Why don't people fly like birds? This question reflects man's long-standing dream of the sky, of flight. To implement it, people made wings for themselves and tried to fly by flapping them. Most often, such experiments ended in the death of daredevils. Recall only the ancient legend of Icarus…
The question of flying was also very interesting for the brilliant artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who studied the structure of birds and their wings. He tried to establish the features of their flight. He even made drawings of an aircraft - a prototype of a modern helicopter.
From the history of conquering the sky
First, a man managed to rise to the clouds in a balloon. This happened on November 21, 1783. The hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers lifted two people to a height of about 1 km, and after almost half an hour they landed safely at a distance of 9 km.
In 1853, D. Cayley built the first simple glider that could lift a man into the air. Since then, airframe designs have been constantly improved. At the same time, the range and duration of flights increased. It was bigachievement, because the glider is heavier than air. But the dream of free flight, independent of the will of the winds, controlled by man himself, has not yet come true.
Only the Wright brothers (1903) were able to achieve this by creating their first aircraft. Their victory was determined by many factors, including personal qualities.
The Wright Brothers: Biography
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright were born in the USA in the family of a clergyman. The values of the Protestant church, which put hard work at the head of any success, were instilled in him from childhood. It was efficiency that helped them achieve their goal and build the world's first powered aircraft. This was soon followed by a stellar moment - the first flight of the Wright brothers. But they did not have not only a higher education, they could not even finish high school due to life circumstances. Wilbur was injured and was unable to attend Yale University. He had to work in the Orville publishing business. Then the first invention of the Wright brothers appeared - a printing press of their own design.
In 1892, the brothers opened a bicycle shop, after a short time they created a repair shop, and later they started producing them. But they devoted all their free time to flying. In the end, it was the income from the sale of bicycles that gave them the funds for numerous experiments to create the first aircraft.
First Flight Preparing: Brilliant Techniques
The brothers became very interested in the idea of aeronautics. They studiedall the literature on flights available at that time, experimented a lot. We built several gliders and flew them, achieving excellent results. In order to increase the lift force of the wing, endless experiments were carried out in a wind tunnel created by oneself. We tested different configurations of the wing and propeller blades.
As a result, they made adjustments to the formula for determining lift.
Finally, a lighter 12 horsepower gasoline engine for the airplane was also made by the Wright brothers themselves. How can one not remember the great Leonardo, who was ahead of his time!
The Wright brothers' first plane
In the four years that have passed since the beginning of experiments with kites and gliders, the brothers are ripe for the construction of a controlled aircraft. The Wright brothers' first airplane was called the Flyer. The frame of the aircraft was made of spruce, the propeller was also carved from wood. With a weight of 283 kg, the wingspan of the device was 12 m.
With an engine that weighed 77 kg and was superior in efficiency to the analogues available at that time, the first aircraft cost its creators less than $1,000!
First flight of the Wright brothers
The test of a fundamentally new aircraft was scheduled for December 1903. Both brothers, of course, wanted to be the first. They solved this problem very simply - tossed a coin. It fell to Wilbur to be the world's first pilot. But he was not lucky. The airplane was unable to fly because it crashed and was damaged shortly after takeoff.
The next attempt was already made by Orville. On December 17, with a headwind of 43 km / h, he managed to lift the device into the air to a height of about 3 m and hold out for 12 seconds. The distance covered in flight was 36.5 m.
On this day, the brothers took turns making 4 flights. The last one, when Wilbur was piloting the airplane, lasted almost a minute. And the distance was more than 250 m.
Strangely enough, the first flight of the Wright brothers did not attract public attention, although five people witnessed it.
Was there a flight?
The day after the flight, only a few newspapers published small reports about him, sinning with inaccuracies and passing unnoticed. And in Dayton, the hometown of the first aviators, this essentially sensational event went unnoticed at all.
But it's harder to explain why no one noticed that the Flyer II had already made 105 flights over the next year! The third Flyer, which the brothers also flew around Dayton, again did not receive the attention of the masses.
Not only that, in 1906 a newspaper published an article en titled "Flyer or a liar?"
This was the last straw that led to the decision to demonstrate to the world the possibility of controlled flight in a device that is heavier than air. And in 1908, the Wright brothers' airplane was transported acrossAtlantic Ocean. They staged demonstration flights: Wilbur - in Paris, and Orville - in the USA.
The brothers even organized events to sell their invention, which turned out to be quite successful. In addition to the glory of the pioneers of aeronautics, they also received material satisfaction. The first flight of the Wright brothers in public was so convincing that the US government signed a contract with them, according to which an article was included in the country's budget for 1909 for the supply of aircraft for military needs. It was planned to produce several dozen airplanes.
First plane crash
Unfortunately, the first public demonstrations of flying on an airplane were also marked by the first disaster in the history of aviation.
It happened in September 1908. Orville Wright took off from the Fort Myer military base in the Flyer III, which was equipped with an additional seat. As a result of the failure of the right engine, the aircraft went into a dive, it was not possible to level it. The passenger - Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge - died as a result of a skull injury received when hitting the ground. Orville himself escaped with broken hips and ribs.
Despite this, the contract with the military was concluded. And to the credit of the Wright brothers, this is the only serious accident that has happened to them in all the years.
However, in 1909, during a test flight in the suburbs of Paris, the French pilot Lefebvre, a student of the Wright brothers, died in a crash. This was the reason why Russia, alreadyalso ready to sign a contract for the supply of aircraft, refused them.
Development of aviation
Like many major human discoveries, aircraft were first used for military purposes. For the first time, aviation began to be used in the form of aerial reconnaissance in the First World War. During it, it became clear that aircraft turn into a formidable force if they carry weapons and bombs.
The first aerial ram was also produced during World War I by Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov.
After the war, airplanes began to be used to transport urgent cargo, primarily mail. Subsequently, passenger aircraft appeared. The end of the Second World War and a calmer world situation led to the emergence of flights for travelers.
In the end, the improvement of air transport put many sea and rail lines out of business. The main advantage of aviation has become speed, especially with the advent of supersonic aircraft.
Orville Wright, who died at the age of 77 in 1948, was able to see how aviation is widely used in the world. Wilbur Wright fell victim to typhus in 1912.
The Wright brothers' first aircraft now takes pride of place in the US National Air and Space Museum. He is better known not as "Flyer I", but as "Kitty Hawk" - after the name of the place where he first took to the air and thus opened the era of conquering the air ocean.
