Histoire de l'aviation (document en anglais)

The History of Aviation

The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest kites and attempts at tower jumping to supersonic, and hypersonic flight by powered, heavier-than-air jets.

The first plane

The "Wright Flyer" is the first aircraft in the history of aviation. It is a creation of two Americans, the Wright brothers. He took off on December 17, 1903. The three flight tests lasting less than a minute only: the technique was not yet well developed!

There have been many unsuccessful attempts before he succeeded Wright brothers, for example French Clément Ader in 1890, managed to lift his camera but it does not flew.

The development of aviation.

This was done by the Wright brothers went completely unnoticed! It is only with the flight of Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont, in 1906, that the world realizes that heavier-than air can fly! Then many planes were invented, with more or less success.

The first commercial applications of the aircraft took place during the interwar period. It says "raid airmail", that is to say that the planes are used to transport mail.

Then brave adventurers tried to cross the Atlantic by air. Some disappeared at sea while others succeeded, as Alcock and Brown, who had to repair in flight engines located on the wings of his plane!

Warplanes

The First World War gave a boost to the history of aviation. The war planes are mass produced and become professional pilots.

In the inter-war years, many of these drivers contribute to the development of commercial air transport, in particular mail.

An Air Force was born in many countries and military aviation reaches new heights.

September 30, 1924, the American airmen Lowell H. Smith and Leslie P. Arnold buckle the first round the world flight in five months and a half.

May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh was the first aviator to cross the Atlantic from New York to Le Bourget. It does this by thirty-three hours on his monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis.

During World War II, aviation is widely used on the battlefield. The planes then utilize a piston engine and a propeller as a propulsion means. The end of the war saw the emergence of the jet engine and radar.

The modern aviation

On 14 October 1947, the American fighter pilot Charles Yeager broke the sound barrier.

Different progress of military aviation benefit to civil aviation, with the development of the first four-engine airliners, and the birth of the first Franco-British Concorde supersonic presented December 11, 1967.

Today, advances in aviation are less related to aircraft themselves and to progress in traffic management and navigation means.

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