Todo

Aircraf History
While many aviation professionals and enthusiasts recognize the beginnings of manned flight with the Wright Brothers or Santos Dumont, its origins really stretch well before thosedates in aeronautical history. In fact, famous inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci, John Stringfellow and Lawrence Hargrave had conjured up ideas of how to get some of the strangest machines to flylong before the Wright brothers’ famous first flight at Kitty Hawk.
The kite was the first form of an aircraft believed to have been first designed in the 5th century BC. Roger Bacon, an English monk,performed studies later on in the 13th century which gave him the idea that air could support a craft just like water supports boats. In the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci studied birds’ flight andlater produced the airscrew and the parachute. The airscrew, leading to the propeller later on and the parachute were tremendously important contributions to aviation. He envisioned three differenttypes of heavier-than-air craft; the helicopter, glider and ornithopter (a machine with mechanical wings which flaps to mimic a bird).

Some of the more credible developments in actual flight andstability occurred in the 19th century. Sir George Cayley of Britain designed a combined helicopter and horizontally propelled aircraft and the British Francis Herbert Wenham used wind tunnels in hisstudies. He also predicted the application of multiple wings placed above each other. Another famous inventor was John Stringfellow, who designed a steam engine powered aircraft which was launched from awire. This model demonstrated lift but failed to actually climb. Lawrence Hargrave, a British-born Australian inventor, created a rigid-wing aircraft with flapping blades operated by a compressed-airmotor, it flew 312 ft (95m) in 1891.

Jean Marie Le Bris of France was a famous glider developer in the 19th century who tested a glider with movable wings. Kites also played an important role in...