The Structure of an Airplane
The idea of flight has fascinated people for centuries, even to this day, which is why I decided to research on airplanes. When I researched the history on planes, I was surprised at the effort and the time people long ago spent trying to make a machine that flies. I also wondered, like many, how an airplane is able to fly and sustain in the air. Wanting to know the answers to these types of questions I had, gave me the determination to really researched this topic.
History of Planes
Early History
The idea of flying existed from a long time ago. Ancient legends showed numerous references to the possibility of flight. Philosophers believed that it could be achieved by imitating the wing motions of birds. The artist Leonardo Da Vinci sketched ideas on how a man can fly.
19th Century
The development of aviation took various paths during the 19th century. The father of aviation, Sir George Cayley was a British aeronautical engineer and inventor. He proved his ideas of flight with experiments involving kites and controlled human-carrying gliders. Charles Augustus Lindbergh was the first person to make a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. He made the flight to win the prize of $25,000 offered by Raymond B. Orteig of New York City for the first nonstop transatlantic solo flight between New York City and Paris. In his single-engine monoplane named the Spirit of St. Louis, he left Roosevelt Field at 7:52 AM on May 20, 1927. After a flight of 33 hours 32 minutes, he landed at Le Bourget Airport near Paris.
The Wright Brothers
On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made the world's first successful flights in a heavier-than-air aircraft. The brothers had designed, constructed, and flown the airplane. On that day, each brother made two flights. In 1904, the brothers continued the development of their airplanes design and also improved their skill as pilots. They made 105 flights, the longest flight lasting more than 5 minutes. In 1905, their best flight was 24.2 miles in 38 minutes and 3 seconds. On September 9,1908 Wilbur completed the world's first flight of more than one hour carrying a passenger. On September 17, 1908, the airplane crashed injuring Orville and his passenger Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge. Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge died hours ...
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... the Boeing 727.
Military
There are four types of military planes: combat, cargo, training, and observation planes. Combat planes are either fighters or bombers for land, sea, and carrier operations. A type of military plane would be the B-1B Bomber and the F-4 Phantom.
General
General planes are usually used for private pleasure, business, agricultural or other special services. The most common use would be agriculture. Agricultural applications include dusting and spraying insecticides or herbicides, fertilizing, and seeding.
This research paper brought me to some interesting places and gave me the opportunity to meet people who had a lot to say about airplanes. I got to talk to people who repair airplanes to people who were ex-pilots in the military. I learned a lot about airplanes, but part of really wanting to know about something is having an interest in it from the beginning.
Bibliography:
Gill, Brendan (1977) Lindberg Alone
Johnston, Micheal (1995) Look Inside Cross-sections Plane New York, Dorling Kindersley
Mauer, Richard (1994) Airborne Novabook
Maynard, Christopher (1994) Mighty Machines: Airplanes New York, Dorling Kindersley
For as long as most of the world can remember aviation has played a major factor in how wars are fought. Starting in World War I the worlds fighting forces began using aircraft to conduct surveillance missions over enemy territory. While these aircraft were not the masters of stealth that todays aircraft are there was no technology to take down these planes at the time. Air-to-air combat was an event that rarely happened and was almost never effective.
Lindbergh’s passion for mechanics didn’t come as a surprise to many. As a young boy, Charles seemed to be very interested in the family’s motorized vehicles, such as the Saxon Six automobile and Excelsior motorbike. But after starting college in the fall of 1920 as a mechanical engineer, his love for aviation started to bloom. Deciding that the field of aviation was more exciting, he dropped out within 2 years. He then decided to take lessons at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation’s flying school and was up in the air for the first time on April 9, 1922 when he was in a two seat biplane as a passenger. But his solo flight would not be until May 1923 at the Souther Field in Americus, Georgia, an old flight training field where Lindbergh came to buy a World War I Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane. It only took half an hour to practice with another pilot at the field to decide that Lindbergh was ready to fly the plane himself. After a week of practicing, Lindbergh took off on his biplane on his first solo cross country flight and few weeks after that, achieving his first nighttime flight near Arkansas, both marking huge milestones for the young pilot.
The history of flying dates back as early as the fifteenth century. A Renaissance man named Leonardo da Vinci introduced a flying machine known as the ornithopter. Da Vinci proposed the idea of a machine that had bird like flying capabilities. Today no ornithopters exist due to the restrictions of humans, and that the ornithopters just aren’t practical. During the eighteenth century a philosopher named Sir George Cayley had practical ideas of modern aircraft. Cayley never really designed any workable aircraft, but had many incredible ideas such as lift, thrust, and rigid wings to provide for lift. In the late nineteenth century the progress of aircraft picks up. Several designers such as Henson and Langley, both paved the way for the early 1900’s aircraft design. Two of the most important people in history of flight were the Wright Brothers. The Wright Brothers were given the nickname the “fathers of the heavier than air flying machine” for their numerous flights at their estate in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur Wright created a motor-powered biplane in which they established incredible feats of the time. The Wright Brothers perfected their design of the heavier than air flying ma...
McNeely, Gina. "Legacy of Flight." Aviation History. Mar. 1998: Academic Search Premier. 8 Nov. 2003.
The Wright brother's flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 was the first powered flight recorded. Louis Blèriot made the first powered crossing of the English Channel in 1909. As expected, aircraft remained simple in 1914. A new recruit had a higher chance of being killed during training than during combat in The Royal Flying Corps in the autumn of 1914. The first British navigation of an aircraft that flew off from England to fly to bases in France for the first time in war history, was based on reading a map while in air and, if the clouds allowed, looking out for landmarks on the ground to guide the pilots.
The book Flyboys follows the story of US Navy pilots Jimmy Dye, Floyd Hall, Merve Mershon, Warren Earl Vaughn, Dick Woellhof, Grady York, Glenn Frazier, and Warren Hindenlang. Bradley starts off the book by giving background stories of several of the men whom had aspired to enlist in the Navy and eventually came to it. The book then transitions to the main story; the year is 1945 and the US is at war with the Japanese during WW2. US warplanes are bombing small communication outposts on Chichi Jimam, not showing much concern for how difficult of a battle they're setting up for themselves as ChiChi's geography included hilly terrains and unsuitable coasts aswell as an armed force of 25,000 men. Because of these odds, US pilots were sent in to neutralize ChiChi's defenses. Of these aviators, 9 men survived af...
Wilbur was the older brother born in Millville, Indiana 1867 and Orville was born after him in Dayton, Ohio 1871. (Cite) Wilbur and Orville were very close and both enjoyed tinkering and had an interest in learning how mechanical devices worked. These interests lead them to their future career in working with bicycles and eventually lead them to the idea of flying. The brothers started off by entering the newspaper business. Orville built a printing press and started the newspaper the West Side News. (Cite) Wilbur, who was undecided, joined him. But as the career in newspaper began to slow down, the brothers began to look for another way to earn a living and like much of America fell in love with bicycling. Wilbur and Orville began to think that a career in the bicycling business would provide a better income. They began a bicycle shop where they would sell, rent, and repair bicycles. In the summer of 1896 though, Orville was diagnosed with typhoid fever. While Orville was sick, Wilbur would discuss the news with his brother. One day he came across the news of Otto Lilienthal who had been killed in a glider crash. The idea of flying had been an interest to the brothers when they were children, and as Orville began to heal, the brothers discussed the idea of flying and the ...
Many people are amazed with the flight of an object, especially one the size of an airplane, but they do not realize how much physics plays a role in this amazing incident. There are many different ways in which physics aids the flight of an aircraft. In the following few paragraphs some of the many ways will be described so that you, the reader, will realize physics at work in the world of flight.
...lived, but that didn’t just change a little, it changed a LOT. In the south it was a custom to have a maid and people to do your farming for you, a stay in nanny, a cook, etc. All of that was “slave work” and since generation after generation was used to seeing slaves doing things for them, it stuck around and became a part of the culture. On the other hadn there was the north, which had become more industrialized and more self reliant and independent and, more educated and growing and moving forward kind of people, so to them slavery was far from being a part of culture it was just something horrible to anyone a part of their community. This huge divide between the two communities/societies is what led to the ultimate clash in all the US history, it was a huge deal and it itself was one of the biggest examples of sociological imbalance between a society/societies.
In Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale he attempts to warn the reader about the dangers of flattery. He makes this clear with the statement, “Read Ecclesiatus on flattery; Beware my Lords, beware of treachery (Chaucer 215). In the story Russell the fox uses his charm to deceive Chanticleer the rooster of his ill intentions. Flattery is dangerous because it is used to deceive and trick for selfish purposes. Just as the Bible Says, “To flatter friends is to lay a trap at their feet (NLT Prov.29.5). Once the Russell the fox has deceived Chanticleer with his flattering words, Chanticleer foolishly trusts that the fox is as he says “Good sir, where are you off to? I’m your friend!”(Chaucer 214). The trap the fox sets by the use of flattery causes Chanticleer to be snatched up. “Chanticleer began to flap his wings enchanted by the fox’s blandishments and flattery…Stretching his neck; and with ...
Planes have had the largest impact on American culture because of their use in military, commerce, and travel. Without this invention, our everyday lives would be different. Planes have protected the United States from foreign countries.
In this biography, it goes from 1871-1948 talking about wright brothers: Wilbur and Orville and the steps to creating the plane, etc. It proves my thesis because after the success at Kitty Hawk they later used their airplane as a business enterprise. This is a secondary source because it was not written by either Wilbur or
Wilbur and Orville Wright were pioneers, skilled craftsman, and engineers not only in aviation but in many other trades as well. “They loved to tinker and experiment with mechanical things and it characterized the Wrights through out their lives. Each of the brothers had a deeply ingrained inquisitive streak that was nurtured in a home that was encouraged.” (Moolman, 1980, p. 107) They had a good family upbringing, but moved frequently. The Wright brothers paved the way for aviation to take off with their thoughts, ideas, and inventions.
Flight is one of the most important achievements of mankind. We owe this achievement to the invention of the airfoil and understanding the physics that allow it to lift enormous weights into the sky.
Paper Airplanes, flight at its simplest for humans. As kids, we learned how to build paper airplanes and send them soaring into the sky. We didn't stop to think about why the airplanes where able to fly after the initial thrust we gave them or how they were able to glide for so long afterwards. Ignorance was bliss then, but now we strive to understand how things work. Looking back to the childhood past time of flying paper airplanes, I will try to explain some of the parts that make paper airplanes fly.