History of aviation

The history of aviation spans over two millennia, from the earliest innovations like kites and attempts at tower jumping to supersonic and hypersonic flight in powered, heavier-than-air jet aircraft. Kite flying in China, dating back several hundred years BC, is considered the earliest example of man-made flight. In the 15th-century Leonardo da Vinci designed several flying machines incorporating aeronautical concepts, but they were unworkable due to the limitations of contemporary knowledge.
In the late 18th century, the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot-air balloon which soon led to manned flights. At almost the same time, the discovery of hydrogen gas led to the invention of the hydrogen balloon. Various theories in mechanics by physicists during the same period, such as fluid dynamics and Newton's laws of motion, led to the development of modern aerodynamics; most notably by Sir George Cayley. Balloons, both free-flying and tethered, began to be used for military purposes from the end of the 18th century, with France establishing balloon companies during the French Revolution.
In the 19th century, especially the second half, experiments with gliders provided the basis for learning the dynamics of winged aircraft; most notably by Cayley, Otto Lilienthal, and Octave Chanute. By the early 20th century, advances in engine technology and aerodynamics made controlled, powered, manned heavier-than-air flight possible for the first time. In 1903, following their pioneering research and experiments with wing design and aircraft control, the Wright brothers successfully incorporated all of the required elements to create and fly the first aeroplane. The basic configuration with its characteristic cruciform tail was established by 1909, followed by rapid design and performance improvements aided by the development of more powerful engines.
The first vessels of the air were the rigid steerable balloons pioneered by Ferdinand von Zeppelin that became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s, when large flying boats became popular for trans-oceanic routes. After World War II, the flying boats were in turn replaced by airplanes operating from land, made far more capable first by improved propeller engines, then by jet engines, which revolutionized both civilian air travel and military aviation.
In the latter half of the 20th century, the development of digital electronics led to major advances in flight instrumentation and "fly-by-wire" systems. The 21st century has seen the widespread use of pilotless drones for military, commercial, and recreational purposes. With computerized controls, inherently unstable aircraft designs, such as flying wings, have also become practical.

Etymology

The term aviation, is a noun of action from the stem of Latin avis "bird" with the suffix -ation meaning action or progress. It was coined in 1863 by French pioneer Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de La Landelle in Aviation ou Navigation aérienne sans ballons.

Primitive beginnings

Tower jumping

Since ancient times, there have been stories of men strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks, or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. The Greek legends of Daedalus and Icarus are some of the earliest known. Others originated in ancient Asia and the European Middle Ages. During this early period, the concepts of lift, stability, and control were not well understood, and most attempts resulted in serious injuries or death.
The Andalusian scientist Abbas ibn Firnas attempted to fly in Córdoba, Spain, by covering his body with vulture feathers and attached two wings to his arms. The 17th-century Algerian historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari, quoting a poem by Muhammad I of Córdoba's 9th-century court poet Mu'min ibn Said, recounts that Firnas flew some distance before landing with some injuries, attributed to his lacking a tail. In the 12th century, William of Malmesbury wrote that Eilmer of Malmesbury, an 11th-century Benedictine monk, attached wings to his hands and feet and flew a short distance, but broke both legs while landing, also having neglected to make himself a tail.
Many others made well-documented jumps in the following centuries. As late as 1811, Albrecht Berblinger constructed an ornithopter and jumped into the Danube at Ulm.

Kites

The kite may have been the first form of man-made heavier-than-air aircraft. It was invented in China possibly as far back as the 5th century BC. by Mozi and Lu Ban. Evidence to support this finding stands with materials commonly found and ideal for kite building located in China. These are materials such as "silk fabric for sail material, fine, high-tensile-strength silk for flying line, and resilient bamboo for…framework" The reason these materials were so perfect for building kites is largely due to the structure of the materials themselves. Bamboo being a strong, hollow material, largely resembled the hollow bones in birds, which allow for less weight, making flight easier. Some kites were fitted with strings and whistles to make musical sounds while flying. Ancient and mediaeval Chinese sources describe kites being used to measure distances, test the wind, lift men, signal, and communicate and send messages. Later designs often depicted images of flying insects, birds, and other beasts, both real and mythical.
Kites spread from China around the world. After being introduced into the rest of Asia, the kite further evolved into the fighter kite, which has an abrasive line used to cut down other kites. The most notable fighter kite designs originated in India and Japan

Man-lifting kites

s are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China for civil and military purposes and sometimes enforced as a punishment. An early recorded flight was that of the prisoner Yuan Huangtou, a Chinese prince, in the 6th century AD. Stories of man-lifting kites can be found in Japan, following the introduction of the kite from China around the seventh century AD. For a period, there was a Japanese law against man-carrying kites.

Rotor wings

The use of a rotor for vertical flight has existed since 400 BC in the form of the bamboo-copter, an ancient Chinese toy. The similar "moulinet à noix" appeared in Europe in the 14th century AD.

Hot air balloons

Since ancient times, the Chinese understood that hot air rises and applied the principle to a type of small hot air balloon called a sky lantern. A sky lantern consists of a paper balloon under or just inside which a small lamp is placed. Sky lanterns are traditionally launched for recreation and during festivals. According to Joseph Needham, such lanterns were found in China since the 3rd century BC. Their military use is attributed to the general Zhuge Liang, who is said to have used them to scare the enemy troops.
There is evidence that the Chinese also "solved the problem of aerial navigation" using balloons, hundreds of years before the 18th century.

Renaissance

Eventually, some investigators began to discover and define some of the basics of rational aircraft design. Most notable of these was Leonardo da Vinci, although his work remained unknown until 1797, and so had no influence on developments over the next three hundred years. While his designs are rational, they are not scientific. He particularly underestimated the amount of power that would be needed to propel a flying object, basing his designs on the flapping wings of a bird rather than an engine-powered propeller.
Leonardo studied bird and bat flight, claiming the superiority of the latter owing to its unperforated wing. He analyzed these and anticipated many principles of aerodynamics. He understood that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object." Isaac Newton later defined this as the third law of motion in 1687.
From the last years of the 15th century until 1505, Leonardo wrote about and sketched many designs for flying machines and mechanisms, including ornithopters, fixed-wing gliders, rotorcraft, parachutes and a wind speed gauge. His early designs were man-powered and included ornithopters and rotorcraft; however, he came to realise the impracticality of this and later turned to controlled gliding flight, also sketching some designs powered by a spring.
In an essay titled Sul volo, Leonardo describes a flying machine called "the bird" which he built from starched linen, leather joints, and raw silk thongs. In the Codex Atlanticus, he wrote, "Tomorrow morning, on the second day of January 1496, I will make the thong and the attempt." According to one commonly repeated, albeit presumably fictional story, in 1505 Leonardo or one of his pupils attempted to fly from the summit of Monte Ceceri.

Lighter than air

Beginnings of modern theories

proposed in Prodromo dell'Arte Maestra that large vessels could float in the atmosphere by applying the principles of a vacuum. Lana designed an airship with four huge copper foil spheres connected to support a rider's basket, a tail, and a steering rudder. Critics argued that the thin copper spheres could not sustain ambient air pressure, and further experiments proved that his idea was impossible.
Using a vacuum to create lift is called a vacuum airship, but it is still impossible to build with the materials available today.
In 1709, Bartolomeu de Gusmão approached King John V of Portugal and claimed to have discovered a way for airborne flight.
Due to the King's illness, Gusmão's experiment was rescheduled from its initial 24 June 1709, date to 8 August. The experiment was carried out in front of the king and other nobles in the Casa da India yard, but the paper ship or device burned down before it could take flight.''''''

Balloons

In France, five aviation firsts were accomplished between 4 June and 1 December 1783:

On 4 June, a crowd gathered in Annonay, France, to witness the unmanned hot air balloon display by the Montgolfier brothers. Their 500-pound balloon ascended to nearly 3,000 feet and traveled over a mile and a half. It stayed in the air for ten minutes before tipping over and catching fire.'
On 27 August, Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers unveiled the first unmanned hydrogen balloon from Paris' Champ de Mars. It landed almost an hour later in Gonesse, where terrified farmers mistook it for a monster and destroyed it.
On 19 October, in front of 2,000 spectators, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes boarded the Montgolfier aircraft as the first people. Later that day, Giroud de Villette, another pilot, took to the skies much higher.'
On 21 November, the Montgolfiers launched the first free flight with human passengers. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, along with the Marquis François d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honour. They drifted in a balloon powered by a wood fire.
On 1 December, Jacques Charles and the Nicolas-Louis Robert launched their manned hydrogen balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, as a crowd of 400,000 witnessed. They ascended to a height of about and landed at sunset in Nesles-la-Vallée after a flight of 2 hours and 5 minutes, covering 36 km. After Robert alighted, Charles decided to ascend alone. This time he ascended rapidly to an altitude of about, where he saw the sun again, suffered extreme pain in his ears, and never flew again.

Ballooning became a major interest in Europe in the late 18th century, providing the first detailed understanding of the relationship between altitude and the atmosphere.
Non-steerable balloons were employed during the American Civil War by the Union Army Balloon Corps. The young Ferdinand von Zeppelin first flew as a balloon passenger with the Union Army of the Potomac in 1863.
In the early 1900s, ballooning was a popular sport in Britain. These privately owned balloons usually used coal gas as the lifting gas. This has half the lifting power of hydrogen so the balloons had to be larger, however, coal gas was far more readily available and the local gas works sometimes provided a special lightweight formula for ballooning events.