Airplane
Airplane (see Category Aviation)
ALTERNATIVE NAME/S: aircraft; plane
DETAILS: Long before humans flew, they dreamed of flying. Ancient Babylonians sketched flying shepherds on stones. Leonardo da Vinci conceived of a flying machine in the 1400’s with humongous bat-shaped wings and pedals. In 12th century England a monk crashed a glider from the roof of his monastery In 1903 the Wright Brothers* flew for 12 seconds, at an altitude of 120ft., in ‘The Flyer.’
The Flyer had a gasoline engine and was the first heavier-than-air machine to take to the skies. The first transcontinental flight took place in 1911, and in 1919 Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic ocean.
Today’s aircraft are designed and built on computers, use massive jet engines and (in the case of experimental flying machines like the Space Shuttle) can reach speeds in excess of fifteen times the speed of sound.
ONELINER: The airplane is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine.
OTHER CONNECTIONS: None
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wallechinsky, David. The People’s Almanac Presents The Twentieth Century: History With the Boring Parts Left Out. The Overlook Press, Woodstock, NY. 1999. pp. 335-342, 877.
Heath, D.C. World History: Perspectives on the Past. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, MA. 1994. pp. 344-345; p.596; p. 683; p. 706.
Airplane. Britannica Student Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 1, 2003, from Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.