Leonardo da Vinci researched the wing design of birds and designed a man-powered aircraft in his Codex on the Flight of Birds (1502), noting for the first time the distinction between the center of mass and the center of pressure of flying birds.

Some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century Andalusian and Arabic-language poet Abbas ibn Firnas and the 11th-century English monk Eilmer of Malmesbury both experiments injured their pilots. This machine may have been suspended for its flight. Around 400 BC in Greece, Archytas was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have flown some 200 m (660 ft).

Many stories from antiquity involve flight, such as the Greek legend of Icarus and Daedalus, and the Vimana in ancient Indian epics. Main articles: Aviation history and First flying machine Le Bris and his glider, Albatros II, photographed by Nadar, 1868 Otto Lilienthal in mid-flight, c. In the United Kingdom and Ireland and most of the Commonwealth, the term 'aeroplane' ( / ˈ ɛər ə p l eɪ n/ ) is usually applied to these aircraft. In the United States and Canada, the term 'airplane' is used for powered fixed-wing aircraft. In an example of synecdoche, the word for the wing came to refer to the entire aircraft. ' Aéroplane' originally referred just to the wing, as it is a plane moving through the air. The Boeing 707, the first widely successful commercial jet, was in commercial service for more than 50 years, from 1958 to at least 2013.įirst attested in English in the late 19th century (prior to the first sustained powered flight), the word airplane, like aeroplane, derives from the French aéroplane, which comes from the Greek ἀήρ ( aēr), 'air' and either Latin planus, 'level', or Greek πλάνος ( planos), 'wandering'. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952. The first jet aircraft was the German Heinkel He 178 in 1939. Airplanes had a presence in all the major battles of World War II. įollowing its limited use in World War I, aircraft technology continued to develop. Lilienthal's flight attempts in 1891 are seen as the beginning of human flight. They built on the works of George Cayley dating from 1799, when he set forth the concept of the modern airplane (and later built and flew models and successful passenger-carrying gliders) and the work of German pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal, who, between 18, also studied heavier-than-air flight.

The Wright brothers invented and flew the first airplane in 1903, recognized as 'the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight'. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled such as drones. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne- kilometers of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations.

North American P-51 Mustang, a World War II fighter aircraft The first flight of an airplane, the Wright Flyer on DecemAn All Nippon Airways Boeing 777-300ER taking off from New York JFK AirportĪn airplane ( American English), or aeroplane ( Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. For other uses, see Airplane (disambiguation) and Aeroplane (disambiguation).

Squeed between 2 passenger in a plane