Why don't people fly like birds? This question reflects a man’s long-held dream of heaven, of flight. To implement it, people made wings for themselves and tried to take off, waving them. Most often, such experiments ended in the death of daredevils. Recall only the ancient legend of Icarus ...
The flight issue was of great interest to the genius artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who studied the structure of birds, their wings. He tried to establish the features of their flight. He even drew up drawings of an aircraft - a prototype of a modern helicopter.
From the history of conquering the sky
At first, the man managed to rise to the clouds in a balloon. This happened on November 21, 1783. The balloon 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, which was able to lift a person into the air. Since then, the design of gliders has been constantly improved. However, the range and duration of flights increased. This was a great achievement, because the glider is heavier than air. But the dream of a free flight independent of the will of the winds, controlled by man himself, has not yet been realized.
This was achieved only by the Wright brothers (1903), creating their first aircraft. Their victory was determined by many factors, including personal qualities.
Wright brothers: biography
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright were born in the United States 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 them from childhood. It was efficiency that helped them achieve their goal and build the world's first aircraft with an engine. Soon after, a stellar moment followed - the first flight of the Wright brothers. But they did not have not only higher education, even they could not finish high school due to life circumstances. Wilbur was injured and was unable to enter Yale University. He had to work in the publishing business of Orville. Then the first invention of the Wright brothers appeared - a printing press of its own design.
In 1892, the brothers opened a bicycle shop, a short time later set up a repair shop, and subsequently set up their production. But they devoted all their free time to flying. In the end, it was the proceeds from the sale of bicycles that gave them the funds for numerous experiments to create the first aircraft.
First flight preparation: ingenious techniques
The brothers were very seriously interested in the idea of ​​aeronautics. They studied all the literature on flights available at that time, and experimented a lot. We built several gliders and flew on 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 hand. Different configurations of the wing and propeller blades were tested.
As a result, they made refinements to the formula for determining the lifting force.
And finally, the Wright brothers themselves also made the lighter 12-horsepower gasoline engine for the airplane. How can one again not remember the great Leonardo, who was ahead of his time!
The first plane of the Wright brothers
In the four years since the beginning of the experiments with kites and gliders, the brothers have matured for the construction of a controlled aircraft. The first Wright brothers' airplane was called the Flyer. The frame of the plane was made of spruce, the propeller was also cut out of wood. With a weight of 283 kg, the wingspan of the device was 12 m.
Taking into account the engine, which weighed 77 kg and exceeded the analogues available at that time, the first plane cost its creators less than $ 1,000!
The first flight of the Wright brothers
A test of a fundamentally new aircraft was scheduled for December 1903. Both brothers naturally wanted to be the first. They solved this problem very simply - they threw a coin. Wilbur was the first pilot in the world. But he was out of luck. The airplane could not make a flight, because immediately after takeoff it crashed and was damaged.
The next attempt was made by Orville. On December 17, with a headwind of 43 km / h, he managed to raise the device into the air to a height of about 3 m and hold out for 12 seconds. The flight distance covered was 36.5 m.
On this day, the brothers took turns flying 4. The last of them, when Wilbur piloted the airplane, lasted almost a minute. And the distance was more than 250 m.
Oddly enough, the first flight of the Wright brothers did not attract public attention, although there were five people witnessing it.
Was there a flight?
On the day after the flight, only a few newspapers made small reports about him that sinned with inaccuracies and went unnoticed. And in Dayton, the hometown of the first aviators, this essentially sensational event generally went unnoticed.
But it’s harder to explain that no one paid attention to the fact that on the Flyer II airplane over the next year 105 flights have already been completed! The third "Flyer", on which the brothers also flew in the vicinity of Dayton, again did not receive the attention of the masses.
Not only that, in 1906, one of the newspapers published an article entitled "Flyer or a liar?", Which questioned the achievements of the Wright brothers.
This was the last straw that led to the decision to demonstrate to the whole world the possibility of controlled flights on an apparatus that is heavier than air. And in 1908, the Wright brothers' airplane was transported across the Atlantic Ocean. They staged demonstration flights: Wilbur - in Paris, and Orville - in the United States.
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 received material satisfaction. The first flight of the Wright brothers in public was so convincing that the US government signed a contract with them under which an article on the supply of aircraft for military purposes was included in the country's budget for 1909. The production of several dozen airplanes was envisaged.
First plane crash
Unfortunately, the first public demonstrations of airplane flights marked the first catastrophe in aviation history .
This happened in September 1908. Orville Wright in the Flyer III, on which an additional seat was installed, took off from Fort Mayer military base. As a result of the failure of the right engine, the plane went into a peak, it was not possible to level it. The passenger - Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge - died as a result of a skull injury sustained when he hit the ground. Orville himself escaped with fractures of the hip and ribs.
Despite this, a contract with the military was concluded. And to the credit of the Wright brothers, it should be noted that this is the only serious accident that has happened to them over the years.
However, in 1909, during a test flight in a suburb of Paris, a French pilot Lefebvre, a student of the Wright brothers, was killed in a disaster. This was the reason why Russia, already ready to also sign a contract for the supply of aircraft, refused them.
Aviation development
Like many of the major discoveries of mankind, 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. In the course of it, it became clear that planes are becoming a formidable force if they have weapons and bombs on them.
The first air ram was also produced during World War I by the Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov.
After the war, airplanes began to be used to transport urgent goods, primarily mail. Subsequently, passenger aircraft appeared. The end of World War II and the calmer world situation led to the emergence of flights for travelers.
In the end, the improvement of air transport has deprived many sea and railway lines of work. The main advantage of aviation was 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 became a victim of typhus in 1912.
The first plane of the Wright brothers now occupies a place of honor in the National Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics of the United States. He is better known not as "Flyer I", but as "Kitty Hawk" - by the name of the place where he first flew up and thereby opened the era of conquering the air ocean.