Greek Mythology to the Wright Brothers: Chronicles of human conquest

in OCD5 years ago

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Dream of wings in the air is the oldest of thoughts that people have wished since the beginning of creation. Seeing the bird flying in the sky, people also woke up to operate freely in the air like a bird. Then, for a long time, in return for many people's hard work, and sacrifice, today, people are ascending to the sky, conquering space, the moon. Yet their oldest desire has not died. They want to fly in the air in a more reliable, safer, better way.

And that's why scientists are working tirelessly to make the sky safer, more enjoyable and faster. And with the relentless efforts of scientists, new successes are continually being caught. Giant, fast and comfortable aircraft are made. Let me give you an example. For example, let's talk about Hajj. Earlier, coming and going for Hajj from our country meant a push for almost a year. And now? The flight crisis of ordinary pilgrims takes more time, but the arrival and departure flight time is not more than 10/12 hours.

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Aviation Voice

Starting from ancient myths

One can understand how desperate people have been to fly since ancient times by looking at various ancient legends. There is also talk of people traveling in the sky in different ways. A story of Greek mythology is known to many of us. Long ago, Daedalus and his son Icarus made flying objects out of bird feathers that we're able to fly through each other or into the sky with wax.

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Wikipedia

In this way, when Icarus rises higher, the wax of wings melts in the heat of the sun, and the feathers fall from it, and it falls into the river. The Greeks did not read-only fairy tales. Many people in their country at that time also worked to make this gossip a reality. In about 400 BC, Architas, a philosopher, mathematician, and astrologer, was the first to design and model the first flying quality, and it was able to fly up to 200 meters. He named this instrument Pigeon.

Patterns of balloons and kites in ancient China

But we see the dream of flying in ancient China. There King Zhung Liang (180-234 AD) was the first to inflate balloons using hot air. He was the general in the army, known to use the balloon to intimidate the enemy on the battlefield. He used to fly this balloon by lighting an oil lamp under a big paper bag. The enemy thought that someone from the sky had come to fight them. However, according to another historian, Joseph Nidham, the Chinese people have known about paper balloons with hot air since before (300 BC).

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hisour

Then in the 5th century, Lu Ban of China made a long kite using a wooden structure. However, many consider it the prototype of the modern glider. The use of colored lanterns in various festivals started from the reign of Kublai Khan in the 13th century. Over time, it spread to Mongolia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Tibet, and India. And perhaps the history of the first man to fly in the sky was created in this China. In 559, Wan Huangtao, the son of the then king, tied himself to a giant kite from a high palace in Wei, the capital of China's Northern Wei state.

Parachutes and gliders from the time of the Muslim caliphs

Even during the rule of the Muslim caliphs, at different times, many people tried to realize the dream of flying in the sky in different ways. During the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman (II), Abbas Ibn Firnas, a prominent Muslim scientist, made several attempts to fly in the sky with his help. In 652, he made a wing-like object suitable for operating with structures made of wood, cloth, and fur. It looked a bit like an umbrella. He then jumped from the high minaret of the then Grand Mosque in Cordoba (Spain) and landed with great success. This wing is considered as a prototype of today's modern parachute.

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Grand Mosque of Cordoba, Spain. Source: Wikimedia

After 25 years of much more advanced research, Jabal al-Ars again jumped from the top of the mountain with a glider-like structure. But this time, he was injured as it had no tail to maintain the balance. However, later in 1010, there is a record of flying up to 200 meters using a similar modified glider.

Progress in the Renaissance era

About six centuries later, another advanced aeronautical device was painted by the artist Leonardo da Vinci. He was also the first to give a theoretical idea of ​​flying in the sky. The inner part of the wing in the Gusnider designed by him was firmly attached to the main structure. And there was a separate control system to control the moving parts of the wing. He named it 'Ornithopter.'

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Britannica

In 1496, he tried to fly it experimentally but was unsuccessful. Because with the help of this device, it was not possible to acquire the necessary energy to fly freely like a bird in the sky at that time. Many, however, tried to steal with the help of this device. But no one has ever been heard to succeed in that endeavor as the chest and shoulder muscles are not strong enough to do this. Long after Vinci's death, there was little progress in the field of wings.

In the 1830s, a man named Hizafen Ahmed Salabi was able to cover a distance of 3 km in a single-wheeled Udukku from the 72.59 meter high Galata Tower in Istanbul, Turkey. In 1833, another of his brothers, Hassan Salabi, flew a seven-wing rocket. The upper part of it was full of gun-powder. It considered to be the first human-made rocket. He landed safely using the wings like a parachute after the gun-powder finished. He was in the sky for about 20 seconds and is said to have risen to a height of 300 meters.

The beginning of balloon travel

From the end of the seventeenth century, people looked at balloons flying in the sky without success, even doing much with wings. Because almost everyone knew at the time that hot air was lighter than ordinary air, so if a hot air-filled a giant balloon, that balloon would float in the air. Thus, in 183, man was able to swim in the sky for the first time with hot air filled with balloons. The incident happened in France. Jane Francis de Rosier and Francis Laurent D'Arlandis traveled 8 km in a balloon discovered by the Montgomery brothers. The source of hot air was the smoke from burning wood. In the same year, people traveled in the sky with balloons filled with hydrogen gas.

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Henry Gifford's balloon. Source: Wikimedia

Thus in the late eighteenth-century, balloon travel became quite popular in Europe. At this time, the development of balloons capable of changing the height and direction began to achieve. Henry Gifford's balloon was the first such balloon to see the face of light. Period 1852, country France. The engine was steam-powered and he flew up to 24 kilometers. The United States had a balloon unit during the American Civil War.

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Photo taken at La France Airship, 1885. Source: Wikimedia

Then, in 1884, the French army launched a fully controlled electric balloon, La France. Its creators were Charles Reinard and Arthur Krebs. It was 52 meters high, with a balloon size of 6,000 cubic feet. It was able to cover a distance of 6 km in 23 minutes using an electric motor of 8.5 horsepower. It followed by the use of balloons in World Wars I and II. Balloons are now applying for leisure activities and tourist travel.

Glider News

Balloons are lighter than air. The first scientific research paper on a flying vehicle heavier than air, was published in 1818, Sketch of a Machine for the sky, written by Emanuel Swedenborg. He described his flying machine in the book as a lightweight, rigid canvas-covered device with two large wings. But he knew that the structure did not have the necessary energy to fly in the sky. But he hopes that in the future someone will be able to solve this problem.

The glider is the first step in building a flying vehicle more substantial than air. It is a type of aircraft with wings and tail without engines heavier than air. Once the gossip is blown away by external force or jumps from a high mountain, it can float in the air for a long time with its massive wings.

Then in 1899, Sir George Caley introduced the first modern glider model. It had a separate tail to control the direction. This model first flew in the sky in 1804. For the next several years, he went on to invent more advanced gliders. He was the first to discover many general formulas of aerodynamics and introduced the words Lift (lifting force), Drag (resisting force), etc. He later installed internal and external engines powered with gunpowder in his glider. Then, another man named Elphons Penwood used rubber powder as a fuel to modernize the engine.

In 1853, George Caley used his invented Gosnider to travel the skies with great success. Although two test flights conducted in 1901 and 1903, their engine performance was not as high as expected. He later experimented with two powerful engines of 52 horsepower, but his model did not see success; He also achieved the feat of flying in the sky with the first flying vehicle.

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Wright brothers. Source: The Becker

Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright have nothing new to introduce. As the inventor of the airplane, the people of the world have written their names in gold letters forever. They also started with gliders. At that time, they made a tunnel (wind tunnel) five cubits long and two cubits wide, through which the wind blows at high speed, and various types of gliders fly there in all possible ways.

Finally the flight of the aircraft

They then began relentless research into the control of the aircraft and its source of flight power. After analyzing the results, they were finally able to build a plane called 'Flyer One.'

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Flyer One's first flight, Orville Wright in the driver's seat, Wilbur Wright at the bottom. Source: Latimes

They later succeeded in building a petrol-powered engine suitable for it. Finally, on December 16, 1903, they successfully flew the Flyer One at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina, USA. Orville Wright was the pilot of the first flight. He covered 12 seconds and 36 meters in the first flight. On the fourth flight of the same day, Wilbur Wright showed the feat of covering 260 meters in a 59-second flight. All four flights operated over 10 feet of ground. The radar-carrying structure in front of the aircraft damaged in the first flight, but the original structure was completely intact.

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The flyer model is still preserved in the U.S. Air and Space Museum. Source: Airandspace

For the next two years, they continued to test the aircraft regularly. No campaign, however, lasted more than a minute. However, after an accident on July 14, 1905, they were forced to change the model of their flyer. They doubled the size of their flyer's elevators and radar and modified the control system by making some changes to the original structure. The new flyer is named 'Flyer-3'. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur Wright was honored to cover 24 miles in 39 minutes and 23 seconds.

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Flyer-3, photo of 1905. Source: Wright Brothers

Then May 14, 1908. The day is officially remembered as the day of the invention of the airplane. I will tell you more about this in another day.
September 16, 1906, Orville Wright made a tragic history. Fellow passenger Thomas Selfridge died when his plane crashed during an army test in Fort Mayer, Virginia.

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Picture of the accident in Fort Mayer in 1908. Source: ThoughCo

Before that, of course, a new history was written. Theresa Pelchair was fortunate enough to fly in the sky as the first female passenger. And Raymond da Laroche became the first female pilot to operate in the air on October 22, 1909. She was the first girl to get a pilot's license.

That's how the Wright brothers remembered around the world for their accomplishments. But one thing they thought was wrong. Although they could not fly properly, Wilbur Wright once commented on the future of their aircraft -

"I do not believe that this aircraft will be an alternative to human land communication in the future. My idea is that its use will be limited to particular purposes only. It will be used on the battlefield. It can also be useful for postal exchanges."

But I don't think Wilbur Wright has any regrets about this misrepresentation. What do you say?

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The engine used by the Wright brothers in 1910. Source: Wikimedia

Original Content by @pitboy.

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Genuinely speaking, I am not a writer. But I tried my best to express what I think. Never give up. And I'm not giving up! Hit the upvote button, and reblog if possible. It will inspire me to write more blogs.

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I am Marwan Aka @Pitboy from Bangladesh, the land of beauty. I am a Social media advertiser, a traveler, a Youtuber and, trying to be the right person.

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