he history of flight is a history of progress for humanity. Today, using air and space, we communicate and travel, defend ourselves against various threats, and explore the world around us and the vastness of space beyond. Pessimists can point to alarming increases in the destructive capacity of humans due to atomically armed bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Optimists-such as myself—can point to the tremendous benefits that air and space travel have given us.
Flight is one of the oldest of human aspirations, and it is one that all peoples
have shared. They have incorporated visions of flying deities, spirits, and people in their various cosmologies, theologies, and mythic pasts. Yet for all this global interest, the actual achievement of human flight has greatly exceeded the expectations of those who dreamed what flight would give to humanity. They could hardly have conceived a world in which hundreds of millions of people each year journey from their homes to transportation centers designed for aviation, where they enter specialized aircraft to rise several miles off the ground and travel at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour across their countries and around the globe.
Indeed, those people who dreamed of flight largely did so at a time when they (with the aid of horses) could travel no faster than 6 miles per hour (9.7 kilometers per hour). This rate of mass mobility remained until the early years of the nineteenth century and the introduction of the steam railroad. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the steam locomotive had given people routine mass transportation at 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour).
Then came the airplane, which, by the turn of the twenty-first century, was whisking its passengers over thousands of miles at an average speed of 600 miles per hour (970 kilometers per hour). If current interest in high-speed propulsion continues, it is possible that our descendents will usher in the twenty – second century at a speed of 6,000 miles per hour (9,700 kilometers per hour)— such is the pace of mass mobility in the aerial age.
The achievement of flight has represented the integration of diverse technologies and disciplines: those of flight itself, such as aerodynamics; those of engineering, such as structures and propulsion; and those of related fields, such as electronics and communications. It was this integration process that took the kite, boomerang, turbine, and firework from their first, simple forms to the sophistication of the winged airplane, the helicopter, the jet engine, and the solid-and-liquid-fueled rocket. Even the pioneers (the Wright brothers and rocket scientist Robert Goddard, for example) were masters at blending the various elements into a satisfactory whole.
Human flight was first achieved at the end of the eighteenth century with the invention of hot air and hydrogen – filled balloons. It was only after the invention of the internal combustion engine in the mid-nineteenth century, however, that practical flight became a possibility. Once the airplane and airship had been invented, extraordinarily rapid developments in the field of aviation followed.
At first, several European countries took the lead in the science and technology of flight. The United States, however, was particularly suited to air transportation because of its size. The nation emerged from World War I as the leading industrial power and soon began to dominate the aviation field. By the 1930s, the U. S. aeronautical industry was the largest and most structured in the world. Other nations also produced powerful aeronautical establishments.
This progress in aviation development was demonstrated in the opening months of World War II. Germany’s blitzkrieg warfare depended heavily on
a core of powerful air striking forces. Air battles between Britain and Germany in 1940 showed how significant the airplane had become as an instrument of war. The rest of the war that followed, on multiple fronts, revealed the often – surprising power of aircraft in both offensive and defensive combat. In fact, a lack of air power at critical junctures proved to be a more serious disadvantage than any deficits in land or sea power. World War II also highlighted the value of four new technologies that would play a huge role in future aerospace development: radar, the jet engine, the rocket, and the atomic bomb.
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In the mid-1900s, flight underwent three remarkable transformations. One was in high-speed aviation, demonstrated by the breaking of the sound barrier in 1947. Another was the application of the drag-reducing swept wing to jet aircraft. This wing design revolutionized both military and civil aviation and led to the rapid global mobility of the present age. The third, in 1957, was the onset of the Space Age, with the launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union.
The success of this small sphere hurtling through space overturned the whole aeronautical picture. Today, more than fifty years after that epochal event, it is fair to state that the Sputnik program marked the birth of the Space Age. The product of Sergei Korolev and a team of gifted Soviet designers, Sputnik demonstrated mankind’s ability to place a satellite in orbit around Earth.
As such, the mission anticipated all subsequent satellites and their varied applications. Weather observation, communication, strategic reconnaissance, warning, navigation, remote sensing- these are all now taken for granted.
Sputnik marked the onset of a brief but intensive rivalry in space between the United States and the Soviet Union. The stakes were, as is now realized, achievement of the first manned flight to the Moon. It was a race that the United States won, but at significant cost. The U. S. space agency NASA then focused on the Space Shuttle project, another major but costly step. Maintaining the Space Shuttle (in great part to support the creation of the complex International Space Station) proved to be a great challenge that has lasted from the 1980s into the 2000s.
Today, the United States is not alone as a space-travel provider. Commercial
use and privatization of space is increasing spaceflight greatly. It is a hopeful sign. Individual entrepreneurs, mirroring early aviation pioneers, are willing to invest their own resources in making space access available for many. Only time will tell how successful their various space ventures will be.
Today, the world’s goods are largely shipped by air, and the mass mobility of populations depends on air transportation. Aircraft and spacecraft routinely influence the day-to-day activities of humanity. Businesspeople think little of making multiple trips in a single week by air, just as their predecessors relied upon the train. Students and other travelers fly across continents and over seas, carrying the influence of their own culture with them to new places. Science and technology, the environment, and the world in which we live are all dependent on the aerospace industry and the global communications it provides.
For all of these reasons, it is well to have this encyclopedia. Broad in scope and straightforward in explanation, it is designed to meet the needs of students and those seeking to understand the history of flight and its functioning in the modern world. Only through works such as this can the youth of today be adequately prepared to face the wonderful world that awaits them within Earth’s atmosphere and the extraordinary discoveries yet to be made far out in the distant reaches of space.
Dr. Richard P. Hallion, 2008
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ABOUT THE CONSULTANT
Dr. Richard P. Hallion is the former senior advisor for Air and Space Issues, Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence, and Special Programs Oversight at the Pentagon, in Washington, D. C., and a member of the Senior Executive Service. For more than ten years (1991-2002), he was the historian of the U. S. Air Force.
Dr. Hallion is now president of the consultancy group Hallion Associates.
Dr. Hallion has broad experience in science and technology museum development and in research and management analysis. He has served as a consultant to various professional organizations. He also has flown as a mission observer in a wide range of high-performance aircraft.
Dr. Hallion is the author and editor of numerous books, articles, and essays on aerospace technology and military operations. He teaches and lectures widely. His numerous awards include: Citation of Honor, U. S. Air Force Association (1985); Commander’s Medal for Public Service, U. S. Army (1988); Louis Bauer Distinguished Lectureship, Aerospace Medical Association (1999); Associate Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2005); and the Harry B. Combs Award, National Aviation Hall of Fame (2006).
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In the early days of the airplane industry, engineers constructed airplanes in
 
A new aircraft starts life as a design on paper or on a computer screen. A manufacturer may plan a new model, such as an airliner or helicopter. Alternatively it may update an existing model, perhaps by lengthening the fuselage or giving it more powerful and more efficient engines. The manufacturer then offers the new product to the world market, by showing it at air shows, for example. (Air shows bring new products and and potential buyers together and they are open to the public as well.)
Other aircraft are commissioned by customers. The U. S. Department of Defense asks manufacturers to submit plans for new aircraft or missiles, setting out such details as size, speed, cost, and mission tasks. Sometimes, two or more prototypes are tested in competition. In the late 1980s, the U. S. government invited Boeing and Lockheed Martin to submit designs for an important new military airplane, the Joint Strike Fighter. This was a complex, multipurpose airplane, intended to replace not just one existing airplane but several different models. Both companies put forward a design, and Lockheed Martin’s F-35A won the contract. This decision will affect thousands of aerospace industry workers, since the new plane will probably be in service for at least thirty years from its scheduled release date of 2011.
 A new plane is thoroughly tested-sometimes for years-before it is ready to go into production. Few aircraft fly perfectly the first time, and many modifications may be made before airplanes start to roll off the assembly lines.
Most airplanes are now built, like automobiles, on a production line. Aircraft are rarely built on one site, however. Instead, subcontractors build different parts of the airplane, such as the wings and tail. Manufacturers select the engines from a specialized engine maker, such as GE-Aviation. The parts of the plane, with all of its electronics and other fittings, are then brought together and assembled at a large manufac – О Apache helicopters are assembled at a Boeing plant turing plant. in Mesa, Arizona.
small sheds. They used their own skill and ideas, plus what they read about other inventors’ “flying machines.” Orville and Wilbur Wright, for example, were bicycle engineers. The brothers built their first planes in the early 1900s just to see if they could fy.
Glenn Curtiss, another aviation pioneer, set up America’s first airplane manufacturing company in 1907. In 1909 two competitors entered the business field: the Wright brothers and Glenn L. Martin.
At first, all planes were built one at a time. Series production began in 1909, when the Short Brothers factory in the
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MILITARY CONTRACT
The first contract for a U. S. military plane was awarded to the Wright brothers in 1907. Unfortunately, the aircraft crashed on September 17, 1908. Orville Wright, the pilot, survived, but his passenger, Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge of the U. S. Army Signal Corps, was killed. This was the first fatal accident in a powered airplane. In spite of the accident, the Wrights’ biplane was accepted by the U. S. Army. The brothers were even paid a bonus, because their plane flew 2 miles per hour (3.2 kilometers per hour) faster than the 40 miles per hour (64.4 kilometers per hour) the U. S. Army had requested.
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United Kingdom built six identical Wright biplanes.
Before World War I (1914-1918), airplanes were built almost entirely by hand. They were made chiefly of wood, fabric, and wire. Furniture makers had the skills to build airplanes, and in wartime, some furniture factories switched to aircraft manufacture. By adopting the assembly line methods of automobile manufacturers such as Ford, aircraft companies were able to build planes faster. Two important names in aerospace history, Boeing and Lockheed, started building aircraft in 1916. By the end of World War I, U. S. factories had built more than 14,000 military planes.
After the war, more manufacturers started to supply aircraft for the fastgrowing civil aviation industry. Airline businesses were just beginning, and they needed airplanes. The first U. S. international scheduled airline service was in 1919, operated by Aero Marine West Indies Airways between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. In the 1920s, companies entering the airplane manufacturing industry included Douglas (1920), Pratt & Whitney (1925), and Grumman (1929).
In the pioneer days of aviation, a pilot relied on eyesight and navigated with a map, following ground landmarks such as highways and railroads. Rules to regulate air navigation were first introduced in the 1920s. The first air traffic controller began work in 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. English became the international language of air traffic control, and agreed-upon words were adopted to prevent misunderstandings. At this time, radio was used to communicate with planes, but there was no radar to track aircraft movement until the 1940s.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was set up in 1947. Today, this agency of the United Nations regulates air traffic control worldwide as well as the boundaries of national airspace. It allocates call signs to each airline flight, usually an abbreviated form of the airline name (such as GLA for Great Lakes Airlines) followed by the number of the flight—for example, GLA 674 for flight 674. The call signs appear on radar screens, on flight plans, and on information boards at airports. Other civilian aircraft are usually identified by their registration numbers, a combination of letters and numbers displayed on the tail and wings—N3761P, for example. (The “N” is the international designation for the United States.)
ilitary aircraft are the airplanes and helicopters used by the world’s military forces. They are used for combat and for other military operations, including carrying supplies and troops, reconnaissance, training, and search and rescue.
In the United States all branches of the military (not just the U. S. Air Force) use aircraft. The United States has the world’s most powerful air force, and the U. S. Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Air National Guard also have their own aircraft. Other major air forces include those of Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. Canada does not have a separate air force but has the Canadian Forces Air Command (AIRCOM) within the unified Canadian Forces.
The nerve center of a larger airport is the control tower. Air traffic controllers use radar, computers, and radio to direct the movement of airplanes in and out of the airport and on runways. The design and layout of runways is regulated by the government and by the International Civil Aviation Organization, to which most nations belong.
Early airplanes were light enough to land on a grass airfield. Modern passenger and cargo planes are so heavy that they need hard runways, constructed of concrete or tarmacadam. Because most modern jet planes need a lot of space to take off and land, runways have become longer, and airports now take up a lot of ground.
A typical airport today has a single main runway, often over 13,000 feet (3,960 meters) long. The runway must be long and wide enough for the largest
WIND FACTORS
Aircraft usually land and take off into the wind. For this reason, older airports had three or four runways, arranged in the shape of a triangle or box, so aircraft could land and take off no matter which direction the wind was blowing. Modern airplanes are so powerful that they are less affected by wind, and a modern airport can often operate efficiently with just one main runway. It may need extra runways, however, to cope with the number of passengers and amount of air cargo.
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planes flying into the airport to take off and land safely. A runway has a clear space at each end in case a pilot requires extra distance when taking off or landing. Numbers on or beside the runway identify it by compass direction. For example, on a north-south runway, the numbers are 18 (short for 180°) at the north end, and 36 (short for 360°) at the south end. White lights mark the edges of the runway, and green lights are placed where the runway starts. There is an additional set of red and white approach lights, which pilots see as they prepare to touch down.
pollo was the name given to a project launched by the United States to fly astronauts to the Moon, land them, and return them safely to Earth. The spacecraft built for the project were also named Apollo. The name comes from Greek and Roman mythology-Apollo was the god of light, of healing and medicine, and of poetry and music.
The Political Background
Project Apollo involved a series of spaceflights to increase knowledge of the Moon and of manned spaceflight. The program was carried out at great speed and high cost in the 1960s. Many people doubted it would succeed.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced to the U. S. Congress that the United States should aim to land astronauts on the Moon before 1970. At that time, the United States was in competition with the communist federation of nations then called the USSR, or Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had launched the first Earth satellite (Sputnik 1) in 1957, and in 1959 it had sent three unmanned Luna spacecraft to the Moon. Luna 2 crashed onto the Moon’s surface, while Luna 3 flew around the Moon to photograph its far side, never before seen on Earth. The Soviet Union had clearly taken the lead in what the media called the space race.
U. S. space scientists knew the Soviets were capable of launching heavy
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О One of the first human marks on the Moon was made by the boot of astronaut Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969.
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manned spacecraft using powerful booster rockets developed for the Soviet Union’s military missile program. The Soviets put the world’s first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, into Earth orbit in April 1961. They followed this historic spaceflight with a 25-hour flight by Gherman Titov in August 1961. Many experts predicted that the Soviets would land on the Moon within a year or two.
Project Apollo was America’s answer to that challenge. The program went ahead despite skepticism from some scientists that manned exploration of the Moon was too risky and not worth such a vast expenditure of time, money, and expertise.
Today’s avionics include sensors, radio communications equipment, computers, and control and navigation systems. They also include the displays in the cockpit.
The job of sensors is to collect information. Sensors on the outside of an aircraft collect information about its speed and height. Other sensors in the engines monitor temperature, pressure, and speed. Yet others measure tire pressure. Sensors inside the plane monitor the air pressure and temperature. Radar in an airplane’s nose searches the sky ahead for storms.
Radio equipment lets the crew talk to air traffic controllers on the ground. Radios are also able to receive signals from navigation beacons on the ground and sometimes from satellites in space. Devices called transponders send out radio signals that identify each plane to air traffic controllers. Military aircraft have even more avionics for their weapons and defense systems.
Computers and other electronic systems process all the information arriving from the sensors. A huge amount of information floods into an aircraft’s
cockpit. The plane’s avionics help cut it down to a level that pilots can manage. Displays show the information pilots need on screens and other instruments.
It is possible that an airliner will be struck by lightning one or more times in a year. A lightning bolt produces millions of volts, and avionics can be put out of action by just a few volts too many. When lightning strikes an airplane, however, it flows around the plane’s metal body. It does not get inside the plane, and so the avionics are safe. The crew and passengers are protected from lightning in the same way.
Some parts of a plane’s body are now being built from light materials, such as carbon fiber, instead of metal. The new materials are used because they are lighter and stronger than most metals, but they do not keep lightning out in the way that metal does. One way to protect the delicate avionics in these aircraft is to cover the plastic or carbon fiber parts of the body with a thin metal mesh. If lightning hits the airplane, the metal layer stops it from reaching the computers and electronics inside.
Control systems enable the crew to control the aircraft. Some control systems, such as the autopilot, are automatic: They work by themselves. Others are manual and are operated by the crew. Actuators, for example, are an aircraft’s mechanical muscles. They move parts of the plane, such as the rudder in the tail, the moving parts of the wings, and the landing gear.
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After that work was complete, she transferred to NASA headquarters in Washington, D. C., where she worked on long-range planning for the agency. Her Ride Report, issued in 1987, recommended using the technology of space exploration to study conditions on Earth. This Mission to Planet Earth, as it was called, has been undertaken by NASA. Much of the research focused on the issue of climate change. Another Ride recommendation was to begin planning for a mission to Mars. At the time, NASA did not pursue this plan, but instead focused its work on the International Space Station.
cockpit, produce more shock waves, but the nose and tail shock waves are the biggest.
