Aviation
Kathryn Hopper
Background
Flight has been imagined since as far back as 2000 B.C. in ancient China. Examples of such flight include myths of levitation and the invention of the kite. Later, in Greek and Roman legends there are examples of flying animals such as griffins and the Pegasus. The tale of Icarus, in which he uses wings made of bird feathers held together by wax, is also popular.[1]
First attempts of human flight date to about 800 A.D. with primitive parachutes and wing flapping. Various wing designs were made including those that resembled bat wings. Winged gliders and ornithopters were also sketched and imagined. A popular style of ornithopter was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci.[2]
In June 1783 the Montgolfier brothers had their first successful hot-air balloon flight using heated air, and on December 1, 1783 Charles Montgolfier manned the first flight in a hydrogen balloon that lasted 2 hours and that flew a total of 27 miles. Hot-air balloons were also used in reconnaissance missions during the French Revolution, and later during the American Civil War professional aeronauts were trained to fly balloons. In the 1870s balloons such as the Great Zeppelin began to have internal combustion engines to allow for better steering and speed.[3]
Turning Point
On December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Wilbur and Orville Wright sustained flight for 59 seconds covering a distance of 852 feet in the first airplane.[4] Wilbur and Orville had been curious in finding out what made things work since they were boys. When their father brought home a small model helicopter powered by a rubber band that could propel itself upwards they became interested in aviationwhich led to their initial research in human flight.[5] Before the successful flight in 1903, Wilbur and Orville had made and tested many different airplane models to determine the properties needed for a successful flight. Measurements of the 1901 glider,which was either empty or loaded with a bag of sand, were made to determine lift and drift of the glider.[6] These experiments in 1901 “were rather discouraging to us [Wilbur and Orville] because we [they] felt that they had demonstrated that some of the most firmly established laws, those regarding the travel of the center of pressure and pressures on airplane surfaces, were mostly, if not entirely, incorrect.”[7]
However, the flights of 1902 “demonstrated the efficiency of our [the Wrights’] system of control for both longitudinal and lateral stability.”[8] The next year Orville and Wilbur had the first successful “flights ever made in a powered, heavier-than-air machine” that “dramatized the start of a revolution.”[9] Orville that day said the flight itself was “very modest compared with that of birds but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.”[10]
Effect
On February 10, 1908 the Wright brothers and the United States government signed a contract for the Wright brothers to build a “flying machine” to certain specifications, and on August 20, 1908 the Wright army plane was delivered to Fort Myer, Virginia. In this army plane the Wright brothers had perfected the maneuvers needed to have a sustained flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes.[11] On June 21, 1908 Glen Curtiss had a similar success story of sustained flight in the June Bug which was the first public airplane to fly one kilometer. Curtiss was also the first person to build a practical plane with pontoons.[12]
The first trained pilots were for World War I and all major nations by then had formed military aviation.[13] By the end of World War I there were an estimated 200,000 planes worldwide.[14] Airplanes were initially used for observance and reconnaissance missions but later grew toward air-to-air combat with machine guns that fired through the propeller. Zeppelins were also used for observation and bombing raids. Flight was not an extremely important weapon during the war, though, because the aircraft and engine design were still primitive.However, the possibilities of using planes in battle did not go unnoticed.[15]
Once World War I ended the United States Navy made the first attempt at a transatlantic flight in four stages; the first was from Rockaway, New York to Trepassey, Newfoundland, from there to the Azores, then to Lisbon, Portugal and finally to Plymouth, England. Of the four Curtiss flying boats that left from New York, one of them made the entire trip. Two weeks later on June 15, 1919 the first non-stop transatlantic flight was accomplished by Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whiten Brown.[16]
As the 1920s began, aeronautic world tours were scheduled and new records were set regularly. In 1918 the United States Air Mail Service was created, which transported mail a full day faster, and Army Air Service airplanes were used in forest-fire control and border patrol.[17] In 1919, the French and British used modified military bombers as passenger carriers transporting people between London and Paris. By 1926, European airline companies had carried over 100,000 passengers. Public air travel in the United States had a slower start due to the lack of reliable warplanes, and the apathy toward airplanes by the public caused businessmen to believe that the air industry was a poor investment. Due to the passing of a Congressional Act in 1925, businessmen now had an incentive to create airlines, and by 1929, 44 scheduled airlines had been created eventually merging into major transcontinental airways such as Transcontinental and Western Air, United Airlines, and American Airways.[18] By the early 1930s most new aircrafts “employed a welded steel-tube fuselage and wooden wing structure and incorporated a fabric covering over the entire structure.” This allowed for the pilot and any passengers to be protected from the elements while flying.[19]
World War II was the first war where airplanes were a major factor. After the dropping of the two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, airplanes were for the first time considered weapons of mass destruction.[20] Planes could not only be used to drop bombs but were also used to carry rapid-fire guns, radar, rockets, napalm, and other incendiaries.[21] After the end of World War II, the United States military organization was re-examined based on the experiences during the war. The National Security Act of 1947 “reorganized and modernized the US armed forces, foreign policy, and the Intelligence Community apparatus. It directed a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the US government”.[22]
In the 1950s and 1960s commercial aviation expanded greatly over a short time. By the 1960s air travel in the United States became hectic and airports were too small to accommodate all of the air travel. In the early 1970s the jumbo jet had been created which helped to accommodate the availability of air travel, but the airports had to grow in size so quickly that the structures became chaotic and disorganized. As air travel increased, midair collisions, laxity in the cockpit, and poor maintenance also increased. Not only did flying become more dangerous due to the lack of regulation in air travel but because of airline hijackings. Due to increasing numbers of these hijackings, in 1973 the United States passed anti-hijacking laws and airports began changing their structural layout by adding concrete walls, large room dividers, blockades and sealed exits to enforce protection. For the first time since the invention of the airplane measures were being taken to protect the public not from the airplanes themselves but from those who could sabotage the airplanes.[23]
[1]Naomi L. Mitchell and Patricia Q. Roberson.Aerospace Science: Frontiers of Aviation History. 1997: 1-4.
[2] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-7.
[3] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-27
[4] J.R.K. Main. Voyageurs of the Air: A History of Civil Aviation in Canada, 1858-1967. 1967:5.
[5]Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright.The Papers of /Wilbur and Orville Wright.1953: 4.
[6] Orville Wright. How We Invented the Airplane. 1953: 38-39.
[7] Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane: 42.
[8] Orville Wright. How We Invented the Airplane: 51.
.[9] Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane: 3.
[10] James Tobin. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. 2012.
[11]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-8.
[12]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science.
[13]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-15.
[14]Judith S. Baughman. "The Airplane".American Decades.Web.27 Feb. 2013.
[15]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-9.
[16]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-26.
[17]"Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies.2010. Credo Reference. Web. 31 March 2013.
[18]Naomi L. Mitchell.Aerospace Science: 2-42
[19] “Quest for Performance: The Evolution of the Modern Airplane” Monoplanes and Biplanes; http://history.nasa.gov/[20]“Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies.
[21] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-81.
[22]“A Look Back … The National Security Act of 1947” The Central Intelligence Agency. www.cia.gov/.
[23] Alistair Gordon, Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure.
Bibliography
“A Look Back … The National Security Act of 1947”. The Central Intelligence Agency. July 31,
2008. Accessed April 2013. www.cia.gov/.
"Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies. Johns Hopkins University Press,
2010. Credo Reference. Web. 31 March 2013.
Baughman, Judith S., ed. "The Airplane." American Decades 2 (2001).
Gordon, Alistair. Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure.
Main, J.R.K. Voyageurs of the Air: A History of Civil Aviation in Canada: 1858-1967. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967.
Mitchell, Naomi L, and Patircia Q Roberson, . Aerospace Science: Frontiers of Aviation History. 2. Alabama: Maxwell Airforce Base, 1997.
“Quest for Performance: The Evolution of the Modern Airplane” Monoplanes and Biplanes;
http://history.nasa.gov/
Tobin, James. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. Simon and Schuester, 2012.
Wright, Orville. How We Invented the Airplane. Edited by Fred C. Kelly. New York: Van Rees Press, 1953.
.
Photo Credit:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_976.html
.
Kathryn Hopper
Background
Flight has been imagined since as far back as 2000 B.C. in ancient China. Examples of such flight include myths of levitation and the invention of the kite. Later, in Greek and Roman legends there are examples of flying animals such as griffins and the Pegasus. The tale of Icarus, in which he uses wings made of bird feathers held together by wax, is also popular.[1]
First attempts of human flight date to about 800 A.D. with primitive parachutes and wing flapping. Various wing designs were made including those that resembled bat wings. Winged gliders and ornithopters were also sketched and imagined. A popular style of ornithopter was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci.[2]
In June 1783 the Montgolfier brothers had their first successful hot-air balloon flight using heated air, and on December 1, 1783 Charles Montgolfier manned the first flight in a hydrogen balloon that lasted 2 hours and that flew a total of 27 miles. Hot-air balloons were also used in reconnaissance missions during the French Revolution, and later during the American Civil War professional aeronauts were trained to fly balloons. In the 1870s balloons such as the Great Zeppelin began to have internal combustion engines to allow for better steering and speed.[3]
Turning Point
On December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Wilbur and Orville Wright sustained flight for 59 seconds covering a distance of 852 feet in the first airplane.[4] Wilbur and Orville had been curious in finding out what made things work since they were boys. When their father brought home a small model helicopter powered by a rubber band that could propel itself upwards they became interested in aviationwhich led to their initial research in human flight.[5] Before the successful flight in 1903, Wilbur and Orville had made and tested many different airplane models to determine the properties needed for a successful flight. Measurements of the 1901 glider,which was either empty or loaded with a bag of sand, were made to determine lift and drift of the glider.[6] These experiments in 1901 “were rather discouraging to us [Wilbur and Orville] because we [they] felt that they had demonstrated that some of the most firmly established laws, those regarding the travel of the center of pressure and pressures on airplane surfaces, were mostly, if not entirely, incorrect.”[7]
However, the flights of 1902 “demonstrated the efficiency of our [the Wrights’] system of control for both longitudinal and lateral stability.”[8] The next year Orville and Wilbur had the first successful “flights ever made in a powered, heavier-than-air machine” that “dramatized the start of a revolution.”[9] Orville that day said the flight itself was “very modest compared with that of birds but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.”[10]
Effect
On February 10, 1908 the Wright brothers and the United States government signed a contract for the Wright brothers to build a “flying machine” to certain specifications, and on August 20, 1908 the Wright army plane was delivered to Fort Myer, Virginia. In this army plane the Wright brothers had perfected the maneuvers needed to have a sustained flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes.[11] On June 21, 1908 Glen Curtiss had a similar success story of sustained flight in the June Bug which was the first public airplane to fly one kilometer. Curtiss was also the first person to build a practical plane with pontoons.[12]
The first trained pilots were for World War I and all major nations by then had formed military aviation.[13] By the end of World War I there were an estimated 200,000 planes worldwide.[14] Airplanes were initially used for observance and reconnaissance missions but later grew toward air-to-air combat with machine guns that fired through the propeller. Zeppelins were also used for observation and bombing raids. Flight was not an extremely important weapon during the war, though, because the aircraft and engine design were still primitive.However, the possibilities of using planes in battle did not go unnoticed.[15]
Once World War I ended the United States Navy made the first attempt at a transatlantic flight in four stages; the first was from Rockaway, New York to Trepassey, Newfoundland, from there to the Azores, then to Lisbon, Portugal and finally to Plymouth, England. Of the four Curtiss flying boats that left from New York, one of them made the entire trip. Two weeks later on June 15, 1919 the first non-stop transatlantic flight was accomplished by Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whiten Brown.[16]
As the 1920s began, aeronautic world tours were scheduled and new records were set regularly. In 1918 the United States Air Mail Service was created, which transported mail a full day faster, and Army Air Service airplanes were used in forest-fire control and border patrol.[17] In 1919, the French and British used modified military bombers as passenger carriers transporting people between London and Paris. By 1926, European airline companies had carried over 100,000 passengers. Public air travel in the United States had a slower start due to the lack of reliable warplanes, and the apathy toward airplanes by the public caused businessmen to believe that the air industry was a poor investment. Due to the passing of a Congressional Act in 1925, businessmen now had an incentive to create airlines, and by 1929, 44 scheduled airlines had been created eventually merging into major transcontinental airways such as Transcontinental and Western Air, United Airlines, and American Airways.[18] By the early 1930s most new aircrafts “employed a welded steel-tube fuselage and wooden wing structure and incorporated a fabric covering over the entire structure.” This allowed for the pilot and any passengers to be protected from the elements while flying.[19]
World War II was the first war where airplanes were a major factor. After the dropping of the two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, airplanes were for the first time considered weapons of mass destruction.[20] Planes could not only be used to drop bombs but were also used to carry rapid-fire guns, radar, rockets, napalm, and other incendiaries.[21] After the end of World War II, the United States military organization was re-examined based on the experiences during the war. The National Security Act of 1947 “reorganized and modernized the US armed forces, foreign policy, and the Intelligence Community apparatus. It directed a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the US government”.[22]
In the 1950s and 1960s commercial aviation expanded greatly over a short time. By the 1960s air travel in the United States became hectic and airports were too small to accommodate all of the air travel. In the early 1970s the jumbo jet had been created which helped to accommodate the availability of air travel, but the airports had to grow in size so quickly that the structures became chaotic and disorganized. As air travel increased, midair collisions, laxity in the cockpit, and poor maintenance also increased. Not only did flying become more dangerous due to the lack of regulation in air travel but because of airline hijackings. Due to increasing numbers of these hijackings, in 1973 the United States passed anti-hijacking laws and airports began changing their structural layout by adding concrete walls, large room dividers, blockades and sealed exits to enforce protection. For the first time since the invention of the airplane measures were being taken to protect the public not from the airplanes themselves but from those who could sabotage the airplanes.[23]
[1]Naomi L. Mitchell and Patricia Q. Roberson.Aerospace Science: Frontiers of Aviation History. 1997: 1-4.
[2] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-7.
[3] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-27
[4] J.R.K. Main. Voyageurs of the Air: A History of Civil Aviation in Canada, 1858-1967. 1967:5.
[5]Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright.The Papers of /Wilbur and Orville Wright.1953: 4.
[6] Orville Wright. How We Invented the Airplane. 1953: 38-39.
[7] Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane: 42.
[8] Orville Wright. How We Invented the Airplane: 51.
.[9] Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane: 3.
[10] James Tobin. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. 2012.
[11]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 1-8.
[12]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science.
[13]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-15.
[14]Judith S. Baughman. "The Airplane".American Decades.Web.27 Feb. 2013.
[15]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-9.
[16]Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-26.
[17]"Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies.2010. Credo Reference. Web. 31 March 2013.
[18]Naomi L. Mitchell.Aerospace Science: 2-42
[19] “Quest for Performance: The Evolution of the Modern Airplane” Monoplanes and Biplanes; http://history.nasa.gov/[20]“Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies.
[21] Naomi L. Mitchell. Aerospace Science: 2-81.
[22]“A Look Back … The National Security Act of 1947” The Central Intelligence Agency. www.cia.gov/.
[23] Alistair Gordon, Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure.
Bibliography
“A Look Back … The National Security Act of 1947”. The Central Intelligence Agency. July 31,
2008. Accessed April 2013. www.cia.gov/.
"Airplanes and Aviation."Encyclopedia of American Studies. Johns Hopkins University Press,
2010. Credo Reference. Web. 31 March 2013.
Baughman, Judith S., ed. "The Airplane." American Decades 2 (2001).
Gordon, Alistair. Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure.
Main, J.R.K. Voyageurs of the Air: A History of Civil Aviation in Canada: 1858-1967. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967.
Mitchell, Naomi L, and Patircia Q Roberson, . Aerospace Science: Frontiers of Aviation History. 2. Alabama: Maxwell Airforce Base, 1997.
“Quest for Performance: The Evolution of the Modern Airplane” Monoplanes and Biplanes;
http://history.nasa.gov/
Tobin, James. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. Simon and Schuester, 2012.
Wright, Orville. How We Invented the Airplane. Edited by Fred C. Kelly. New York: Van Rees Press, 1953.
.
Photo Credit:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_976.html
.