History of Aviation - The early years

The beginnings of aviation can be searched from the days when primitive man looked at the birds flying and desire to do the same. Since its beginning, mankind has sought to conquer the skies, and throughout its history has attempted to fly, but without much success until recently. Some of these attempts tried to mimic the biomechanics of the birds, using two wings made of wood and a skeleton with feathers. " These wings were placed on the arms and were not moved to get the desired result. In fact, the flight was achieved just over two centuries.

History of Aviation - Evolution

Over the years many attempts have been made, but only in the late eighteenth century was achieved some success when it began experimenting with balloons which being lighter than air, managed to rise. The problem was the lack of control during the flight, which improved when he started using blimps in the mid-nineteenth century.

By this time several inventors working with the idea of machines heavier than air as gliders allowing controlled and sustained flight. We began to explore the idea of machines such as airplanes, that would be powered by engines. The first models barely managed to take off and fly for short periods of time, however, progress is not slow in coming. The first successful flight of an airplane actually took place in December 1903 by the Wright brothers, but there is some controversy in this regard because some argue that it was the French who gave Albert Santos Dumont's first flight in September 1906.

The first attempts to fly even date back to over 2000 years in the past. For example in ancient Greece had an inventor named arches of Taranto, who built a wooden device shaped like a bird that, according to records, flew to 180 meters high. Used to lift an air-jet, although no one knows exactly what it was produced. The device was attached by ropes to control the direction of the apparatus, according to scholars was the first wit that could fly itself.

The Chinese, who were the greatest inventors of the present, created the comet (a type of plane), while creating volarlas techniques. There are records dating back to 559 years in which people flew through comet as it appeared to be practice for prisoners to use for testing.

History of Aviation - Leonardo Da Vinci first parachute was used in 852 by Ibn Abbas Firn, which use a tarp to minimize the fall when it launched a mosque in the city of Cordova, the experiment which survived despite serious wounds . Years later the same Firn Ibn Abbas launched on a hill using wooden wings covered with silk. Flew for several minutes although the landing was not as expected and crashed suffering injuries account.

Almost 200 years later, a monk called Eilmer of Malmesbury, using an apparatus similar to that of Ibn Abbas Firn, achieved a flight of about 200 meters, which was a great feat for the time.

However, it was the famous artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci one of the people who worked harder to study the length of the flight as much use of its effort to develop a flying machine. Among his inventions are gliders and helicopters comparable mechanisms employing many of the principles used by birds to fly by the wings to be moved up and down. Probably from a lack of appropriate technology at the time, Da Vinci was never able to build these machines, but their designs were preserved and some inspired inventors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries believed that Da Vinci to a pioneer ahead of his time in that aviation is concerned.

In recent times a group of scientists created a device based on a design by Leonardo Da Vinci which even used to fly, of course applying current knowledge of aerodynamics but it is considered the first design that comes close to what is really an airplane.

Modern Flight Apparatus lighter than air

Although many people think that the principles of flight dates back to 1903 with the first flight of an airplane, in fact the man had managed to fly some 200 years earlier.

The first flights recognized by human took place in Paris in 1783. Jean-Fran�ois Pilatre of Rozier and Francois Laurent d'Arlanda walked 5 miles (8 km) in a hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers. The globe was fueled by wood fire and was not steerable: that is to lift flight was simply carried away by the wind.

History of Aviation - Balloon AerostaticoLos balloons became a major fashion in Europe in the late eighteenth century, providing the first detailed understanding of the relationship between altitude and the atmosphere.

Work on the development of a dirigible balloon continued sporadically throughout the 1800s. The first flight of an aircraft lighter than air, which had its own power, which was completely controlled and sustained cree was held in 1852 when Henri Giffard flew 15 miles (24 km) on France, with an engine steam as a means of propulsion.

Dirigible balloons were used during the American Civil War by the armies of the Union for various purposes including the monitoring of the battlefield.

Another advance was made in 1884, when the first free flight was fully controlled by the French army by using an aircraft powered by electricity, known as La France and piloted by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs. The apparatus de170 feet (52 m) long and 66.000 cubic feet (1900 m3) of volume covered a distance 8 km (5 miles) in 23 minutes using an electric motor of 8.5 horsepower.

However, this aircraft had slight and was extremely fragile. In fact, not totally controlled flights would become a reality until the advent of the internal combustion engine

Despite this used aircraft of this type, both the First and the Second World War but its development was left almost into oblivion with the advent of aircraft heavier than air.

Apparatus heavier than air

The first published paper on aviation was "Treaty for a machine to fly in the air" by Emanuel Swedenborg in 1716. This flying machine consisted of a lightweight frame covered with strong canvas with two large oars or wings moving on a horizontal axis, arranged so that the top is not resistance while the bottom is responsible for providing buoyancy. Swedenborg knew that the machine probably will not fly, but suggested that it might be a good start and was confident that the problem would be solved. He said: It seems easier to talk about a machine capable of flying to build a lift capable of flight, because this requires a greater amount of force to which man is capable of generating, and less weight than that of a human body . Mechanical science may be able to help, as a strong spiral bar. If these requirements are met, may one day we will know better how to use this design and make the necessary improvements to try to meet what we now get hardly describe. We have sufficient evidence and examples in nature that tell us that it is possible to fly safely, but when you make the first attempts, you might have to pay for the lack of experience, with an arm or leg (broken).

Swedenborg would prove to be a visionary in his observation that an aircraft with its own propulsion system to fly through the air would be the future of aviation.

History of Aviation - Glider George CayleyDurante the last years of the eighteenth century, Sir George Cayley started the first rigorous study of the physics of flight. In 1799 outlined a plan for a glider, which except for their thoroughly modern platform was having a queue for the control and placed the pilot suspended below the center of gravity to provide stability. This model flew in mid-1804.

During the next five decades Cayley worked on the problem which led him to discover the most basic terms such as basic aerodynamic lift and drag. Even began to use both internal combustion engines and external, powered by gunpowder. But the scientist Alphonse Penaud is dedicated to improving the model by adding simple power engines with a rubber-based fuel. Later Cayley turned his research to the construction of a full-scale version of its design, being made an unmanned maiden flight in mid-1849. In 1853 his coachman made a short flight at Brompton, near Scarborough in Yorkshire.

n 1866 a Polish farmer, sculptor and carpenter by the name of Jan Wnek built and flew a glider controllable. Wnęk was illiterate and self-taught, and could only rely on their knowledge about nature based on the observation of birds in flight and on their own knowledge as a builder and carver. Jan Wnek used a glider design firmly tied to her chest and hips, and made control of his glider was done through movements of the arm that had strings unit which in turn were tied to the wings of the apparatus.

The church records indicate that Wnek Jan was launched from a special ramp at the top of the tower of the church Odporyszow.La tower was 45 m high and was located on top of a hill 50 m, ie , a jump of 95 meters (311 feet) high and located above the valley below. Wnek made several public flights, distances between 1866 - 1869, especially during religious festivals, carnivals and New Year celebrations. There are no known records of work and drawings Wnek, therefore, had no major impact on the progress of aviation. Recently, Professor Tadeusz Seweryn, director of the Ethnographic Museum of Krakow has found the church with descriptions of the records of the activities of Wnek.

In 1874, Felix du Temple built the monoplane, "a large aircraft aluminum in Brest, France, with a wingspan of 13 meters and weighs only 80 kilograms (without the pilot). Several trials were made with the plane, and is generally recognized that achievement off by themselves after making a jump on skis using a slope of a mountain. The aircraft flew for a short time and then return to earth and landed it safely, it is the first successful powered flight in history, but the flight only traveled a short distance for a short period of time.

Another person who contributed to the art of flying was Francis Herbert Wenham, who unsuccessfully tried to build a series of unmanned gliders. During his work found that most of the lifting force of a wing such as those used by birds is generated at the front, and concluded that the long slender wings, would be better than the bat-shaped wings suggested by many, they have more lift in relation to their weight. Today this is known as aspect ratio. He presented a paper on their findings to the newly formed Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866, and decided to try to build the first wind tunnel in the world in 1871. Some members of the Society used the tunnel and found that so warped the wings generate lift considerably more than expected by Cayley-Newtonian reasoning, with radii of about 5:1 climb to 15 degrees. This clearly demonstrates the ability to build practical flying machine heavier than air, what remained was the problem of controlling the flight and feeding apparatus.

Development of aviation Controlling flight

The 1880s became a period of intense study, which was characterized by the appearance of the "gentleman scientists" who represented the majority of research efforts until the beginning of the 20th century in the field of aviation. Since the 1880s progress was made in the building that led to the first truly practical gliders. Three people in particular were active in this field: Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher and Octave Chanut.

History of Aviation - Hang Gliding really the first truly modern gliders appear to have been built by John J. Montgomery, who flew in a controlled manner outside San Diego on August 28, 1883. It was not until many years later that their efforts were truly recognized. Another form of delta wing was designed and built by Wilhelm Kressy in 1877 near Vienna in Austria.

For his part, Otto Lilienthal of Germany duplicated Wenham's work and improved enough in the year 1874, and published his research in 1889. It also produced a series of ever-better gliders, and in 1891 was capable of flights of 25 meters or more foma routine. He rigorously documented his work, including photographs, and is thus one of the best known among the early pioneers of aviation. It also promoted the idea of "jumping before flying," which suggests that researchers should start with gliders for a while and work on these, rather than simply carry out the design of a machine made paper having just fed the hope that could fly. The type of aircraft design today is known as a hang glider.

At the time of his death in 1896 had made 2500 flights in a series of designs themselves, when a gust of wind broke the wing of his latest design, causing a fall from a height of about 56 feet (17 m ), fractured his spine. He died the next day, his last words being: "Small sacrifices must be made." Lilienthal had been working on small engines suitable for powering their designs shortly before his death.

Taking up the work left Lilienthal, Octave Chanut is involved in the design of aircraft after a anticipadado retirement fund the development of several gliders. In the summer of 1896 employees flew several of his designs on multiple occasions in Miller Beach, Indiana, to finally decide that the best option was a biplane design that looks surprisingly modern. Like Lilienthal, was dedicated to documenting much of his work using photography. He spent much of his time replying to fan correspondence related to his ideas throughout the world. Chanut was particularly interested in solving the problem of aerodynamic instability of the aircraft in flight, a bird that correct for the corrections at once, but one that humans have to deal with the stabilization and control surfaces (or move the center seriously, as did Lilienthal). The most disconcerting was the longitudinal instability (divergence), because as the angle of attack of a wing increases, the center of pressure moves forward so that the angle increases further. Without immediate correction, the aircraft would suffer the loss of height and loss of lift. Much harder to understand is the relationship of stability and control lateral / directional.

Top of propulsion systems

Throughout this period of the 1880s, a number of attempts were made to produce real power systems for aircraft. However, most of these efforts were doomed to failure, to be designed by amateurs who do not have a full understanding of the problems as if the aircraft had Lilienthal and Chanut.

In France, Cl�ment Ader successfully launched his plane proulsado steam Eole made a short flight of 50 meters near Paris in 1890, making it the first flight of "Long Distance" in history. After this test, the immediate task of designing a prototype larger, it takes five years to build. However, this design, the Avion III, but was able to abandon the field, suffered a failure by the lack of effective controls. The plane had managed to raise the ground a distance of 300 meters, rising to a small height for the end to lose control and crash.

In 1884, the monoplane aircraft designed by Alexander Mozhaysky became what is now regarded as the first flight made by a propulsion system which passed 20 to 30 meters near Krasnoye Selo, Russia.

Sir Hiram Maxim review a series of designs in England, eventually making the building of a monstrous machine of 7000 lbs (3175 kg) with a wingspan of 105 feet (32 m), powered by two advanced steam engine that gave low a power of 180 hp (134 kW) each. Maxim built this apparatus to study the basic problems of the construction and power systems so that the plane was no system of checks so he was aware that it would be dangerous to fly which I build a test track 1,800 ft ( 550 m) to perform tests safely.

After a series of tests followed the work without problems, July 31, 1894 began a series of tests to make adjustments to the power system. The first two were successful, with the aircraft "flying" on the rails. In the afternoon the crew activated the three boilers at full power, and after reaching over 42 mph (68 kph) about 600 feet (180 m) in the elevated track was too lost in the machine control and crashed after flying about 200 feet (60 m) high. The decline of his fortune left him unable to continue their work until the early 1900s, when it could test a number of smaller designs powered by gasoline.

Another early experimenter was unsuccessful Samuel Pierpont Langley. After a distinguished career in astronomy and shortly before becoming Secretary of the Institution, Langley started a serious investigation in the field of aerodynamics in what is now the University of Pittsburgh. Experiments published in 1891 detailing his research in aerodynamics, and then went to the construction of their designs.

On May 6, 1896, the airplane No. 5 Langley successfully conducted the first sustained flight of an unmanned aircraft and engine-driven heavier than air, and the model of a large aircraft for its time. It was launched using a catapult mounted on top of a houseboat in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia. Two flights were conducted in the afternoon, one of 1005 m (3300 feet) and a second 700 m (2300 ft) at a speed of approximately 25 miles per hour.

On November 28, 1896, another successful flight was made with the Aerodrome No. 6. This flight was witnessed and photographed by Alexander Graham Bell. It flew a distance of 1,460 meters (4,790 feet).

In the United Kingdom attempt to conduct a flight with a heavier-than-air was done by the aviation pioneer Percy Pilcher. Pilcher had built several functional gliders, The Bat, The Beatles, The Gull and The Hawk, which flew successfully over the years in late 1890. In 1899 he built a prototype aircraft, recent research has shown, it would have been able to fly. However, he died in an accident with a plane before he was able to prove it by what their plans were forgotten for many years.

Pioneers of Aviation: The brothers Writght

Following an approach one step at a time, then discovering the aerodynamic forces that control the flight, the Wright brothers built and tested a series of designs of kites and gliders from 1900 to 1902 before attempting to build a powered design. Planners worked well, but not as good as Wright had expected based on the experiments and writings of his predecessors of the nineteenth century.

Their first glider, built in 1900, achieved only half the planned ascent. Their second glider, built the following year, obtained worse results. Instead of giving up, the Wright built their own wind tunnel and created a series of sophisticated devices to measure lift and drag in the 200 test wing designs. As a result, Wright corrected previous errors in calculations regarding drag and promotion.

Their tests and calculations allowed a third glider design, with much better benefits than their predecessors. This time it was a design of 3-axis controlled aircraft which flew in 1902. Their performance was much better than the previous models. In the end, by establishing a rigorous system of design, wind tunnel tests of ailerons and flight testing of prototype size, the Wright not only constructed an airplane that actually worked, but also contributed to advancing the science of aeronautical engineering.

Wright seemed to be the first design team that is dedicated to studying and solving problems both with respect to systems of power and control. Both problems proved difficult, however, never lost interest. It solved the problem of control through the use of wings that are bent to control the running, combined with the simultaneous control of orientation of a steerable rear wheel.

Almost as an afterthought, they designed and built an internal combustion engine for low power Although the deformable wing was used only briefly during the history of aviation, when used with a wheel proved to be a key step to control an aircraft. While many aviation pioneers appeared to leave a lot of security in the lot, the designs of the Wrights brothers were heavily influenced by the need to make this fly without an unreasonable risk to life and physical integrity, to survive the accident. This emphasis, as well as the marginal power of the engine, was the reason for flying at low speed and thus had to take off with the wind in their favor.

According to the Smithsonian Institution and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), the Wright made their first sustained and controlled flight of a manned aircraft heavier than air at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, four miles (8 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903.

The first flight of Orville Wright, 120 feet (37 m) in 12 seconds, was recorded in a famous photograph that toured the world. In the fourth flight of the day, Wilbur Wright flew 852 feet (260 m) in 59 seconds. The flights were witnessed by three members of the crew of the Coast Guard Rescue, a local businessman, and a boy from the village, making the first real flights conducted with the public while the first flights fully documented.

Orville described the flight at the end of the day:

The first hundred feet were up and down, as before, but for the moment when the machine had traveled 300 feet and the control was much better. Over the next 400-500 feet, had little ripple. However, when it took over 800 feet traveled the machine began to rise again and one of his subsequent fall hits the ground. The distance was measured on the ground and was 852 feet (260 m), while the duration of the flight was 59 seconds. The framework supporting the front rudder is quite damaged, but the main part of the machinery was not affected at all. We believe that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two

They flew only about ten meters above the ground as a safety measure, and little room for maneuver that resulted in the complete four flights landing accidents due to unwanted changing winds.

The Wrights brothers continued flying Huffman Prairie, near Dayton, in 1904-05. After a serious accident on July 14, 1905, the Flyer was rebuilt and made significant design changes. Among these nearly doubled the size of the elevator and rudder and moved to approximately twice the distance from the wings. Besides adding two fixed vertical vanes (called "blinkers") between the elevators, which gave the wings a more lightly. Was disconnected from the rudder control deformation of the wings, as in all future aircraft, placed it on another system of control separately. When flights resumed, the improved results were immediate. The serious problems of instability that had the Flyers I and II were significantly reduced, so that minor accidents were eliminated and repeated.

The flights with the new Flyer III at the top lasted just over 10 minutes, then 20 and finally 30 minutes. The Flyer III became the first practical airplane (though he had no wheels and needed a device for launching), flying constantly with full control as the pilot and bringing back to the point of landing safely without damage. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (38.9 km) in 39 minutes and 23 seconds.

According to the magazine Scientific American April 1907 the Wright brothers seemed to have more advanced knowledge of his time with regard to air navigation apparatus heavier than air. But the magazine also said that had not been made any flights in the U.S. prior to the issuance of the magazine in April 1907. Therefore, directed the Scientific American Trophy Aeronautic encouraging the development of a flying machine heavier than air.

Pioneers of Aviation: Gustave Whitehead

On August 14, 1901, in Fairfield, Connecticut, Gustave Whitehead reportedly flew his engine-propelled aircraft number 21 a distance of 800 meters to 15 meters high, according to articles dee in the Bridgeport Herald, the Boston Herald and New York Transcript. No pictures were taken, but a drawing of the plane in the air was made by a reporter for the Bridgeport Herald, Dick Howell, who was present, in addition to Whitehead, aides and other witnesses.

This precedes the date of the flight of the Kitty Hawk plane of the Wright brothers in North Carolina for more than two years. Several witnesses were sworn and signed affidavits on many other flights during the summer of 1901 before the event as described above was published. For example:

In the summer of 1901 he flew the machine from Howard Avenue East to Wordin Avenue, flying along the edge of a property belonging to a gas plant. As Harworth recalls, after landing the flying machine simply turns and rises to give a "jump" back to Howard Avenue. (According to the maps this distance is 200 meters (600ft).)

Aeronautical Club of Boston and the manufacturer Horsman in New York hired Whitehead as a specialist in building hang gliders, model aircraft, kites and aircraft engines. Whitehead flew a short distance in his glider.

According to witnesses, Whitehead had flown about 1 km (half mile) in Pittsburgh in the year 1899. The flight ended in an accident while Whitehead attempted to avoid a collision with a three-storey building on a flying home, but Bug. After this accident, Whitehead was forbidden to any other experimental flight in Pittsburgh and moved to Bridgeport.

In January 1902, claimed to have flown 10 km (7 miles) on Long Island Sound in the best airplane Number 22.

In the 1930s, 15 witnesses were sworn and signed affidavits, most of them certified flight Whitehead on Long Island Sound. Two modern replicas of his Number 21 aircraft have flown successfully.