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Fascinating Facts
About Flight
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In 1852, Henry Giffard from
Paris created the first powered and controlled flight in a dirigible (a
balloon that can be steered); it was powered by steam. This inventor
is known as the "father of the airship".
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An inventor from Britain, George
Cayley, was the first person known to consider the modern-day heavier-than-air
flight. In 1853, Cayley made the first gliding flight in history.
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In 1891, after studying the
flight of birds for many years, a German, Otto Lilienthal made the first
successful glider. He realized that the wings had to be curved, that
birds took off in wind, and that the life was directly dependent upon the
speed of the bird.
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Otto Lilienthal was one of the
first scientists to use the Scientific Method to record his findings and
apply his discoveries to future creations.
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In 1903, Orville and Wilbur
Wright, from Ohio, made the first powered, sustained and controlled heavier-than-air
flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur, after mastering
the glider, added an engine and propellers, and two sets of wings to construct
Flyer.
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In 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed
the first non-stop, solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
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In 1932, Amelia Earhart was
the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; in 1935, she became
the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean and in 1937 she began
the flight and was about 4000 miles short of her goal when she mysteriously
disappeared.
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On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg
crashes in New Jersey.
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On March 13, 1940, Sikorsky
makes and flies the first practical helicopter.
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The Concorde becomes the first
supersonic commercial airliner on January 21st in 1976.
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In order for a plane to take
off, the lift of the plane must be greater than the weight and the thrust
greater must be greater than the plane's drag.
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As an airplane flies, its wings
are angled with the front edges higher than the back edges.
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An eighteenth-century Swiss
scientist Daniel Bernoulli discovered when air speeds up its pressure is
reduced, and when the air slows down its pressure is increased.
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The airplane's drag is what
pulls back on your airplane and slows it down.
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The most important property
of an airplane is called stability. Stability helps an airplane return
to steady flight after a bad throw or a strong gust of wind.
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There are three types of stability:
pitch, directional and spiral.
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Pitch stability keeps the plane's
nose from pointing too far up or down.
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Directional stability keeps
a plane's nose from veering too far to the right or the left.
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Spiral stability keeps the plane
from spinning or rolling about its body or fuselage.
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The first paper airplane record
published in the Guinness Book of World Records was set in 1975.
The record was set by William Pryor, with a "time aloft" of 15 seconds.
The present world record
was set by Ken Blackburn at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia on October
8, 1998. His flight duration for a paper aircraft, flown on level
ground, was 27.6 seconds.
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