History of Aviation

They were mechanically inclined anyway, and ran a bicycle factory and were fascinated with flight since childhood when their father gave them a flying model. They could see flight was going to be a big thing and worked hard to get in on it.

There are two reasons for his fame.

He was the first person to cross the English Channel in an airplane. He designed and built the 1909 Bleriot airplane. It was a single wing design, unusual when most planes of the day were biplanes. It had a top speed of 10 miles per hour.

He was the first person to build a successful single wing plane, a monoplane. He proved the success by his flight across the English Channel.

It's hard to say when the first gas powered aircraft was "invented". There were many gasoline powered aircraft invented and struggling to fly properly. Many crashed because their engines were too heavy or they couldn't get proper lift.

You could fill several volumes listing ALL the differences between the wright flyer and a modern-day airplane... But here are a few of the major differences.

The wright flyer was constructed with wood and canvas whereas most modern planes are made of aluminum or modern composite materials.

The wright flyer was of a canard-type design. With the elevators on the front of the aircraft. Most modern aircraft put the elevators on the tail of the aircraft.

The wright flyer, rather than having ailerons like modern aircraft, simply warped the lightweight wings to achieve banking control.

The wright flyer used a sprocket chain-drive like a bicycle to power to propellors from a single engine. This configuration is never used in modern aircraft.

The wright flyer required a set of rails (made from 2x4s) to launch from rather than the wheeled landing gear you see on modern airplanes.

Pilots flying the wright flyer lay head-first in a prone position. There was no cockpit as such, this is obviously much different than any modern aircraft.

The wright flyer was controlled by the pilot using an odd "cradle" arrangement attached to his hips to actuate roll and yaw simultaneously. Modern aircraft use a yoke or a stick and rudder pedals.

There is some dispute over who actually made the first flight. The world's first powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft is credited to the Wright brothers in Ohio, USA, on 17 December 1903. Their flight lasted 12 seconds, and continued for 120 feet. There are claims, however, that the world's first such flight was undertaken by twenty-five year old New Zealander, Richard Pearse, on 31 March 1902 (some sources quote 1903). Pearse's initial flight was an estimated distance of 300m and ended when the flying machine landed in a hedge some 4 metres off the ground. As Pearse did not realise the historical value of his flight, he did not arrange for any photographs to be taken of his flight, and evidence that it occurred has only been provided through the reports of eye witnesses.

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a wind-swept beach in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day with Orville's brother Wilbur piloting the record flight lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet.

The brothers began their experimentation in flight in 1896 at their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They selected the beach at Kitty Hawk as their proving ground because of the constant wind that added lift to their craft. In 1902 they came to the beach with their glider and made more than 700 successful flights.

Maude Rose "Lores" Bonney OBE (November 20, 1897-February 24, 1994) was an Australian aviatrix and the first woman to fly solo from Australia to England.

Born as Maude Rose Rubens, in Pretoria, South Africa, she adopted the name "Lores" later in preference to her given names. The family moved first to England, then to Australia. After education first in Melbourne, and then at a finishing school in Germany, she met and married Harry Bonney, a leather goods manufacturer in 1917 and moved to Brisbane, Queensland.

In 1928 she met Harry Bonney's cousin, Bert Hinkler, a Queensland aviator who had set a solo England-Australia record in his Avro Avian biplane (now in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane). His exploits fired her imagination and her first flight in his Avian confirmed her determination to learn to fly. She took her first lessons secretly, but when she told her husband, he bought her the DH 60 Gypsy Moth with which she began her record-breaking flights.

In 1931 she set the record for the longest one day flight by a woman,

In 1932 she became the first woman to circumnavigate Australia by air,

In 1933 she became the first woman to fly from from Australia to England,

In 1934 she became the first woman to fly from Australia to South Africa.

Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic in 1927.

monkeys

The first Bf 109V1 fighter was flown in September 1935.

Approx. 97.

Flying alone long distance is courage. Flying through clouds with no radar, flying long over-water trips on single engine. All of those and more.

I believe her most important achievement was being the major force behind the '99' Association. This helped many female aviators and many of them went on to famous also.

Science, physics and math

Air Chief Marshal Dowding and Air Chief Marshal Harris were connected in the sense that both were fighter pilots in the Royal Flying Corps in WW1 and 20 + years later in WW2, were the Commanders of Fighter Command and Bomber Command in the Royal Air Force. - Both were quite controversial and had unorthodox methods - but got the job completed successfully.

Wilbur Wright

Sir Frank Whittle is generally accepted as the inventor of the modern turbo jet engine

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Nobody flew in a successful glider in 1804.

Lindbergh was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Jean was not apparently religious.

The first flight commander of the Wright brothers' historic flight on December 17, 1903, was Orville Wright. He piloted the Wright Flyer during its first successful powered flight, which lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. His brother, Wilbur Wright, also played a crucial role in the flight, piloting subsequent flights on that day.

100 mps