Overview

Powered flight began early in the twentieth century. Following the first flight in 1903, airplane technology made rapid advances, leading to increasingly daring flights as aviators strove to be the first, the fastest, or to fly higher and farther than anyone else. Their daring not only gained widespread attention, making the aviators heroes, but they furthered the science of flight, making technological, scientific, and military advances.

Background

Even in ancient Greece men dreamed of flying, as the legend of Icarus demonstrates, and they likely coveted the ability for far longer. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) sketched flying machines in his notebooks over 500 years ago, and over the centuries other scientists, inventors, and crackpots also tried to design flying machines. German inventor Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896) had some success with gliders...