Kites came first: the long road to the fixed-wing airplane
The humble kite counts as a fixed-wing aircraft, and it flew in China roughly 2,800 years ago. By 549 AD a paper kite was carrying a message in a rescue mission. Chinese armies later used kites to signal, test the wind and even lift men, long before anyone built a machine with an engine.
Europe heard about kites from Marco Polo late in the 13th century, and sailors brought real ones home from Japan and Malaysia in the 1500s and 1600s. Other early dreams of flight were odder. Around 400 BC the Greek Archytas reputedly built a bird-shaped device driven by a jet, probably of steam, that travelled about 200 metres, possibly while hanging from a support. In the 11th century the English monk Eilmer of Malmesbury tried gliding and failed.
The modern concept came from George Cayley, who in 1799 described an airplane as a fixed wing with separate systems for lift, propulsion and control. He was flying models by 1803 and built a glider that carried a passenger in 1853. In 1894 Hiram Maxim tested a 3.5-ton craft with a 34-metre wingspan and two steam engines, held down by overhead rails. It produced enough lift to rise but could not be steered, and he gave up. In Australia, Lawrence Hargrave developed a box kite strong enough to lift a man.
After the Wright brothers' 1903 flights, Alberto Santos Dumont of Brazil flew his 14 bis 220 metres in under 22 seconds in 1906, setting the first record the Aéro-Club de France recognised. Louis Blériot's 1908 design already had the familiar layout of a single wing with the propeller at the front and a joystick for the pilot. Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic without stopping in 1919, and Hugo Junkers pioneered all-metal airframes.
The Douglas DC-3, in service since 1936, is the most successful aircraft of all, and versions still fly worldwide. The Boeing 707 carried passengers for more than 50 years, and the 747 was the largest airliner from 1970 until the Airbus A380 overtook it in 2005. Some airplanes skip runways entirely: float planes swap wheels for pontoons, while flying boats settle on their own watertight hulls.
Source: Fixed-wing aircraft
