Airplane

Airplanes are heavier-than-air craft that use wings to produce lift in order to fly. Airplanes transport people from place to place and also ferry shipments of mail, perishable goods, and other important cargo . The airplane has also revolutionized warfare. Many aeronautical advances in technology, such as the jet engine, were achieved by military engineers and designers .

The first sustained, piloted flight of an airplane was made in 1903 by American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1914 the first commercial air service began in Florida. Commercial flights began to be flown throughout the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. As technology improved, longer flights became possible. American aviator Charles Lindbergh’s solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 helped spark public interest in air travel between continents.

Advances in technology produced faster, larger, and more durable airplanes. The introduction of the turbojet engine in 1941 helped inaugurate the jet age in world travel in the years after World War II (1939-1945). The first commercial jet flight in the United States, made by a Boeing 707, occurred in 1958. To handle ever-increasing passenger demand, jet aircraft were made bigger and faster. The Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which can carry over 300 passengers, entered service in 1970. The supersonic British-French Concorde began regular passenger service in 1976, but the aircraft did not prove commercially viable and went out of service in 2003.

In the 1980s McDonnell Douglas introduced the twin-engine MD-80 family of jets, and Boeing came out with the narrow-body 757 and wide-body 767 twin jets. Airbus, a European consortium and one of the largest airplane manufacturers in the world, had developed the A300 wide-body twin during the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s Airbus expanded its family of aircraft, introducing the larger A330 twin and the A340, a four-engine airplane for longer routes, on which passenger loads are somewhat lighter. In 2000 the company launched production of the A380, a superjumbo jet that will seat 555 passengers on two decks, both of which extend the entire length of the fuselage. Scheduled to enter service in 2006, the jet will be the world’s largest passenger airliner.

by : Michael D. Meyer

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