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| Home : History : Evolution Of Flight | ||
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 About 400 B.C., a Greek scholar named Archytas built a wooden pigeon that moved through the air. No one knows how Archytas made his pigeon fly. He may have attached the bird to a revolving arm and used steam or gas to move it in a circle. Between 400 and 300 B.C., the Chinese discovered how to make kites. A kite is really a form of glider. Later, large kites lifted people into the air. During the 200's B.C., the great Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes discovered how and why objects float in liquids. About 1290, an English monk named Roger Bacon wrote that air, like water, has something solid about it. Bacon had studied Archimedes' ideas and concluded that if people could build the right kind of machine, the air would support it, as water supports a ship. About 1500, the Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of ornithopters, flying machines with wings designed to flap like those of a bird. In 1680, Giovanni A. Borelli, an Italian mathematician, showed that people cannot fly by flapping wings. Borelli proved that people's muscles are too weak to flap the large surfaces that would be needed to support their weight in the air. In 1783, two Frenchmen--a doctor named Jean F. Pilatre de Rozier and a nobleman, the Marquis d'Arlandes--made the first free flight in an artificially created device. They floated for more than 8 kilometres over Paris in a large linen balloon. Two French papermakers--the brothers Jacques E. and Joseph M. Montgolfier--had made the balloon, which was filled with hot air from burning wool and straw. The hot air made the balloon rise. The Montgolfiers made other successful balloons. The flights of these balloons excited other inventors, who soon began to use hydrogen, a gas lighter than air, to make their balloons rise. The balloons were hard to control. But inventors continued their balloon experiments and, during the mid-1800's, developed the airship. The airships had engines and propellers and so were easier to handle than balloons, whose course could not be controlled. Meanwhile, other inventors had turned their attention to gliders, which are heavier than air. In 1804, Sir George Cayley, a British inventor, built the first successful glider. It was a small craft that flew without a passenger. Cayley later built successful full-sized gliders. One of these carried his unwilling coachman across a small valley. Cayley also founded the science of aerodynamics (the study of the flow of air around objects) and was probably the first person to describe a fixed-wing, powered aeroplane moved by propellers. Between 1891 and 1896, Otto Lilienthal of Germany made the first successful manned glider flights in which a person actually piloted the glider. Before the end of the 1800's, other inventors, including Percy Pilcher of Great Britain and Octave Chanute of the United States, made similar flights. Some of these early gliders were so well built that they carried their pilots hundreds of metres through the air. But gliders were often hard to control. In addition, they were not designed to carry passengers or cargo and so were not a practical means of transport. In 1843, William S. Henson, a British inventor, patented plans for the first plane with an engine, propellers, and fixed wings. But after building one unsuccessful model, he gave up the project. In 1848, his friend John Stringfellow built a small model plane using Henson's design. The model was successfully launched but could stay in the air only a short time. In 1890, Clement Ader, a French engineer, took off in a steam-powered plane that he had built. But he could not control the plane or keep it in the air. About the same time, the inventor Sir Hiram Maxim--an American who had become a British citizen--built a huge steam-powered flying machine. It had two wings, two engines, and two propellers. Maxim tested the plane in 1894. It lifted off the ground briefly but the plane did not actually fly. An Australian and a New Zealander--working independently and in isolation from the rest of the world--were among the pioneers who experimented with heavier-than-air flying machines. The Australian, Lawrence Hargrave, produced aerofoil wing surfaces that provided lift, as well as airscrews and aero-engines using the rotary-engine principle. In 1894, in a brisk breeze on a beach south of Sydney, Hargrave lifted himself 5 metres off the ground by using three box kites. Many of Hargrave's ideas were used in early aircraft. For example, early European aircraft greatly resembled box kites. Some evidence supports the idea that the first known fliers, the Wright brothers, drew ideas from him. Some enthusiasts believe that a New Zealander, Richard Pearse, made the world's first powered flight on March 31, 1902, at Waoitahi, in the South Island of New Zealand. This would have predated the Wright brothers' historic first flight in December 1903 by more than 18 months. But claims that Pearse flew before the Wright brothers have been rejected by the Royal Aeronautical Society in London because of lack of reliable evidence. During the 1890's, Samuel P. Langley, an American scientist, built a steam-powered model aeroplane. Langley called his plane an aerodrome. In 1896, it flew about 800 metres in about 90 seconds. Langley then built a full-sized aerodrome powered by a petrol engine. A pilot attempted to fly the plane on Oct. 7 and Dec. 8, 1903. Both times the plane was launched into the air from a houseboat on the Potomac River, and both times it crashed into the water.  History Translate to German Translate to French |