History of flight

The dream of flying back to humans since prehistoric times. Many legends, beliefs
and myths of antiquity involve or have facts about the flight, as the Greek legend of
Icarus. Leonardo da Vinci, among other visionary inventors, a plane designed in the
fifteenth century. With the first flight made by man (Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier
and Francois Laurent d'Arlandes) in an aircraft lighter than air, a balloon, the
biggest challenge became to create a machine heavier than air, able to take off by
themselves.

Years of research by many people so eager dreamed of flying produced poor results
and slow, but continuous. On August 28, 1883, John Joseph Montgomery became
the first person to make a controlled flight in a machine heavier than air in a glider.
Other aviators who had made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy
Pilcher and Octave Chanute.

In the early twentieth century, the first flight in a machine heavier than air, able to
generate power and support necessary for himself, was performed. However, this is
a controversial fact, in one of two airmen are credited: the Brazilian Alberto Santos
Dumont or the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Santos Dumont, regarded by many as the inventor of the first aircraft in history, the
14-bis.Santos Dumont is credited in Brazil and France as responsible for the first
flight in an airplane. However, most of the world, credit for inventing the airplane is
given to the Wright brothers, who patented the invention, while the Wright brothers'
flight was conducted under abnormal conditions, when the wind favored the rapid
flight, and was out of control he used for a catapult.

Wars in Europe, in particular, the First World War, served as initial tests for the use
of aircraft as weapons. First seen by generals and commanders as a "toy", the
aircraft proved to be a war machine capable of causing serious damage to the
enemy. In World War I, big aces appeared, of which the largest was the German Red
Baron. The Allied side, the ace with the highest number of downed aircraft was
René Fonck of France.

After the First World War, the aircraft went through many technological advances.
In 1919, Britons John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown made the first transatlantic
crossing in a plane. Partnering with the Sacadura Cabral, Gago Coutinho held in
1921 the first air crossing of the South Atlantic Charles Lindbergh became the first
person to cross the Atlantic in a nonstop solo flight on May 20, 1927. The first
commercial flights took place between the U.S. and Canada in 1919. The jet engine
was in development in the 1930s, and military jet aircraft began operating in 1940.

The aircraft played a crucial role in World War II, having presence, whether majority
or minority, in all known and most important battles of the war, especially in the
Attack on Pearl Harbor, the battles of the Pacific and the D-Day Also constitute an
essential part of various military strategies of the new season, as the German
Blitzkrieg or the American aircraft carriers and Japanese.

The Boeing 707, the first transatlantic jet comercial.Em October 1947, Chuck Yeager
in the Bell X-1, was the first person to exceed the sound barrier. The world speed
record for a manned fixed-wing aircraft is 7297 km / h, Mach 6.1, X-15 aircraft.
Aircraft, both military and civilian, continued to West Berlin with food supplies in
1948, when access to railroads and roads to the city, completely surrounded by
East Germany, was blocked by order of the Soviet Union.

The first commercial jet, the De Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952, and the
first successful commercial jet, the Boeing 707, still in the 50s. The Boeing 707
would develop later in the Boeing 737, the line of passenger aircraft used most of
the world, the Boeing 727, another widely used passenger aircraft, and Boeing 747,
the largest airliner in the world by 2005, When it was surpassed by the Airbus A380.