the shortcomings of Armen’s flight path andtwenty threeyear later in 875, he made his
own flying machine out of a bamboo frame covered with silk cloth that had actual eagle
feathers sewed to it.
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As per witnesses, he accomplished a flight of almost 10 minutes by flapping his
wings up and down. Unfortunately, he had not worked out his landing and hit the
ground with force leading to serious injuries to his [Link] lived another 12 years after
this flight and continued his studies in avionics. Though he did not make another
attempt to fly, he studied the shortcomings of his landing and came to the conclusion
that besides wings there is a necessity of having a tail to act a rudder to control flight.
Statue of Ibn Firnas is existing at Baghdad International Airport and Baghdad is
also named after Abbas Ibn Firnas. The ‘Ibn Firnas Airport’.
One of the bridges on Guadalquivir river in Córdoba was also named after him.
The Libyans even have issued a postage stamp to honour him.
Eilmer of Malmesbury:
Eilmer was an English monk, born around 980. He is known for having
attempted one of the first human flights in history.
When Eilmer was young, he believed the Greek myth of Daedalus and studied the
contributions of the Islamic Golden Age, including Abbas ibn Firnas's flight.
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Eilmer fixed wings to his hands and feet and launched himself from the top of a
tower at Malmesbury Abbey. He went up a church tower with his gliding equipment
that he had made from willow tree or ash and made a downward flight of some 200
meters or so from at least 18 meters high and airborne for about 15 seconds
The reason Eilmer made his flight was that he needed to think of a way out
whenever the Vikings (Scandinavian seafaring pirates and traders who raided and
settled in many parts of north-western Europe in the 8th–11th centuries.) would attack
the abbey.
Marco Polo:
Marco Polo visited China in the 13thcentury and brought stories of human
carrying kites. The kites soar in the sky by wind power but tethered to the ground.
Stories also talked about Flying tops.
“Pao Phu Tau” was a 4th century Chinese book containing ideas related to
rotatory wing [Link] use of a rotor for vertical flight has existed since 400 BC in
the form of the bamboo-copter, an ancient Chinese toy. The similar "moulinet à noix"
(rotor on a nut) appeared in Europe in the 14th century AD.
Bamboo -copter
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Kite
Kite was the first form of manmade aircraft, invented by Moza and Lu Ban in the
15th
century.
Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China,
for both civil and military purposes and sometimes enforced as a punishment. An early
recorded flight was that of the prisoner Yuan Huangtou, a Chinese prince, in the 6th
century AD.
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Stories of man-carrying kites also occur in Japan, following the introduction of
the kite from China around the seventh century AD. It is said that at one time there was
a Japanese law against man-carrying kites.
From ancient times the Chinese have understood that hot air rises and they
applied this principle to a type of small hot air balloon called a sky lantern. A sky lantern
consists of a paper balloon under or just inside which a small lamp is placed.
The Kongming Lantern
(proto hot air balloon)
was invented around
the 2nd or 3rd Century
BC.
Sky lanterns are traditionally launched for pleasure and during festivals. Such
lanterns were known in China from the 3rd century BC. Chinese militaryalso used it to
scare the enemy [Link] is evidence that the Chinese also "solved the problem of
aerial navigation" using balloons, hundreds of years before the 18th century.
Francesco Lana de Terzi
Francesco Lana de Terzi was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician, naturalist
and aeronautics pioneer. He first sketched the concept for a vacuum [Link]
1670, Terzi published a work that suggested possibility of lighter than air flight with
copper foil spheres thatcontaining a vacuum assuming that it would be lighter than the
displaced air to lift an airship.
Francesco Lana de Terzi has been referred to as the Father of Aeronautics for
his pioneering efforts, turning the aeronautics field into a science by establishing "a
theory of aerial navigation verified by mathematical accuracy". He also developed the
idea that developed into Braille.
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Francesco Lana de Terzi
While theoretically sound, his design wasfound not feasible as the pressure
of the surrounding air would crush the spheres.
Bartolomeu de Gusmão:
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 contents of this petition have been preserved, together with a picture
and description of his airship.
Gusmão on 8 August 1709, in the hall of the Casa da India in Lisbon, propelled a
ball to the roof by [Link]ão designs included a ship to sail in the
air consisting of a triangular gas-filled pyramid, but he died without making progress
Lagari Hasan Celebi:
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In the 17thcentury a Turkish scientist, Lagari Hasan Celebi launched himself in
the air in a rocket. The flight accomplished as a part of celebrations performed for the
birth of Ottoman Emperor Murat IV’s daughter.
It is believed that that Lagari made a soft landing in the Bosporus and was
rewarded by Sultan with a valuable military position in the Ottoman army. The flight
had lasted for about 20 seconds and reached up 300 m.
Discovery of Hydrogen gas & works of Montgolfier brothers:
The discovery of hydrogen gas in the 18th century led to the invention of
the hydrogen balloon. At almost exactly the same time that the Montgolfier
brothers rediscovered the hot-air balloon and began manned flights.
The first public demonstration of a balloon by the Montgolfier brothers took
place in June 1783. This was followed by an untethered flight of a sheep, a cockerel and
a duck from the front courtyard of the Palace of Versailles on 19 September.
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This balloon was powered by wood fire and was not steerable, therefore flew
wherever the wind took it.1783 was a watershed (turning point) year for ballooning
and aviation. Between 4 June and 1 December, five aviation firsts were achieved in
France.
Lithographic depiction of pioneering events (1783 to 1846).
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.
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.
In the early 1900s, ballooning was a popular sport in Britain. These privately
owned balloons usually used coal gas as the lifting gas. This has half the lifting power of
hydrogen so the balloons had to be larger, however, coal gas was far more readily
available and the local gas works sometimes provided a special lightweight formula for
ballooning [Link] on developing a steerable balloon continued sporadically.
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Airships:
Airships were originally called "dirigible balloons" and are still sometimes called
dirigibles today. Work on developing a steerable (or dirigible) balloon continued
sporadically throughout the 19th century.
Henri Giffard:
The first powered, controlled, sustained lighter-than-air flight believed to have
taken place in 1852 when Henri Giffard steerable airship (vertical rudder) and filled
with, the hydrogen flew 15 miles in France, with a steam engine driven craft. It was
equipped with a 3 hp steam engine that drove a propeller.
Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector and the Giffard
dirigible, an airship powered with a steam engine and weighing over 180 kg (400 lb). It
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was the world's first passenger-carrying airship then known as a dirigible.
(airship/Zeppelin/blimp)
The La France:
Notable advancement was made in 1884, when the first fully controllable free-
flight was made. The La France was a French Army non-rigid airship launched
by Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs on August 9, 1884.
Charles Renard Arthur Constantin
Collaborating with Charles Renard, Arthur Constantin Krebs piloted the first
fully controlled free-flight with the La [Link] 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.
The La France
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,
It was the first full round-tripflight with a landing on the starting point. On its
seven flights in 1884 and 1885 the La France dirigible returned five times to its starting
point. These aircraft were extremely frail and generally short-lived.
These air ships were used in both world war I & II and continue on a limited
basis. Zeppelin aeroplanes were used by German for passenger [Link]
development has been largely overshadowed by heavier-than-air craft.
The first aircraft to make routine controlled flights were non-rigid airships .The
most successful early pioneering pilot of this type of aircraft was the Brazilian Alberto
Santos-Dumont who effectively combined a balloon with an internal combustion
engine.
On 19 October 1901, he flew his airship Number 6 over Paris from the Parc de
Saint Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and back in under 30 minutes to win the Deutsch de
la Meurthe prize.
Santos-Dumont's "Number 6" rounding the Eiffel Tower in the process of winning the
Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, October 1901.
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These aircraft were generally short-lived and extremely frail. Routine, controlled
flights would not occur until the beginning of the internal combustion engine.
Emanuel Swedenborg:
Emanuel Swedenborg published a paper on aviation “Sketch of a Machine for
flying in the air “. He sketched a FlyingMachine in his notebook showing that the
operator would sit in the middle and paddle himself through the air.
The flying machine consisted of a light frame covered with strong canvas and
provided with two large oars or wings moving on a horizontal axis, arranged so that the
upstroke met with no resistance while the down stroke provided lifting
[Link] knew that this machine would not fly, but suggested it as a start and
was confident that the problem would be solved.
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.
Sir George Cayley:
Sir George Cayley, was an English engineer, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the
most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first
true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying
principles and forces of flight.
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In 1799, he set forth the concept of the modern aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying
machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. He was a pioneer
of aeronautical engineering and is sometimes referred to as "the father of aviation”. He
discovered and identified the four forces which act on a heavier-than-airflying vehicle -
weight, lift, drag and thrust. Modern aeroplane design is based on those discoveries and
on the importance of cambered wings, also identified by Cayley.
Replica of Cayley's glider at the Yorkshire
Air Museum
Cayley constructed the first flying model aeroplane and also diagrammed the
elements of vertical flight. He also designed the first glider reliably reported to carry a
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human in the air. He correctly predicted that sustained flight would not occur until a
lightweight engine was developed to provide adequate thrust and lift.
The Wright brothers acknowledged his importance to the development of aviation.
Drawing directly from Cayley's work, Henson's 1842 design for an aerial steam
carriage broke new ground. Although only a design, it was the first in history for a
propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft.
The Henson Aerial Steam Carriage of 1843 (imaginary representation for an
advertisement)
John Stringfellow :
In 1848, Stringfellow achieved the first powered flight using an unmanned 10
feet (3.0 m) wingspan steam-powered monoplane built in a disused lace factory in
Chard, Somerset.
Employing two contra-rotating propellers on the first attempt, made indoors,
the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft. The second
attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guidewire to fly freely, achieving
thirty yards of straight and level powered flight.
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Francis Herbert Wenham:
Francis Herbert Wenham presented the first paper to the newly formed
Aeronautical Society (later the Royal Aeronautical Society), on Aerial Locomotion. He
advanced Cayley's work on cambered wings, making important findings. To test his
ideas, he had constructed several gliders, both manned and unmanned, and with up to
five stacked wings.
He realised that long, thin wings are better than bat-like ones because they have
more leading edge for their area. Today this relationship is known as the aspect ratio of
a wing.
Matthew Piers Watt Boulton:
Matthew Piers Watt Boultonwas the British scientist-philosopher and inventor,
who studied lateral flight control and was the first to patent an aileron control system in
1868.
Félix du Temple:
In 1857, Félix du Temple proposed a monoplane with a tail plane and retractable
undercarriage and he eventually achieved a short hop with a full-size manned craft in
1874.
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Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane.
The aircraft achieved lift-off under its own power after launching from a ramp. It
glided for a short time and returned safely to the ground, making it the first successful
powered glide in history.
Le Bris
A sailor and sea captain, Le Bris sailed around the world but his true ambition
was to fly. He caught some of the birds and analysed the interaction of their wings with
air, identifying the aerodynamic phenomenonof lift, which he called "aspiration".
In 1856 he flew briefly on the beach, the aircraft being placed on a cart towed by
a horse. He flew higher than his point of departure, a first for heavier-than-air flying
machines, reportedly to a height of 100 m (330 ft), for a distance of 200 m (660 ft).
In 1868, with the support of the French Navy, he built a second flying machine,
which he tried in Brest (Chief naval station of France) without great success. His flying
machine became the first ever to be photographed.
Although the first well-documented glider was built by George Cayley and flown
by an employee in 1853 ,in Great Britain, Stringfellow had built small unmanned gliders
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in 1848. However Le Bris invented more effective flight controls, which could act on
the incidence of wings and which were patented in March 1857.
Clément Ader :
In 1890, the French engineer Clément Ader completed the first of three steam-
driven flying machines, the Éole. On 9 October 1890, Ader made an uncontrolled hop of
around 50 metres (160 ft), this was the first manned airplane to take off under its own
[Link] Avion III of 1897, notable only for having twin steam engines, failed to
fly. Ader would later claim success and was not exposed until 1910 when the French
Army published its report on his attempt.
Clément Ader Avion III
Maxim's flying machine
(1897 photograph).
Hiram Maxim:
Sir Hiram Maxim was an American engineer who had moved to England and built
his own whirling arm rig and wind tunnel and constructed a large machine with a
wingspan of 105 feet (32 m), a length of 145 feet (44 m), fore and aft horizontal surfaces
and a crew of three.
Twin propellers were powered by two lightweight compound steam
engines each delivering 180 hp (130 kW). The overall weight was 8,000 pounds
(3,600 kg).
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It became airborne for about 200 yards at two to three feet of altitude and was
badly damaged upon falling back to the ground. It was subsequently repaired, but
Maxim abandoned his experiments shortly afterwards.
Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal was known as the "Glider King" or "Flying Man" of Germany.
He produced a series of hang gliders, including bat-wing, monoplane and biplane
forms, such as the Derwitzer Glider and Normal soaring apparatus.
Otto Lilienthal Derwitzer Glider in flight with Lilienthal as
pilot, 1891
Lilienthal became the first person to make controlled untethered glides and the
first to be photographed flying a heavier-than-air machine. He rigorously documented
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his work, including photographs, and for this reason is one of the best known of the
early pioneers. Lilienthal made over 2,000 glides until his death in 1896 from injuries
sustained in a glider crash.
Octave Chanute:
Picking up where Lilienthal left off, Octave Chanute took up aircraft design after
an early retirement, and funded the development of several gliders. In the summer of
1896, his team flew several of their designs eventually deciding that the best was a
biplane design. Like Lilienthal, he documented and photographed his work.
Chanute and his 1896 biplane hang glider, a trailblazing design adapted by the Wright
brothers
Box Kite:
The invention of the box kite by the Australian Lawrence Hargrave lead to the
development of the practical biplane. Hargrave and Swain demonstrate the
Hargrave box kite, November 1894. The skin is drum-tight, a consequence of the
unique tensioning system devised by Hargrave.
Man-lifter War Kite designed by Cody
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In 1894, Hargrave linked four of his kites together, added a sling seat, and was
the first to obtain lift with a heavier than air aircraft, when he flew up 16 feet (4.9 m).
Aerodrome No 5:
On 6 May 1896, Langley's Aerodrome No. 5 made the first successful sustained
flight of an unpiloted, engine-driven heavier-than-air craft of substantial size. It was
launched from a spring-actuated catapult mounted on top of a houseboat on the
Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia.
Two flights were made that afternoon, one of 1,005 metres (3,297 ft) and a
second of 700 metres (2,300 ft), at a speed of approximately 25 miles per hour
(40 km/h). On both occasions, the Aerodrome No. 5 landed in the water as planned,
because, in order to save weight, it was not equipped with landing gear.
On 28 November 1896, another successful flight was made with the Aerodrome
No. 6. This flight, of 1,460 metres (4,790 ft), was witnessed and photographed
by Alexander Graham Bell.
Traian Vuia:
Short powered flights were performed in France by Romanian engineer Traian
Vuia on 18 March and 19 August 1906 when he flew 12 and 24 meters, respectively, in a
self-designed, fully self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft, that possessed a fully wheeled
undercarriage. He was followed by Jacob Ellehammer who built a monoplane which he
tested with a tether in Denmark on 12 September 1906, flying 42 meters.
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Traian Vuia in his Vuia I flying machine in 1914 photo of Ellehammer's coaxial
1906 helicopter hovering
Alberto Santos-Dumon:
On 13 September 1906, three years after the Wright Brothers' flight, the
Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made a public flight in Paris with the 14-bis, also
known as Oiseau de proie (French for "bird of prey"). This was of canard
configuration with pronounced wing dihedral, and covered a distance of 60 m
(200 ft) in Paris before a large crowd.
This well-documented event was the first flight verified by the Aéro-Club de
France of a powered heavier-than-air machine in Europe and won the Deutsch-
Archdeacon Prize for the first officially observed flight greater than 25 m (82 ft).
On 12 November 1906, Santos-Dumont set the first world record recognized by
the Federation Aeronautique Internationale by flying 220 m (720 ft) in
21.5 seconds. Only one more brief flight was made by the 14-bis in March 1907, after
which it was abandoned.
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Henry Farman (left) with Gabriel Farman making the first cross-country flight
Voisin, 1908 accomplished with an aeroplane
In March 1907, Gabriel Voisin flew the first example of his Voisin biplane. On 13
January 1908, a second example of the type was flown by Henri Farman to win the
Deutsch-Archdeacon Grand Prix d'Aviation prize for a flight in which the aircraft flew a
distance of more than a km. and landed at the point where it had taken off. The flight
lasted for 1 minute and 28 seconds.
Flight as an established technology:
Santos-Dumont later added ailerons, between the wings in an effort to gain more
lateral stability. His final design, first flown in 1907, was the series
of Demoiselle monoplanes (Nos. 19 to 22).
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The Demoiselle No 19 could be constructed in only 15 days and became the
world's first series production aircraft. The Demoiselle achieved 120 km/h. The
following year saw the widespread recognition of powered flight as something other
than the preserve of dreamers and eccentrics.
On 25 July, Louis Blériot won worldwide fame by winning a £1,000 prize
offered by the British Daily Mail newspaper for a flight across the English Channel.
Rotorcraft
In 1877, Enrico Forlanini developed an unmanned helicopter powered by a
steam engine. It rose to a height of 13 meters, where it remained for 20 seconds, after a
vertical take-off from a park in Milan.
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The first time a manned helicopter is known to have risen off the ground was on
a tethered flight in 1907 by the Breguet-Richet Gyroplane.
Bréguet-Richet Gyroplane No.1, 1907. Cornu helicopter
Later the same year the Cornu helicopter, also a French, made the first rotary-
winged free flight at Lisenux, France. However, these were not practical designs.
Military use:
Almost as soon as airplanes were invented, they were used for military
[Link] first country to use airplanes for military purposes was Italy, whose
aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery improvement flights in Libya
during the Italian-Turkish war (September 1911 – October 1912). The first mission (a
reconnaissance) occurred on 23 October 1911. The first bombing mission was flown on
1 November 1911.
Nieuport IV, operated by most of the world's air forces before WW I for
reconnaissance and bombing, including during the Italian-Turkish war
Then Bulgaria followed this and its airplanes attacked and reconnoitred
the Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War 1912–13. The first war to see major
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use of airplanes in offensive, defensive and reconnaissance capabilities was World War
I. The Allies and Central Powers both used airplanes and airships extensively.
All of the major forces in Europe had light aircraft, typically derived from pre-
war sporting designs, attached to their reconnaissance
[Link] were also being explored on airplanes, notably the SCR-
68(Set complete Radio) as communication between pilots and ground commander grew
more and more important.
****
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