First American Airplane History

Do you know who invented the airplane? The Wright Brothers did! They became interested in flight at young ages after reading about Otto Lilienthal, a glider pilot. They wanted to make something that could fly further.

The first flight occurred in 1903 when the Wright brothers famously took their airplane for a final test flight in December. In the years after this historic flight many people start to see the potential for airplanes in war, transportation, and shipping. Other builders disregarded previous doubt about flying and began to replicate the ideas of the Wright brothers in creating planes with three axes. In addition, the approach of WWI prompted military personnel to pursue uses of airplanes as a war machine. The airplane influenced many aspects of American culture after it’s invention including civilian life, war technology, and individual possibility.

The brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, possibly the two most renowned representatives of American aeronautics, were the first to experience controlled, continuous flight of a powered airplane in history. Despite being autodidactic in the area of engineering, the duo proved to be extraordinarily successful, testing and refining their strategies to overcome successive challenges that arose with the building of a plane (Crouch 226). The two were so far ahead in the race for flight that they even anticipated and found solutions to problems that more learned scientists could not have even begun to predict. Successful, man-controlled, powered flight was a fundamental turning point in history; it transformed the methods of how the United States

With technology advancing, aviation began to rise in popularity. Many records were made and broken, including Amelia Earhart’s flight across the Atlantic, the altitude flight record and the highest recorded speed. But before all that, another record was made. On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh set off from New York to Paris, France. He would be the first solo flyer to successfully complete the journey. Rising from obscurity to follow his dreams while doing what he loved, Charles A Lindbergh embodied the American Dream as much as the 1920’s did.

Charles Lindbergh had a large impact on aviation and various other things in the mid-1900s. His life was full of of ups and downs, but he persevered because of them. Today, thanks to his perseverance, modern aviation has reached new heights. Thousands of flights are made a day all across the globe, some reaching up to 8,598 miles (Meltzer). Clearly Charles was an important icon in the 1920s and for many years to

Wilbur and Orville Wright were American inventors, best known for their invention of the first airplane in 1903. The History Organization says, “It was the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight; they surpassed their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully practical airplane.”

James “Dutch” Kindelberger, a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, played a pivotal role in American aviation. Kindelberger was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1895, 20 years before the first heavier than air flight by the Wright brothers. After attending only one year of high school, Dutch dropped out to become a steel mill apprentice. After experiencing the brutal hard work of the steel mill, he decided to go back to school learn drafting at Carnegie Institute of Technology, which would prove to be a useful skill in his future in avionics. Kindelberger first caught the aviation fever after an ariel exhibition by the famous Lincoln Beachey in 1913. His flying fever led Dutch to become a pilot instructor in the Army during

Earlier efforts to make an object fly in the air were hot air balloons, Gliders, kites and more inventions that we see today in the 20th century. The Wright Brothers took some of these creative inventions and made their own innovation that we see and use today as an average way of transportation. The airplane has adapted to the American society over the years. There were more and more airplanes being upgraded and fixed until eventually it was normal to get on a plane as a way to travel long distances in a short amount of time. The plane has also adapted by taking the idea of the invention itself and making another useful aircraft called the Helicopter.

twelve seconds, and it had been the first successful, powered, piloted flight ever recorded. Finally, on November 9, 1904, Wilbur Wright had made history when the first flight lasting more than five minutes took place (“Wright Brothers”).

The First two names that come to mind when it comes to aviation are Wilburn and Orville; the Wright brothers; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, when the Wright brothers made the first heavier-than-air, machine powered flight which lasted 12 seconds. Before those guys, many studies by brilliant minds, such as De Rozier, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton has been set in place which lead to this 12 second flight by the Wright brothers in 1903. It was the matter of time after the first powered aircraft when the development of the first practical airplane in 1905 and launched worldwide efforts to build better flying machines. As a result, the early 20th century witnessed myriad aviation developments as new planes and technologies entered service. (FAA, 2015). With this new method of transportation booming and every nation around globe part taking in it, comes the concern of safety and organize operations.

The first ever flight was on December 17, 1903 by the Wright Brother’s Wright Flyer I (Wright Brothers). After years of development

The aviation history started in 1783 with an inedited public demonstration by the Montgolfier brothers. They constructed the first lighter-than-air, a hot air balloon which brought new ideas in the course of time (“Museum of Flight,” 1965). In 1900, the first Zeppelin airship was built by Ferdinand Zeppelin. After two years, an important person who would be noteworthy in the aviation history would be born, named Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Lindbergh was an American man, who turned fall in love by aviation since he was young. On May 20-21, 1927, with twenty-five years, Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean alone and in a nonstop flight becoming famous internationally. Thereby, Charles Augustus Lindbergh is considered the best, of all time, aviator to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

It has always been the dream of mankind wanting to join the birds in the sky, many innovators created various contraptions to achieve flight. On December 17, 1903, two brothers by the name of Wilbur and Orville Wright decided to test their contraption and it was successful. This event changed the course of aviation as the contraption known as Flyer 1 became the first successful powered heavier-than-air flight.

The Wright Brothers had an interesting life that led to the inspiration of their inventions later on. On April 16, 1867, Milton was born in Millville, Indiana; Orville, his brother, was born on August 19, 1871 in Dayton, Ohio (Ryan). Neither of them attended college, but this did not diminish their intellectual abilities. Instead, they founded a print shop in 1889 and a bicycle shop a few years later to make money for their family and themselves. These businesses helped fund their aeronautical interests. They started off by making kites to observe the basics of flight (Reynolds 44). After making enough money, they began to experiment with various contraptions that resembled the German glider created by Otto Lilenthal and Octave Chanute. To help figure out how they would make their

The fly was a big dream for our ancestors when they saw the bird flew. Our ancestors waved their arms like a bird because they want to fly like a bird. But it was unsuccessful. So it was a long history until the Wright brothers invented the airplanes. “The first successful air flight was in a hot air balloon. In 1783, a few men invented the first flying machine by making the hot air balloon. A hot air balloon is a balloon filled with heated air. Since heated air is lighter than cool air, the balloon would rise into the sky. The pilot would ride in a basket attached to the balloon and control the height by adding and subtracting more heat.” (History of airplanes, (n.d.)) So the hot air balloon is the airplanes’ predecessor because it was the first successful air flight.