Summary
- The Wright brothers' achievement in 1903 marked the world's first motorized controlled flight.
- John Alcock and Arthur Brown's transatlantic flight in 1919 made history as the first non-stop flight from North America to Europe.
- The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks profoundly impacted air travel, leading to increased security measures and changing the course of history.
In this article, we will discuss five dates that have significantly impacted the history of aviation. We will start with Wilber and Orville Wright's first flight in 1903 and add four more dates that have been milestones over the last 120 years.
1 First powered flight
The world's first motorized controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine occurred on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. American aviation pioneers Wright brothers and Orville Wright were two of seven children born to Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koerner in 1867 and 1871. Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, the brothers capitalized on the growing popularity of bicycles in the 1890s. Fascinated with stories from Germany about glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal, the pair became intrigued with the idea of human flight.
Together, the brothers built a glider and traveled with it to the dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, for tests. By 1902, the pair had perfected their glider and could control the aircraft manually for the first time. In 1903, the brothers added a gasoline-powered engine to their glider and added twin pusher propellors. To mark the 121st anniversary of the Montgolfier brother's first hot air balloon flight on December 14, 1782, the Wright brothers successfully took to the air in their Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, and the rest is history.
2 The world's first transatlantic flight
As the world of aviation took off and gained popularity, in April 1913, a London newspaper, The Daily Mail, offered a prize of £10,000 to anyone who could fly non-stop between North America and the British Isles (including Ireland) in 72 hours.
Having both served in World War One, John Alcock and Arthur Brown fancied their chances and began planning how to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a plane. At the time, British aircraft manufacturer Vickers was considering entering their Vickers Vimy IV twin-engined bomber but could not find anyone willing to fly it.
Already working for Vickers and an experienced WWI bomber pilot, John Alcock volunteered his services for the flight. Unemployed at the time, Arthur Brown applied for a job at Vickers, and once they read his resume and how he had served as a navigator, they decided to partner him up with Alcock for the flight.
Many other people, including Australian aviator Harry Hawker, fancied their chances of becoming the first to cross the Atlantic by plane. For the attempt, the teams set up camp around St. John's, Newfoundland, the furthest easterly point in North America.
Barely clearing the trees because of the weight of fuel needed for the flight, Alcock and Brown took off at 13:45 on June 14, 1919. At 17:00, the pair entered thick fog, nearly crashing into the sea. At 03:00 the following morning, they flew into a storm and were drenched by rain. After flying for 16 hours, they spotted the coast of Ireland and landed in a peat bog near Cliffton in County Galway, becoming the first persons to ever fly non-stop from North America to Europe. Somewhat sadly, their endeavor was overshadowed on May 20, 1927, when Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris to win the Ortig Prize.
3 The jet engine
Even before the start of World War Two in 1939, engineers knew that propellor-driven aircraft had reached their limits, and if they were to increase an aircraft speed, another form of propulsion would be needed. As it happened, in 1928, Cranwell RAF cadet Frank Whittle submitted a design for a jet engine.
Eight years later, German engineer Hans von Ohain began work on a jet engine based on Whittle's design. Despite needing external power for operation, the engine caught the attention of industrialist Ernst Heinkel, who immediately saw its potential.
Now working for Heinkel, by September 1937, Hans von Ohain had developed a jet engine. The engine was then incorporated into the airframe of a Heinkel He 178 and became the first jet-powered aircraft to fly on August 27, 1939.
Mass engine production began in 1944 as the Nazi government pushed for a jet interceptor that would eventually become the Messerschmitt Me 262. Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans were on the brink of defeat and could not produce enough jet-powered aircraft to turn the tide of the war.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, engineers were busy designing the Gloster Meteor, a jet-powered aircraft that entered service with the RAF in 1944. Before the end of the war, the Germans built 1,400 Messerschmitt Me 262s, of which 300 were used in combat. The British, meanwhile, only had 15 Gloster Meteors who saw action. Following the war, the Soviet Union and the United States employed German jet engine engineers to develop aircraft for their militaries.
4 Breaking the sound barrier
Despite earlier claims by pilots to have broken the sound barrier during high-speed dives, it was not recognized as achieved until October 1947. Under the command of United States Air Force Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager, an experimental rocket-powered Bell X-1 aircraft was released from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress.
The aircraft climbed to an altitude of 45,000 feet over Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert and achieved a level flight speed of Mach 1.05, officially flying faster than the speed of sound for the first time. After breaking the sound barrier, the aircraft then glided back to earth. News of the accomplishment was kept secret for a further eight months.
Lessons learned in the speed tests led to the development of swept-back wings, and by the mid-1950s, many fighter aircraft could fly faster than the speed of sound. As the understanding of supersonic flight grew, engineers started to think about supersonic passenger flights. This thinking led to the development of the Anglo-French Concorde and the fated Tupolev Tu-144. A little-known fact is that another passenger aircraft flew on one occasion faster than the speed of sound. While studying new wing designs on August 21, 1961, a Douglas DC-8 broke the sound barrier at Mach 1.012 during a controlled dive .
5 The September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks
Present day, nothing has changed air travel so much as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, nineteen Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners. Two had taken off from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), one from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), and one from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in New Jersey.
All full of fuel, the two aircraft from Boston were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan. The aircraft that had taken off from Dulles was flown into the Pentagon, while the plane from Newark, on its way to crash into either the Capital building or the White House, crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to take back the aircraft from the hijackers.
In total, 2,996 were killed in the attacks, ultimately leading to the United States invading Afghanistan. The man who had planned the attacks, Osama bin Laden, was eventually tracked down and killed by US special forces on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan.