First Flights with Neil Armstrong

Using Lilienthal's glider research, the Wright brothers achieved controlled flight. The French reacted with renewed effort and Bleriot crossed the English Channel. Each airplane had its own personality and a pilot flew by his wits, instinct and luck.

Aviators separated into two groups: the airplane designer/builders and those who tried to master the art of flying. While French pilot Pegoud thrilled crowds by performing aerial loops, new airplanes pushed the bounds of speed and distance.

WW1 gave the airplane a job, soon the battlefields were full of unarmed aircraft, peering down at the trenches, then carrying news of an impending attack. With a machine gun mounted on the cowling of a Morane-Saulnier Bullet, the fighter plane was born.

After the war, seasoned pilots who had once dueled with an enemy over the trenches, now performed aerobatics for spectators. Aviators as barnstormers quickly became an endearing folk hero; and also businessman carrying mail and passengers.

After WWI, aircraft manufacturers began directing their attention towards passenger travel. Huge flying boats offered luxurious travel to global destinations, taking advantage of waterways at a time of few runways. The DC-3 combined safety, speed, and comfort with lower operating cost, making passenger travel economically viable.

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan began to redefine the arts of aerial warfare with their revolutionary aircraft designs. As the storm clouds gathered for the Second World War, the rest of the world slowly began to rise to their challenge.

The German Luftwaffe was the most modern air force of its time, led by its Messerschmitt 109. The British Spitfire was developed in time for the Battle of Britain. U.S. entry into the war quickly brought a range of aircraft, including the P-38 Lightening, a flying machine that pushed the technology of the time, introducing new problems as well as new capabilities.

Over the years leading up to the invasion of France, the allies developed their aircraft and strategies. The P-51 Mustang helped change the course of the air war, allowing fighters to switch from close bomber defense to offense. The P-47 Thunderbolt found a new role in coordinated air-ground attack, clearing military obstacles for foot soldiers and tanks.

The Japanese Zero was a light, maneuverable, long-distance flying machine, constructed quickly and cheaply to be replaceable. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. responded with the Grumman Hellcat, a bulky airplane with big engines and armor plating – but twice the horsepower of the Zero, making it faster and more maneuverable. The Corsair, arriving late in the war, was sleek, temperamental, but very maneuverable – an ideal dogfighter and interceptor of kamikaze attacks.

The British Lancaster flew bombing missions at night under cover of darkness to evade enemy fire. Americans added armor plating and 13 machine guns to the B-17 to defend itself from the enemy, decreasing its payload but gaining the precision of daylight bombing.

Both Germany and England conceived their first successful jet-engine fighter in 1940 and both delivered their concepts four years later. The British Meteor was weak at high altitudes, but adept at low level aerobatics – making it a valuable interceptor for Germany’s V-1 flying bombs. Germany’s Messerschmitt 262 had superb handling, but an engine with an average life of only five hours. The American Shooting Star had an alarming accident rate in its early days, but paired with the British Goblin engine it became a success.

A hundred years before the Wright brothers, the hot air balloon had already lifted humans to the sky. It grew in size, and culminated in the huge pre-war dirigibles that still hold the record for the largest aircraft ever built.

Like the jet, the turboprop is a gas turbine engine, but instead of using the jet exhaust to push the aircraft, the turboprop engine drives propellers. With all that power available at low speeds, turboprops can make short take off and landings. Though they have been used for passenger transportation ever since their beginnings, turboprops found their most important functions in long range air cargo and military transport.