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| In 1899 the Wright brothers constructed and launched a
series of gliders to test the manoeuvrability of a manned aircraft. Then
on December 17, 1903, powered flight was first achieved when over the
course of the day both Orville and Wilbur piloted successful flights,
the longest lasting 59 seconds and covering over 850 feet. Around the
same time the Frenchman, Louis Bleriot, was experimenting with powered
flight and in 1909 he won a £1,000 prize offered by a newspaper for the
first powered aircraft to make a crossing from France to England. The
first trans-Atlantic flight followed in 1927 when Charles Lindbergh made
the crossing from New York to Paris in the legendary 'Spirit of St.
Louis. |
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The First World War gave aviation technology a boost:
at the start France, for example, had only 140 aircraft, and only four
years later she had 4,500. In 1914 airplanes were regarded as useful
only for reconnaissance; by the end of the war Britain had the
Handley-Page bomber capable of carrying a 900 kg bomb load and Germany
had the Fokker D VII, widely considered the best fighter of the era. The
first operational jet fighter was the Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, but
Germany did not have it ready for use until 1944. One significant
development of the Second World War was the use of aircraft carriers,
especially in the war in the Pacific Ocean: at the start of the war
Japan had 10 carriers and America had 7. The Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, which brought America into the war, was carried out by fighters,
bombers and torpedo planes launched from six aircraft carriers. |
Experiments with supersonic flight were made during
World War 2, but the first plane recorded as flying faster than the
speed of sound was the American Bell X-1 rocket plane in 1947. Most
modern fighter aircraft are supersonic, but there are no supersonic
passenger airplanes in service since the retirement of the Anglo-French
Concorde in 2003.
The first scheduled service between the USA and Europe opened in 1939
with the Boeing 314 Flying Boat, and the first jet passenger service
across the Atlantic followed in 1958 when Pan American used the Boeing
707 on the New York to Paris run. The “jumbo jet” era started in 1970
with the Boeing 747, two and a half times the size of the 707, with its
recognisable two-deck hump shape. Later versions of the Boeing 747 jumbo
can carry 524 passengers. The first passenger airliner to be built of
composite materials with a view to reducing weight and fuel consumption
is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This wide-bodied, twin-engined jet carries
290 passengers with a range of over 15,000 km.
Air travel is now a huge industry, employing thousands of people as
flight crew, ground crew, air traffic controllers and passenger and
freight handlers. As well as passenger airlines and military aircraft,
there are countless private planes, and commercial and military
helicopters. One of the more recent developments in aviation warfare is
the use of unmanned “drones” to destroy enemy installations and kill
targeted people using rockets, without risking pilots. One of the
earliest forms of manned flight, the lighter-than-air balloon is still
popular for leisure flights and world record attempts, and un-powered
fixed wing gliding and paragliding are hobbies enjoyed by people all
over the world. Low-powered, low cost “micro-lights” have brought flying
within the budget of many ordinary people. Certainly aviation has come a
very long way from Ancient Greek attempts to imitate birds or early
Chinese manned-kite flights from the top of towers! And we haven’t even
mentioned space flight...... |
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