Aviation has helped shaped the world into what we know it as today including ancient myths and legends dealing with flight, the infamous “Wright Flyer”, and the impact jet engines have to the future of aviation.

1. Key Events in Aviation and Aerospace History
Aviation has helped shaped the world into what we know it as today including
ancient myths and legends dealing with flight, the infamous “Wright Flyer”, and
the impact jet engines have to the future of aviation.
All throughout history and culture, the idea of flying has fascinated man since the beginning of
time. From paper kites to a possible trip to Mars, humans have had this attraction for the sky for
as long as we can remember. It is no doubt that aviation has changed the fate of humans.

2. There are many examples of mythology involving flight. We see it in paintings of gods in the
clouds and men with wings. Ancient Greek mythology also tells great tales of flight. These stories
are a great example of how humans have been fixated by the idea of flight since the beginning of
recorded time. The International Civil Aviation Organization website tells the story of one
familiar Greek story of flight of the great engineer Daedalus and his son Icarus. Daedalus
constructed wings of wax and feathers in order to escape imprisonment and warns his son to not
fly too high to keep the wax from melting from the sun. Icarus follows his father’s advice for a
while, but eventually gets self-confident and flies too high causing the wax to melt and forces him
to his death. Folklores like this one have kept humans inspired to reach for the skies since ancient
Greece and up to the present day. They played an important part in man’s ability to take over the
air. It gave humans the ability to escape the troubles of earth, be free as a bird and be closer to the
gods. Ultimately, they served as an inspiration to fly in the decades to come.
Early efforts that explore the idea of flight also includes the discovery of kites in 400 B.C. China.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website in an article
titled “History of Flight”, the first kites were used for religious ceremonies and eventually used by
the military in order to intimidate the enemy and drop propaganda behind enemy walls. Today,
we recognize the invention of the kite as the forerunner for gliders and balloons.
Later in history, in 1485, Leonardo da Vinci came up with the design for his flying machine, the
Ornithopter. The machine was never actually created, but its design helped the concept of the
modern-day helicopter. Da Vinci is credited to believe that propulsion was needed for sustained
flight. Without this concept, who knows where aviation would be in this day and age?

3. In 1783, Joseph and Montgolfier gave the world its first hot air balloon. They demonstrated that
lighter than air flight was indeed possible and solved the problem of lift. At this point, humans
still needed to be able to control speed and direction. That is when the famous day of December
17, 1903, solved that problem. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two brothers, Orville, and Wilbur
Wright became American inventors and pioneers of aviation by achieving the first powered,
sustained and controlled airplane flight. Two years later they built and flew the first fully practical
airplane.
The brothers opened their little bicycle shop in 1892 where they fixed and sold their own design
of the bicycle. Aside from an interest in bicycles, Orville and Wilbur Wright spent their time on
different mechanical projects and kept up with scientific research. They had a special interest in
Otto Lilienthal who was a German aviator and decided to start their own flight experiments when
he died in a glider accident. They chose Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for its known strong winds
and started their work.
Their observations of how birds angled their wings to control their flight led them to develop a
concept of “wing warping”. They added this concept with a movable rudder and created the first
controlled flight which lasted for 59 seconds at 852 feet. This unimaginable feat of figuring out
controlled flight helped propel aviation to the advances in technology that we almost take for
granted today.
The next great invention in aviation history could arguably be the jet engine. Its creator, Sir
Geoffrey de Havilland, debuted the experimental jet-powered plane in Germany 1939. This came
right in time to give Germany the title of the firsts to use jet-powered planes in World War II.

4. Later, in 1949, the De Havilland Comet made its first test flight in England, making it the first jet-
propelled airliner. This great invention forever changed the aviation industry, making it possible
to shrink air travel time in half by making planes climb faster and fly higher.
The desire to conquer the skies have been with humans ever since we can even imagine. The
fables that ancient Greek Mythology has given us has been inspiring human to reach new heights
and made it possible for great inventors to mold aviation into what it is today. Orville and Wilbur
Wright gave us the capability to expand our possibilities of flight by making it controllable. Jet
engines made the sustainable flight last longer and fly higher. These three events in history made
aviation what it is today; an industry that will continue to grow and evolve as more great feats are
mastered.
References
“Aircraft Engine History.” Aero
Engines, www.pilotfriend.com/aero_engines/aero_early_history Accessed 18 Sept. 2017.
“Aviation History: The Desire to Fly in Mythology.” International Civil Aviation
Organization.https://www.icao.int/secretariat/PostalHistory/aviation_history_the_mythology.htm.
Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

5. Robert J. Shaw. “History of Flight.” NASA,
NASA,www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k12/UEET/StudentSite/historyofflight.html. Accessed 18 Sept.
2017.