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Hisotry of the Planes
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The Wrights next began to study aerodynamics and structures in preparation for building their first piloted glider. It was one thing to design a set of wings for a small kite, another to build a large, heavy glider, climb aboard, and launch yourself into the air. The brothers now began to consider such things as the wing area necessary to lift a pilot, and the type of materials needed to construct a glider.
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The poor lift performance of their 1900 glider made the Wright brothers question, but not abandon, the aerodynamic data and equations they had relied upon. To increase lift on their next glider, they simply increased the size of the wings and the curvature of the airfoil. They returned to Kitty Hawk in 1901 to test the new glider.The results were discouraging. Although more and longer free glides were made than in the previous year, the new glider performed worse than the 1900 craft.
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By December 1901, the Wright brothers had accumulated all the aerodynamic data they needed to build a successful flying machine. However, they did not immediately try to build a powered airplane. They could not be sure that data obtained from tiny model wings would translate to a full-size aircraft. And they still had to solve the mysterious control problems that surfaced during the 1901 glider trials, Rather than risk life and limb on a large, heavy, untried powered flying machine
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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.
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By the fall of 1905, the Wright brothers’ experimental period ended. With their third powered airplane, they now routinely made flights of several minutes. On October 5, Wilbur made a spectacular flight in which he circled the field 30 times in 39 minutes for a total distance of 24 1/2 miles.
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In 1909 Louis Bleriot invented the the first monoplane called Bleriot IX. Bleriot completed a 36.6km flight from Calais, France to Dover,UK, in 37 minutes.
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1914 was the year Lawrence Sperry demonstrates the automatic gyrostabilizer. This kept planes level and flying in a straight line. 2 years later he improved on the gyrostabilizer by adding steering mechanism to create automatic pilot.
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French pilot Roland Garros flew the first ever fighter plane. The plane was armed with a machine gun that shot through its propeller. While piloting the fighter plane took down 5 planes.
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In the year of 1917 Hugo Junkers built the first all metal plane. The metal was a lightweight aluminum alloy called duralumin.
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In 1925 the Lightwieght aircooled radial engines were invented and with them planes can be bigger and faster.
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The Learjet was the first small jet to be mass produced.
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The invention of the Concorde commenced in 1969. It was the first supersonic airliner with speeds that reached double the speed of sound!
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The voyager was the first plane to circumnavigate the globe nonstop in only 9 days, using one tank of fuel. The voyager used a carbon-composite material which makes it lighter.
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The B-2 Spirit was the most expensive plane ever made, it cost more than one Billion dollars to build. The B-2 Spirit was a long range bomber so it uses less fuel.
