1891-1896: Lilienthal the Inspiration

The next crucial figure in aviation history was Otto Lilienthal, a young German civil engineer, who spent all his leisure time in working and writing on aerodynamics - and in daring flying experiments with his gliders. He exercised control by leaning his body to and fro and from side to side, as in a modern hang-glider. Between 1891 and 1896 Lilienthal made controlled flights up to 750 ft long, in monoplane and biplane gliders. He was the first great pilot, and his death in 1896 after a glider crash was the first accident due to pilot error.

1903: The Wrights Win Through

The news of Lilienthal's death re-awakened an early interest in flying in 29-year-old Wilbur Wright, who, with his younger brother Orville, built bicycles in Dayton, Ohio. The two poorly educated young men, the Wright brothers were the first to discover the secret of air travel that had escaped the genious of the world greatest scholars for thousands of year. They watched birds and studied the lifting and drifting of the bird's wings soaring against the sky. The brothers read everything they could on the subject, and in 1899 started experiments with a biplane kite.

Like Lilienthal they thought it natural that man should fly, and regarded their first flying machine - a manned glider - as being an extension of the pilot himself.

From a list supplied by the US Weather Bureau they picked a place with strong yet constant winds, the coastal sand-dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and began their test flights in 1900. Three gliders were built and tested before they were satisfied. By 1903 they had made more than 1,000 glides, some over 200 yds long, and had mastered winds of up to 35 mph.

'When a machine is under proper control under all conditions, the motor problem will be quickly solved,' wrote Wilbur. It was; but only when the brothers built their own 12 hp, 200 lb internal combustion engine - all the petrol engines sold in America at the time were too heavy. The two propellers had to be designed from first principles, as no published information existed.

This machine was Flyer I, in which Orville made the world's first powered, controlled and sustained flights on December 17, 1903. The fourth flight that day lasted nearly a minute. The Wright brothers had made the aeroplane a reality. The Wright aircraft were kept in stable flight.

1903-1914: Sorting Out the Shape

The Wright biplane was soon shown to be only one of several shape that would fly. By 1909, all the conventional forms the aeroplane would take over the next 30 years were emerging. The successful monoplane had arrived, in the shape of the French Bleriot XI and Levasseur Antoinette. Both had the engine in the nose, a long fuselage and a tail unit. The coming style of biplane was exemplified by the 1909 Goupy, also French, which had staggered wings.

Aircraft emerged from the First World War still constructed of wood and fabric, but there were plenty of them, and of trained pilots looking for peacetime employment. The world's first regular commercial air service had been launched in the United States shortly before the war; from January to April 1914 a flying-boat plied between St Petersburg and Tampa in Florida. Then, within months of the end of hostilities in 1918, civil aviation began to spread. Several European companies launched passenger and mail services, using converted warplanes. In March 1919 the French Farman company inaugurated the Paris-Brussels route - the earliest international passenger air service. Daily scheduled cross-Channel services between London and Paris were started by both French and British companies in August 1919.

HISTORY OF TRANSPORT

Transportation takes us where we want to go, and brings us nearly everything we eat, wear, and use in daily life. Day and night, swift airliners speed passengers through the sky. Long trains roar across the countryside carrying passengers, mail, and such products as food, livestock, and coal. Automobiles, buses, and huge trucks rumble along the streets and highways. Ships steam across oceans and along lakes and rivers. Pipelines carry petroleum and natural gas across thousands of miles.

Developments in transportation have cut travel time greatly in the past 200 years. In 1800 it often took a businessman a month to travel by sailing ship from London to New York City. Today, he can fly this distance by jet airliner in only a few hours. The airplane has made New York City closer in time to Sydney, Australia, than it was to Montreal, Canada, only a hundred years ago.