AERONAUTIC FLIGHT
The early history of flight began hundreds of millions of years ago when insects, saurians, birds and bats conquered the air. The bird’s flight has inspired us ever since man has consciously observed nature. The dream of flying has inspired our experiments; although they failed for thousands of years.
Man did not succeed in becoming airborne
until he left the bird’s model of flight.
Entirely different technical principles had to be used. The two French brothers Jacques Etienne and
Joseph Michael Montgolfier invented and built a hot-air balloon with which they
became airborne on November 21, 1783.
The physicist Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles followed this success with
a hydrogen-filled balloon a few days later.
The successors of the balloons were the giant rigid airships of Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin, which operated a regular transatlantic airline service
in the 1930s.
The study of the bird and bird’s wings was successful about one hundred years after the first balloon ascent. The brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal systematically studied in order to build the first gliding flying apparatus. Otto Lilienthal used these models between the years of 1891 and 1896 in order to become the first man to fly.
Powered flight achieved success in the first decade of the 20th century. The first controlled motor flight of the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright took place on December 17, 1903. It was not until the discovery of utilization for warfare shortly before and during World War I that aviation received governmental support.
Airplanes were not developed for transportation until after World War I. The ideas of all-metal construction and high-power engines were used from wartime achievements. An air traffic network spread over the whole globe during the twenty interwar years. Air flight often made headlines by adventurous pioneering flights over mountain ranges, deserts and seas.
Expenditures for armament and military applications of aeronautics rose considerably due to political tensions during the 1930s. A rapid development of aviation technology ensued. All fields of related technology: airframes, engines, propellers, navigating equipment such as instruments and automatic pilots, ground facilities and airports, and air traffic control rapidly advanced. Extremely high standards had to be met in aeronautics. This required and promoted innovation in many fields of technology and science. This also led to intensive interaction between both fields that is still in effect today.
Aircraft gave warfare a new terrible dimension during World War II. Inconceivable destruction was wrought upon industrial plants and civilian residences alike. Post-war long-range airliners were derived from bombers and military transport. They then achieved non-stop transatlantic flight. The jet engine was the most important innovation; which reached large-scale production during the war. The continuous aero-thermodynamic process of engine type of purely rotary masses was the particular mode of operation that arrived at a precipitous rise in power. The first jet-propelled aircraft was a Heinkel He 178, which was fitted with a He S3B turbojet engine developed by Hans von Ohain and made its maiden flight on August 27, 1939, just a few days before the outbreak of the war. The first series-production jet fighter aircraft used in combat was the Messerschmidt 262. This was also the first aircraft to break the sound barrier during Hans Guido von Muitke’s power-dive on April 8, 1945 in an attempt to rescue a besieged comrade.
Post-war fighters outfitted with turbojet
engines reached flight speeds up to twice the speed of sound and flew to
altitudes of above 20 km. A
corresponding change in commercial aircraft came in 1956 for the