Key Events in Aviation and Aerospace History

Aviation has helped shaped the world into what we know it as today including ancient myths and legends dealing with flight, the infamous “Wright Flyer”, and the impact jet engines have to the future of aviation.

All throughout history and culture, the idea of flying has fascinated man since the beginning of time. From paper kites to a possible trip to Mars, humans have had this attraction for the sky for as long as we can remember. It is no doubt that aviation has changed the fate of humans.

There are many examples of mythology involving flight. We see it in paintings of gods in the clouds and men with wings. Ancient Greek mythology also tells great tales of flight. These stories are a great example of how humans have been fixated by the idea of flight since the beginning of recorded time. The International Civil Aviation Organization website tells the story of one familiar Greek story of flight of the great engineer Daedalus and his son Icarus. Daedalus constructed wings of wax and feathers in order to escape imprisonment and warns his son to not fly too high to keep the wax from melting from the sun. Icarus follows his father’s advice for a while, but eventually gets self-confident and flies too high causing the wax to melt and forces him to his death. Folklores like this one have kept humans inspired to reach for the skies since ancient Greece and up to the present day. They played an important part in man’s ability to take over the air. It gave humans the ability to escape the troubles of earth, be free as a bird and be closer to the gods. Ultimately, they served as an inspiration to fly in the decades to come.

Early efforts that explore the idea of flight also includes the discovery of kites in 400 B.C. China. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website in an article titled “History of Flight”, the first kites were used for religious ceremonies and eventually used by the military in order to intimidate the enemy and drop propaganda behind enemy walls. Today, we recognize the invention of the kite as the forerunner for gliders and balloons.

Later in history, in 1485, Leonardo da Vinci came up with the design for his flying machine, the Ornithopter. The machine was never actually created, but its design helped the concept of the modern-day helicopter. Da Vinci is credited to believe that propulsion was needed for sustained flight. Without this concept, who knows where aviation would be in this day and age?

In 1783, Joseph and Montgolfier gave the world its first hot air balloon. They demonstrated that lighter than air flight was indeed possible and solved the problem of lift. At this point, humans still needed to be able to control speed and direction. That is when the famous day of December 17, 1903, solved that problem. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two brothers, Orville, and Wilbur Wright became American inventors and pioneers of aviation by achieving the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight. Two years later they built and flew the first fully practical airplane.

The brothers opened their little bicycle shop in 1892 where they fixed and sold their own design of the bicycle. Aside from an interest in bicycles, Orville and Wilbur Wright spent their time on different mechanical projects and kept up with scientific research. They had a special interest in Otto Lilienthal who was a German aviator and decided to start their own flight experiments when he died in a glider accident. They chose Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for its known strong winds and started their work.

Their observations of how birds angled their wings to control their flight led them to develop a concept of “wing warping”. They added this concept with a movable rudder and created the first controlled flight which lasted for 59 seconds at 852 feet. This unimaginable feat of figuring out controlled flight helped propel aviation to the advances in technology that we almost take for granted today.

The next great invention in aviation history could arguably be the jet engine. Its creator, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, debuted the experimental jet-powered plane in Germany 1939. This came right in time to give Germany the title of the firsts to use jet-powered planes in World War II. Later, in 1949, the De Havilland Comet made its first test flight in England, making it the first jet-propelled airliner. This great invention forever changed the aviation industry, making it possible to shrink air travel time in half by making planes climb faster and fly higher.

The desire to conquer the skies have been with humans ever since we can even imagine. The fables that ancient Greek Mythology has given us has been inspiring human to reach new heights and made it possible for great inventors to mold aviation into what it is today. Orville and Wilbur Wright gave us the capability to expand our possibilities of flight by making it controllable. Jet engines made the sustainable flight last longer and fly higher. These three events in history made aviation what it is today; an industry that will continue to grow and evolve as more great feats are mastered.

References

About Natalia

Natalia Welton-Torres grew up in Columbus, Ohio and studied Aviation Management at Kent State University. Natalia is interested in all things aviation-related, animal-related, and can always be found with a coffee in hand.

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