THE INVENTION OF AIRPLANES
Perhaps one of the greatest inventions in the past 150 years is the
airplane. Two brothers from North Carolina single handedly changed the
direction of the field of aviation.
Until Orville and Wilbur Wright began working on
their first airplane, aviation enthusiasts had been working to perfect
different versions of gliders.
The Wright brothers contacted the Smithsonian
Institute and requested the plans for all the gliders they tracked.
The brothers realized the main problems with all the
models they saw: there was no way to control their direction or flight path.
They began working on their own crude form of
gliders, where they experimented with different flight controls.
After a few failed experiments, they installed
controls for pitch, roll and yaw, as well as changing the shape of the wings
to allow for better control.
The next year, they worked to install a small
gasoline powered engine to sustain flight.
On December 17th,
1903, Orville complete the first flight, lasting twelve seconds and spanning
120 feet.
