Honors Engineering: Week Three

So this week I decided to do a bit of research on important moments in flight history. I have come up with a list of different events that have been critical to modern flight. I have found several interesting sources, but I decided to write down a few in particular:

1. 1500: Leonardo da Vinci sketched (and built?) a parachute, ornithopter (flying machine) and helicopter
2. 1742: Marquis de Bacqueville created imitation flapping wings and flew from his house, (on the Seine) to the Garden of Tuileries. The wings ceased to act mid-flight, ending in apparent disaster.
3. 1890: Sir George Cayley built a glider with a 300 foot wing surface and skimmed the ground and sailed from hilltops
4. 1842: Henson patented a monoplane to be driven by a steam engine. Wing span was 140 feet
5. 1900: Wilbur and Orville Wright begin experimenting with glider with a front rudder. The glider hovered for just over a minute
6. 1903: Wilbur and Orville Wright tested a biplane glider which flew for 59 seconds, covering 852 feet. The plane weighed 750 pounds, first successful sustained flight in the world

These were just the moments in history that really struck me, plus several of these events correlated with research I had completed recently.

Click here to see a complete list of important moments throughout flight history.