1900-1920

The Wright Brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur were two American brothers, inventors and aviation pioneers who have been credited with inventing and creating the world’s first every airplane and making the first controlled, powered sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.

The Wright brothers first came interested in flight after they read the books written by Lilienthal about gliding flights in Germany. After his death they vowed to continue his work and progress on flight. The Wright brothers originally started to fly gliders. They used to fly this gliders new Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina. For 4 years they made 1000 successful gliding flights on those dunes.

The wright brothers decided that they were going to design and create their own glider. They decided though that the glider should be able to fly with an engine and not simply glide around in the air. Though they had some trouble finding and engine manufacturer that met their specifications. They required an engine that had 8 horsepower and weighed less than 91kg. Therefore they decided to build their own engine as no one was able to provide them with one. With the help from their bicycle mechanic Charlie Taylor, they were able to build an engine with 12 horsepower, meaning that they had built a more powerful engine that they had originally needed.  Now with the engine complete, they now faced a new problem of how to build a propeller as no one really knew much about propellers and how to build them. Using the data they had collected from wings on the gilder, they were able to create accurately the propellers for the engines. With all this and the airframe of their glider from 1902, they were able to create the Kitty Hawk Flyer was born.

They went through many improvements on the glider. They even looked at how birds fly. After months of improving and studying, the Flyer was ready test. To decide on who was going to do the first test flight, they flipped a coin and Wilbur won. They tested their glider but it crashed because one of the wings dipped down during the flight. Then on December 17, 1903 it was Orville’s go to fly the Flyer. This resulted in a 36 meter, 12 second flight. This aircraft represented the first ever powered flight on a heavier than man machine meaning that the aircraft weighed more than the men but was still able to lift off the ground.

The Wright brother decided that they were going to try to sell the machine to the government but there was a problem. Since they never made the flight an official or public one, the government were unsure to by the machine as they had never seen it work.

First Aircraft companies

The first aircraft company that ever existed was created in 1905 by Charles and Gabriel Voisin. These two French fliers set up their factory just outside of Paris so that they could build custom planes and hopefully make a business out of it. This was the first of many European companies to start building customised aircraft.

The first American aircraft company was founded only one year later by Glenn Curtiss in the state of New York. The first ever commercial airplane sale was made by this company. The Aeronautic Society of New York bought a plane for 5000 dollars.  

Only a couple of years after Glenn’s company was founded, two more American companies were formed. One company was formed by Glenn Martin. The Martin Company produced many important aircraft for the defence of the United States and its allies, especially during World War 2 and the Cold War. The other company was founded by The Wright brothers. In 1908 the Wright brothers made their first official public flight. Now the United States Government were interested and were amazed by the capability of the plane. The US Government decided to order a specialized plane from the Wright brothers for 30,000 dollars.

The world’s first military plane was created and was going to be used by the Army Signal Corps. The United States Army Signal Corps develops, tests, provides and manages communication and information systems to support the command and control of combined arms forces. In November 1909, a group of wealthy Americans loaned money to the Wright brothers to start their own company or plant/factory. The Wright Company was created which quickly grew to become the number one supplier in military planes. Sadly Wilbur died in 1912 of typhoid. Later in 1915, Orville sold his portion of the company to Eastern investors and the Wright Company was no longer owned by the Wright brothers themselves.

World War 1

World War 1 was the first time aircraft were used on a large scale. At the start of World War 1, aircraft were very basic and were very rare but by the end of the war, aircraft became a lot more sophisticated. By the end, the aircraft had even been differentiated into fighters such as bombers, long-range bombers, scouts, night bombers, night fighter and ground attack. The way the aircraft were developed was stimulated or caused by the war and what was required during it. The way the aircraft was used was also influenced from the war.

In the beginning of the War, the Germans were using their successful Zeppelins airships but they hadn’t taken into account of the importance of heavier-than-air aircraft. While the French had these heavier-than-air aircraft, they were lacking. The allies had roughly 240 aircraft in the Army in August 1914 but only 180 or so were of any use. Even though they had the planes, the manufacture time was poor and the momentum was slaking. Great Britain were lacking the most and the relied heavily on the French aircraft industry, especially for aircraft engines. Out of the 184 aircraft that were being used in the August of 1914, the British only contributed about three squadrons with about 30 usable aircraft. The American army and navy air services were so horribly behind in production of military aircraft that even in 1917, when the US entered the war, they were almost fully dependant on the French and British aircraft industries for combat aircraft.  

The aircraft played a pivotal role in World War 1. The earlier aircraft were typically unarmed and were used in the reconnaissance which was the mission to obtain information by visual observation which the aircrafts provided. These type of aircraft were used until they decided to put arms or weapons, machine guns, which made a huge difference. From this, the machine become fixed on all aircraft that were being manufactured which created the fighter aeroplane. Since the fighting on the war resolved to Trench war, the war slowed down meaning that aircraft was needed to speed up the war and give superiority over the different countries.  

There were 146 recorded World War 1 aircraft that were used during the war. The two aircraft that have been considered the best and most useful during the war were the Fokker Dr.1 and the Sopwith Triplane.

The Fokker Dr.1 was Germany’s most famous fighter plan in the war. The Fokker Dr.1 was a very strong and manoeuvrable aircraft. Most of the aircrafts were fitted with a 110 horse power engine which wasn’t a lot in that time. Even though the plane lacked power, it was not a problem when combined with the three-wings of the aircraft. The Dr.1 had an excellent climb meaning that it would climb in altitude a lot faster than an aircraft that fitted with more powerful engines. Its high rate in climb and its ability to turn swiftly made it a very lethal opponent in dog fights (battle between planes in the air). The Dr.1 was not very fast though but again, its agility and the rate of climb made up for the speed. The Fokker was very cheap to manufacture which made it easy to produce them.

The British opposite of the Fokker Dr.1 was the Sopwith Triplane. When the British were searching for an outstanding fighter plane, the Sopwith Company decided to experiment in 1916 to build a completely new design, a triplane. The final aircraft had three narrow-chord wings which, combined, gave a larger wing area to provide greater lift. The Sopwith Company decided to put on ailerons which helped lose the chords that hold the wings together which saved weight and gave it better movement. The fuselage was the typical Sopwith wooden box girder. The Triplane’s layout was adopted in order to give the pilot the widest possible field of view to make sure the pilots could manoeuvre the plan much more effectively. According to historians and aeronautical engineers, the handling qualities of the Triplane were excellent. The engine that was fitted to the Triplane was a 110 horsepower engine but later in the war they fitted it with a 130 horsepower engine which allowed the aircraft to go faster. The gun that was fitted to the Triplane was the Vickers gun which was synchronised to fire through the revolving propeller.

These were the two aircraft that had the strongest impact on the war. These were the planes that controlled the sky’s at the time and they were considered the best built aircraft for the war.