Module I

Module outcome: to get a brief idea about development of aircrafts , aircraft components, aircraft
propulsion, and aerodynamics

History of Flights
The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years, from the earliest forms
of aviation, kites and attempts at tower jumping, to supersonic, and hypersonic flight by
powered, heavier-than-air jets.
Kite flying in China dates back to several hundred years BC and slowly spread around the world.
It is thought to be the earliest example of man-made flight. Some kites in China and Japan were
capable of carrying a man into the air. The ancient Chinese also flew small hot-air lanterns and
bamboo-copter toys with spinning rotors.
Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century dream of flight found expression in several rational but
unscientific designs, though he did not attempt to construct any of them.
The discovery of hydrogen gas in the 18th century led to the invention of the hydrogen balloon,
at almost exactly the same time that the Montgolfier brothers rediscovered the hot-air balloon
and began manned flights. Various theories in mechanics by physicists during the same period of
time, notably fluid dynamics and Newton's laws of motion, led to the foundation of modern
aerodynamics, most notably by Sir George Cayley.
Balloons, both free-flying and tethered, began to be used for military purposes from the end of
the 18th century, with the French government establishing Balloon Companies during the
Revolution.
Experiments with gliders provided the groundwork for heavier-than-air craft, and by the early
20th-century advances in engine technology and aerodynamics made controlled, powered flight
possible for the first time. The modern aeroplane with its characteristic tail was established by
1909 and from then on the history of the aeroplane became tied to the development of more and
more powerful engines.
The first great ships of the air were the rigid dirigible balloons pioneered by Zeppelin, which
soon became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s, when
large flying boats became popular. After World War II, the flying boats were in their turn
replaced by land planes, and the new and immensely powerful jet engine revolutionised both air
travel and military aviation.

In the latter part of the 20th century the advent of digital electronics produced great advances in
flight instrumentation and "fly-by-wire" systems. The 21st century saw the large-scale use of
pilotless drones for military, civilian and leisure use.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
The miracle of flight exists because man has the technology to oppose natural forces that keep all objects on the
ground. Four forces affect an aircraft two assist flight (thrust and lift), and two resist flight (gravity and drag).
The important thing to note here is that when an aircraft is flying straight and level, all four of these forces are
balanced, or in equilibrium.
THRUST
Thrust is created by the engines. As propeller blades push air through the engine (or as jet fuel is combusted to
accomplish the same end), the aircraft moves forward. As the wings cut through the air in front of the aircraft, lift is
created. This is the force that pushes an aircraft up into the air.
LIFT
Lift occurs because air flows both over and under the surface of the wing. The wing is designed so that the top
surface is "longer" than the bottom surface in any given crosssection. In other words, the distance between points A
to B is greater along the top of the wing than under it.
The air moving over the wing must travel from A to B in
the same amount of time. Therefore, the air is moving
faster along the top of the wing.
This creates a difference in air pressure above and below
a phenomenon called the Bernoulli effect. The
pressure pushing up is greater than the downward
pressure, and lift is created. If you're banking, lift occurs
in a slightly sideways direction. If you're inverted, lift
actually pulls you downward toward the ground. Note
that lift occurs perpendicular to a line drawn parallel to the centerline of the wing and occurs at a slightly backward
angle.
Several factors determine how much lift is created.
First, consider the angle at which the wing hits the air.
This is called the angle of attack, which is
independent of the aircraft's flight path vector. The
steeper this angle, the more lift occurs. At angles
steeper than 30 or so, however, airflow is disrupted,
and an aircraft stall occurs. During a stall, no lift is
created. The aircraft falls into a dive and can recover
lift only after gaining airspeed.
DRAG
Drag opposes thrust. Although it mainly occurs because of air resistance as air flows around the wing, several
different types of drag exist. Drag is mainly created by simple skin friction as air molecules "stick" to the wing's
surface. Smoother surfaces incur less drag, while bulky structures create additional drag.

Some drag has nothing to do with air resistance and is actually a secondary result of lift. Because lift angles
backward slightly, it is has both an upward, vertical force and a horizontal, rearward force. The rearward component
is drag. Another type of drag is induced at speeds near Mach 1, when a pressure differential starts building up
between the front and rear surface of the airfoil. The
pressure in front of the wing is greater than the pressure
behind the wing, which creates a net force that opposes
thrust. In WW II aircraft, this last type of drag occurred
only during prolonged dives.
GRAVITY
Gravity is actually a force of acceleration on an object.
The Earth exerts this natural force on all objects. Being a constant force, it always acts in the same direction:
downward. Thrust creates lift to counteract gravity. In order for an aircraft to take off, enough lift must be created to
overcome the force of gravity pushing down on the aircraft.
Related to gravity are G-forcesartificially created forces that are measured in units equivalent to the force of
gravity.
G-Force
A "G" is a measurement of force that is equal to the force of gravity pushing down on a stationary object on the
earth's surface. Gravitational force actually refers to an object's weight (Force equals Mass times Acceleration, or F
= ma.). An aircraft flying level at low altitudes experiences 1G. Extra G-forces in any direction can be artificially
created by sudden changes in velocity or in the direction of motion. Good examples are a takeoff, a tight turn in an
aircraft at moderate to high speed or a loop maneuver. G-forces can be either positive or negative. Positive Gs make
you feel heavier because they act in a relative downward direction. They push you back into your seat and primarily
occur during sharp turns or steep climbs. Negative Gs make you feel lighter because they're pulling in a relative
upward direction. When you're in a steep dive, they pull you out of your seat. The direction of G-forces is always
relative to the position of the aircraftif you're flying upside-down, upward Gs actually pull in a downward
direction.
Apparent Weight
Apparent weight refers to how heavy something seems considering the current direction and magnitude of G-forces
acting on it. In level flight, 1G is acting on the aircraft and the pilotboth weigh the same as they do when
stationary. If the pilot makes a steep climb, the positive G-force temporarily acts on both the pilot and the aircraft,
making them in essence heavier throughout the climb. Any sudden increase or decrease in acceleration brings about
a change in apparent weight of an object.
Physical Effects of G-Forces
Human bodies can withstand approximately 9 or 10 positive Gs or 2 to 3 three negative Gs for several seconds at a
time. Exceeding positive G limits for longer than that causes blood to collect in the lower part of the body and torso.
The brain and retinas receive less blood, and therefore less oxygen. Eventually, vision turns gray, followed by tunnel
vision and pilot blackout. Excessive negative Gs have a similar effect, except that blood pools in the brain and upper
torso. This causes the small capillaries in the eyes to swell, creating a redout effect.

Balloon Flights

A gas balloon is a balloon that flies in the air because it is filled with a gas less dense than
air or lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). It is tied to a thread to prevent it from flying

up in the air. A gas balloon may also be called a Charlire for its inventor, the Frenchman
Jacques Charles. Today, familiar gas balloons include large blimps and small rubber party
balloons. Blimps have displaced zeppelins (which are not balloons) as the dominant form of
airship.
In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to
its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is
distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that can propel itself through the air in a
controlled manner.
Many balloons have a basket, gondola or capsule suspended beneath the main envelope for
carrying people or equipment (including cameras and telescopes, and flight-control
mechanisms).
Principle
A balloon is conceptually the simplest of all flying machines. The balloon is a fabric envelope
filled with a gas that is lighter than the surrounding atmosphere. As the entire balloon is less
dense than its surroundings, it rises, taking along with it a basket, attached underneath, which
carries passengers or payload. Although a balloon has no propulsion system, a degree of
directional control is possible through making the balloon rise or sink in altitude to find
favorable wind directions.
Increasing the air temperature inside the envelope makes it less dense than the
surrounding (ambient) air. The balloon floats because of the buoyant force exerted on it. This
force is the same force that acts on objects when they are in water and is described by
Archimedes' principle. The amount of lift (or buoyancy) provided by a hot air balloon depends
primarily upon the difference between the temperature of the air inside the envelope and the
temperature of the air outside the envelope. For most envelopes made of nylon fabric, the
maximum internal temperature is limited to approximately 120 C (250 F).[41]
It should be noted that the melting point of nylon is significantly greater than this maximum
operating temperature about 230 C (450 F) but higher temperatures cause the strength of
the nylon fabric to degrade more quickly over time. With a maximum operating temperature of
120 C (250 F), balloon envelopes can generally be flown for between 400 and 500 hours
before the fabric needs to be replaced. Many balloon pilots operate their envelopes at
temperatures significantly less than the maximum to extend envelope fabric life

There are three main types of balloon:

The hot air balloon or Montgolfire obtains its buoyancy by heating the air inside the balloon; it
has become the most common type.

The gas balloon or Charlire is inflated with a gas of lower molecular weight than the
ambient atmosphere; most gas balloons operate with the internal pressure of the gas the
same as the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere; a superpressure balloon can operate
with the lifting gas at pressure that exceeds that of the surrounding air, with the objective
of limiting or eliminating the loss of gas from day-time heating; gas balloons are filled
with gases such as:
o hydrogen originally used extensively but, since the Hindenburg disaster, is now
seldom used due to its high flammability;
o coal gas although giving around half the lift of hydrogen,extensively used
during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, since it was cheaper than
hydrogen and readily available;
o helium used today for all airships and most manned gas balloons;
o other gases have included ammonia and methane, but these have poor lifting
capacity and other safety defects and have never been widely used.

The Rozire type has both heated and unheated lifting gases in separate gasbags. This
type of balloon is sometimes used for long-distance record flights, such as the recent
circumnavigations, but is not otherwise in use.

Both the hot air, or Montgolfire, balloon and the gas balloon are still in common use.
Montgolfire balloons are relatively inexpensive, as they do not require high-grade materials for
their envelopes, and they are popular for balloonist sport activity.
Gas Balloon
A man-carrying balloon using the light gas hydrogen for buoyancy was made by Professor Jacques
Charles and flown less than a month after the Montgolfier flight, on 1 December 1783. Gas balloons have
greater lift for a given volume, so they do not need to be so large, and they can also stay up for much
longer than hot air, so gas balloons dominated ballooning for the next 200 years. In the 19th century, it
was common to use town gas to fill balloons; this was not as light as pure hydrogen gas, having about half
the lifting power,

Light gas balloons are predominant in scientific applications, as they are capable of
reaching much higher altitudes for much longer periods of time. They are generally filled with
helium. Although hydrogen has more lifting power, it is explosive in an atmosphere rich in
oxygen. With a few exceptions, scientific balloon missions are unmanned.

There are two types of light-gas balloons: zero-pressure and superpressure. Zero-pressure
balloons are the traditional form of light-gas balloon. They are partially inflated with the light
gas before launch, with the gas pressure the same both inside and outside the balloon. As the
zero-pressure balloon rises, its gas expands to maintain the zero pressure difference, and the
balloon's envelope swells.
At night, the gas in a zero-pressure balloon cools and contracts, causing the balloon to sink. A
zero-pressure balloon can only maintain altitude by releasing gas when it goes too high, where
the expanding gas can threaten to rupture the envelope, or releasing ballast when it sinks too low.
Loss of gas and ballast limits the endurance of zero-pressure balloons to a few days.
A superpressure balloon, in contrast, has a tough and inelastic envelope that is filled with light
gas to pressure higher than that of the external atmosphere, and then sealed. The superpressure
balloon cannot change size greatly, and so maintains a generally constant volume. The
superpressure balloon maintains an altitude of constant density in the atmosphere, and can
maintain flight until gas leakage gradually brings it down.[3]
Superpressure balloons offer flight endurance of months, rather than days. In fact, in typical
operation an Earth-based superpressure balloon mission is ended by a command from ground
control to open the envelope, rather than by natural leakage of gas.
High-altitude balloons are used as high flying vessels to carry scientific instruments (like
weather balloons), or reach near-space altitudes to take footage or photos of the earth. These
balloons can fly over 100,000 feet (30.5 km) into the air, and are designed to burst at a set
altitude where the parachute will deploy to safely carry the payload back to earth.[4]
Hot Air Balloons
A hot air balloon is a lighter than air aircraft consisting of a bag called the envelope that is
capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some longdistance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries passengers and (usually) a source of
heat, in most cases an open flame. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it
has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope. As with all aircraft, hot air
balloons cannot fly beyond the atmosphere. Unlike gas balloons, the envelope does not have to
be sealed at the bottom since the air near the bottom of the envelope is at the same pressure as
the air surrounding. For modern sport balloons, the envelope is generally made from nylon fabric
and the inlet of the balloon (closest to the burner flame) is made from fire resistant material such
as Nomex. Beginning during the mid-1970s, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of
shapes, such as rocket ships and the shapes of various commercial products, though the
traditional shape remains popular for most non-commercial, and many commercial, applications.

The hot air balloon is the first successful human-carrying flight technology. The first untethered
manned hot air balloon flight was performed by Jean-Franois Piltre de Rozier and Franois
Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France,[1] in a balloon created by the
Montgolfier brothers.[2] The first hot-air balloon flown in the Americas was launched from the
Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia on January 9, 1793 by the French aeronaut Jean Pierre
Blanchard.[3] Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than simply drifting
with the wind are known as thermal airships.

Construction

A hot air balloon for manned flight uses a single-layered, fabric gas bag (lifting "envelope"), with an
opening at the bottom called the mouth or throat. Attached to the envelope is a basket, or gondola, for
carrying the passengers. Mounted above the basket and centered in the mouth is the "burner", which
injects a flame into the envelope, heating the air within. The heater or burner is fueled by propane, a
liquefied gas stored in pressure vessels,

Envelope
Modern hot air balloons are usually made of materials such as ripstop nylon or dacron (a
polyester)
A hot air balloon is inflated partially with cold air from a gas-powered fan, before the propane
burners are used for final inflation.

During the manufacturing process, the material is cut into panels and sewn together, along with
structural load tapes that carry the weight of the gondola or basket. The individual sections,
which extend from the throat to the crown (top) of the envelope, are known as gores or gore
sections. Envelopes can have as few as 4 gores or as many as 24 or more.[19]
Envelopes often have a crown ring at their very top. This is a hoop of smooth metal, usually
aluminium, and approximately 1 ft (0.30 m) in diameter. Vertical load tapes from the envelope
are attached to the crown ring.
At the bottom of the envelope the vertical load tapes are sewn into loops that are connected to
cables (one cable per load tape). These cables, often referred to as flying wires, are connected to
the basket by carabiners.
The most common technique for sewing panels together is called the French felled, French fell, or double
lap seam. The two pieces of fabric are folded over on each other at their common edge, possibly with a
load tape as well, and sewn together with two rows of parallel stitching. Other methods include a flat lap
seam, in which the two pieces of fabric are held together simply with two rows of parallel stitching, and a
zigzag, where parallel zigzag stitching holds a double lap of fabric

The fabric (or at least part of it, the top 1/3 for example) may be coated with a sealer, such as
silicone or polyurethane, to make it impermeable to air.[24] It is often the degradation of this
coating and the corresponding loss of impermeability that ends the effective life of an envelope,
not weakening of the fabric itself. Heat, moisture, and mechanical wear-and-tear during set-up
and pack-up are the primary causes of degradation. Once an envelope becomes too porous to fly,
it may be retired and discarded or perhaps used as a 'rag bag': cold inflated and opened for
children to run through. Products for recoating the fabric are becoming available commercially.
Sizes and capacity
A range of envelope sizes is available. The smallest, one-person, basket-less balloons (called "Hoppers"
or "Cloudhoppers") have as little as 600 m3 (21,000 cu ft) of envelope volume;[26] for a perfect sphere the
radius would be around 5 m (16 ft). At the other end of the scale, balloons used by commercial
sightseeing operations may be able to carry well over two dozen people, with envelope volumes of up to
17,000 m3 (600,000 cu ft).[26] The most-used size is about 2,800 m3 (99,000 cu ft), and can carry 3 to 5
people.
Vents

The top of the balloon usually has a vent of some sort, enabling the pilot to release hot air to
slow an ascent, start a descent, or increase the rate of descent, usually for landing. Some hot air
balloons have turning vents, which are side vents that, when opened, cause the balloon to rotate.
Such vents are particularly useful for balloons with rectangular baskets, to facilitate aligning the
wider side of the basket for landing.[27]

The most common type of top vent is a disk-shaped flap of fabric called a parachute vent,
invented by Tracy Barnes.[28] The fabric is connected around its edge to a set of "vent lines" that
converge in the center. (The arrangement of fabric and lines roughly resembles a parachute
thus the name.) These "vent lines" are themselves connected to a control line that runs to the
basket. A parachute vent is opened by pulling on the control line. Once the control line is
released, the pressure of the remaining hot air pushes the vent fabric back into place. A parachute
vent can be opened briefly while in flight to initiate a rapid descent. (Slower descents are
initiated by allowing the air in the balloon to cool naturally.) The vent is pulled open completely
to collapse the balloon after landing.
An older, and presently less commonly used, style of top vent is called a "Velcro-style" vent.
This too is a disk of fabric at the top of the balloon. However, rather than having a set of "vent
lines" that can repeatedly open and close the vent, the vent is secured by "hook and loop"
fasteners (such as Velcro) and is only opened at the end of the flight. Balloons equipped with a
Velcro-style vent typically have a second "maneuvering vent" built into the side (as opposed to
the top) of the balloon. Another common type of top design is the "Smart Vent," which, rather
than lowering a fabric disc into the envelope as in the "parachute" type, gathers the fabric
together in the center of the opening. This system can theoretically be used for in-flight
maneuvering, but is more commonly used only as a rapid-deflation device for use after landing,
of particular value in high winds. Other designs, such as the "pop top" and "MultiVent" systems,
have also attempted to address the need for rapid deflation on landing, but the parachute top
remains popular as an all-around maneuvering and deflation system.
Shape
Besides special shapes, possibly for marketing purposes, there are several variations on the traditional
"inverted tear drop" shape. The simplest, often used by home builders, is a hemisphere on top of a
truncated cone. More-sophisticated designs attempt to minimize the circumferential stress on the fabric,
with different degrees of success depending on whether they take fabric weight and varying air density
into account. This shape may be referred to as "natural". [29] Finally, some specialized balloons are
designed to minimize aerodynamic drag (in the vertical direction) to improve flight performance in
competitions

Basket
Baskets are commonly made of woven wicker or rattan. These materials have proven to be
sufficiently light, strong, and durable for balloon flight. Such baskets are usually rectangular or
triangular in shape. They vary in size from just big enough for two people to large enough to
carry thirty.[31] Larger baskets often have internal partitions for structural bracing and to
compartmentalize the passengers. Small holes may be woven into the side of the basket to act as
foot holds for passengers climbing in or out.[32]
Baskets may also be made of aluminium, especially a collapsible aluminium frame with a fabric
skin, to reduce weight or increase portability.[33] These may be used by pilots without a ground

crew or who are attempting to set altitude, duration, or distance records. Other specialty baskets
include the fully enclosed gondolas used for around-the-world attempts, [34] and baskets that
consist of little more than a seat for the pilot and perhaps one passenger.

Burner

A burner directing a flame into the envelope.

The burner unit gasifies liquid propane,[35] mixes it with air, ignites the mixture, and directs the
flame and exhaust into the mouth of the envelope. Burners vary in power output; each will
generally produce 2 to 3 MW of heat (7 to 10 million BTUs per hour), with double, triple, or
quadruple burner configurations installed where more power is needed. [36][37] The pilot actuates a
burner by opening a propane valve, known as a blast valve. The valve may be spring-loaded so
that it closes automatically, or it may stay open until closed by the pilot. The burner has a pilot
light to ignite the propane and air mixture. The pilot light may be lit by the pilot with an external
device, such as a flint striker or a lighter, or with a built-in piezo electric spark.[38]
Where more than one burner is present, the pilot can use one or more at a time depending on the
desired heat output. Each burner is characterized by a metal coil of propane tubing the flame
shoots through to preheat the incoming liquid propane. The burner unit may be suspended from
the mouth of the envelope, or supported rigidly over the basket. The burner unit may be mounted
on a gimbal to enable the pilot to aim the flame and avoid overheating the envelope fabric. A
burner may have a secondary propane valve that releases propane more slowly and thereby
generates a different sound. This is called a whisper burner and is used for flight over livestock
to lessen the chance of spooking them. It also generates a more yellow flame and is used for
night glows because it lights up the inside of the envelope better than the primary valve.

Fuel tanks

Propane fuel tanks are usually cylindrical pressure vessels made from aluminium, stainless steel,
or titanium with a valve at one end to feed the burner and to refuel. They may have a fuel gauge
and a pressure gauge. Common tank sizes are 10 (38), 15 (57), and 20 (76) US gallons (liters).[24]
They may be intended for upright or horizontal use, and may be mounted inside or outside the
basket.

Stainless steel fuel tanks, wrapped in red insulating covers, mounted vertically, and with fuel
gauges, during refueling.
The pressure necessary to force the fuel through the line to the burner may be supplied by the
vapor pressure of the propane itself, if warm enough, or by the introduction of an inert gas such
as nitrogen.[38] Tanks may be preheated with electrical heat tapes to produce sufficient vapor
pressure for cold weather flying.[39] Warmed tanks will usually also be wrapped in an insulating
blanket to preserve heat during the setup and flight.

Instrumentation
A balloon may be outfitted with a variety of instruments to aid the pilot. These commonly
include an altimeter, a rate of climb (vertical speed) indicator known as a variometer, envelope
(air) temperature, and ambient (air) temperature.[40] A GPS receiver can be useful to indicate
ground speed (traditional aircraft air speed indicators would be useless) and direction.

Ornithopter
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing
flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same
scale as these flying creatures. Manned ornithopters have also been built, and some have been successful.
The machines are of two general types: those with engines, and those powered by the muscles of the pilot.

Applications

Spying
Surveillance
Hobby

Adventures

Advantages

ornithopters can be made to resemble birds or insects, they could be used for military
applications such as aerial reconnaissance without alerting the enemies that they are under
surveillance. Several ornithopters have been flown with video cameras on board, some of which
can hover and maneuver in small spaces. In 2011, AeroVironment, Inc. demonstrated a remotely
piloted ornithopter resembling a large hummingbird for possible spy missions

Disadvantages

high vibration due to moving parts( wing)

low aerodynamic efficiency
stability problems
complex controlling mechanism required
highly turbulent flow

Early airplanes by write brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 May
30, 1912), were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are generally credited with
inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled,
sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina. In 190405 the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical
fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were
the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.

The Wrights solved both the control and power problems that confronted aeronautical pioneers.
They invented roll control using wing warping and combined roll with simultaneous yaw control
using a steerable rear rudder. Although wing-warping as a means of roll control was used only
briefly during the early history of aviation, the innovation of combining roll and yaw control was
a fundamental advance in flight control. For pitch control, the Wrights used a forward elevator
(canard), another design element that later became outmoded.
The Wrights made rigorous wind-tunnel tests of airfoils and flight tests of full-size gliders. They
not only built a working powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, but also significantly advanced the
science of aeronautical engineering.
They concentrated on the controllability of unpowered aircraft before attempting to fly a
powered design. From 1900 to 1902, they built and flew a series of three gliders. The first two
were much less efficient than the Wrights expected, based on experiments and writings of their
19th-century predecessors. Their 1900 glider had only about half the lift they anticipated, and the
1901 glider performed even more poorly, until makeshift modifications made it serviceable.
Seeking answers, the Wrights constructed their own wind tunnel and equipped it with a
sophisticated measuring device to calculate lift and drag of 200 different model-size wing
designs they created.[87] As a result, the Wrights corrected earlier mistakes in calculations of lift
and drag and used this knowledge to construct their 1902 glider, third in the series. It became the
first manned, heavier-than-air flying machine that was mechanically controllable in all three
axes: pitch, roll and yaw. Its pioneering design also included wings with a higher aspect ratio
than the previous gliders. The brothers successfully flew the 1902 glider hundreds of times, and
it performed far better than their earlier two versions.
To obtain adequate power for their engine-driven Flyer, the Wrights designed and built a lowpowered internal combustion engine. Using their wind tunnel data, they designed and carved
wooden propellers that were more efficient than any before, enabling them to gain adequate
performance from their low engine power. The Flyer's design was also influenced by the desire
of the Wrights to teach themselves to fly safely without unreasonable risk to life and limb, and to
make crashes survivable. The limited engine power resulted in low flying speeds and the need to
take off into a headwind.

The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft.
According to the Smithsonian Institution and Fdration Aronautique Internationale (FAI),[88][89]
the Wrights made the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight at Kill
Devil Hills, North Carolina, 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on 17

December 1903.[90] The first flight by Orville Wright, of 120 feet (37 m) in 12 seconds, was
recorded in a famous photograph. In the fourth flight of the same day, Wilbur Wright flew 852
feet (260 m) in 59 seconds. Modern analysis by Professor Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Rex
(1985) has demonstrated that the 1903 Wright Flyer was so unstable as to be almost
unmanageable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves in the 1902 glider.[91]
The Wrights continued developing their flying machines and flying at Huffman Prairie near
Dayton, Ohio in 190405. After a crash in 1905, they rebuilt the Flyer III and made important
design changes. They almost doubled the size of the elevator and rudder and moved them about
twice the distance from the wings. They added two fixed vertical vanes (called "blinkers")
between the elevators, and gave the wings a very slight dihedral. They disconnected the rudder
from the wing-warping control, and as in all future aircraft, placed it on a separate control
handle. The Flyer III became the first practical aircraft (though without wheels and using a
launching device), flying consistently under full control and bringing its pilot back to the starting
point safely and landing without damage. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (39 km) in
39 minutes 23 seconds".[92]
Eventually the Wrights would abandon the foreplane altogether, with the Model B of 1910
instead having a tail plane in the manner which was by then becoming conventional.
According to the April 1907 issue of the Scientific American magazine,[93] the Wright brothers
seemed to have the most advanced knowledge of heavier-than-air navigation at the time.
However, the same magazine issue also claimed that no public flight had been made in the
United States before its April 1907 issue. Hence, they devised the Scientific American
Aeronautic Trophy in order to encourage the development of a heavier-than-air flying machine.

Development of aircraft materials

Aerospace materials are materials, frequently metal alloys, that have either been developed for,
or have come to prominence through, their use for aerospace purposes.These uses often require
exceptional performance, strength or heat resistance, even at the cost of considerable expense in
their production or machining. Others are chosen for their long-term reliability in this safetyconscious field, particularly for their resistance to fatigue.
The first aerospace materials were those long-established and often naturally occurring
materials used to construct the first aircraft. These included such mundane materials as timber for
wing structures and fabric and dope to cover them. Their quality was of utmost importance and
so the timber would be of carefully selected sitka spruce and the covering of irish linen
To improve the strength of material manufactures tried to use pure metals , like iron ,steel
..etc. but along with the strength the weight was also got high, it adversely affect the airplane
performance . so aircraft industries tries to use alloys of lighter metals like aluminium

The next stage in the development of aerospace materials was to adopt newly developed
materials, such as Duralumin the first age hardening aluminium alloy. These offered attributes
not previously available. Many of these new materials also required study to determine the extent
of these new properties, their behaviour and how to make the best use of them. The strength to
weight ratio of Duralumin is far better than any other materials used in that time

The Wright brothers

On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made the worlds first human flight with their
airplane, the Wright Flyer.

The Wright Brothers Wright Flyer

At the time, automobile engines were very heavy and didnt deliver enough power to achieve
take off, so the Wright brothers built a special engine in which the cylinder block and other parts
were made from aluminum.
As aluminum was not widely available and was prohibitively expensive, the airplane itself was
made from a Sitka spruce and bamboo frame covered with canvas. Due to the low airspeeds and
limited lift-generating capability of the plane, keeping the frame extremely lightweight was
essential and wood was the only feasible material light enough to fly, yet strong enough to carry
the required load.
It would take over a decade for the use of aluminum to become more widespread.

World War I
Wooden aircraft made their mark in the earliest days of aviation, but during World War I,
lightweight aluminum began to replace wood as the essential component for aerospace
manufacture.
In 1915 the German aircraft designer Hugo Junkers built the worlds first full metal aircraft; the
Junkers J 1 monoplane. Its fuselage was made from an aluminum alloy that included copper,
magnesium and manganese.

Th
e Junkers J 1

Golden Age of Aviation

The period between World War I and World War II came to be known as the Golden Age of
Aviation
During the 1920s, Americans and Europeans competed in airplane racing, which led to
innovations in design and performance. Biplanes were replaced by more streamlined monoplanes
and there was a transition to all-metal frames made from aluminum alloys.
In 1925, the Ford Motor Co. went into the airline industry. Henry Ford designed the 4-AT, a
three-engine, all-metal plane using corrugated aluminum. Dubbed The Tin Goose, it became
an instant hit with passengers and airline operators.
By the mid-1930s, a new streamlined aircraft shape emerged, with tightly cowled multiple
engines, retracting landing gear, variable-pitch propellers, and stressed-skin aluminum
construction.

World War II
During World War II, aluminum was needed for numerous military applications particularly the
construction of aircraft frames which caused aluminum production to soar.
The demand for aluminum was so great that in 1942, WOR-NYC broadcast a radio show
Aluminum for Defense to encourage Americans to contribute scrap aluminum to the war
effort. Aluminum recycling was encouraged, and Tinfoil Drives offered free movie tickets in
exchange for aluminum foil balls.
In the period from July 1940 to August 1945, the U.S. produced a staggering 296,000 aircraft.
More than half were made predominantly from aluminum. The U.S. aerospace industry was able
to meet the needs of the American military, as well as American allies including Britain. At their
peak in 1944, American aircraft plants were producing 11 planes every hour.

By the end of the war, America had the most powerful air force in the world.

The modern era

Since the end of the war, aluminum has become an integral part of aircraft manufacture. While
the composition of the aluminum alloys has improved, the advantages of aluminum remain the
same. Aluminum allows designers to build a plane that is as light as possible, can carry heavy
loads, uses the least amount of fuel and is impervious to rust.
In modern aircraft manufacture, aluminum is used everywhere. The Concorde, which flew
passengers at over twice the speed of sound for 27 years, was built with an aluminum skin.
The Boeing 737, the best-selling jet commercial airliner which has made air travel for the masses
a reality, is 80% aluminum.
Todays planes use aluminum in the fuselage, the wing panes, the rudder, the exhaust pipes, the
door and floors, the seats, the engine turbines, and the cockpit instrumentation.

Early Developments in Aerodynamics

Aerodynamics, literally air in motion, is the branch of the larger field of fluid dynamics that
deals with the motion of air and other gaseous fluids. It concerns the forces that these gaseous
fluids, and particularly air, exert on bodies moving through it. Without the science of
aerodynamics, modern flight would be impossible.
The word aerodynamics itself was not officially documented until 1837. However, the
observation of fluids and their effect on objects can be traced back to the Greek philosopher
Aristotle in 350 B.C. Aristotle conceived the notion that air has weight and observed that a body
moving through a fluid encounters resistance.
Archimedes, another Greek philosopher, also has a place in the history of aerodynamics. A
hundred years later, in 250 B.C., he presented his law of floating bodies that formed a basic
principle of lighter-than-air vehicles. He stated that a fluideither in a liquid or a gaseous form
is continuous, basically restating Aristotle's theory of a hundred years earlier. He
comprehended that every point on the surface of a body immersed in a fluid was subject to some
force due to the fluid. He stated that, in a fluid, each part is always pressed by the whole weight
of the column perpendicularly above it. He observed that the pressure exerted on an object
immersed in a fluid is directly proportional to its depth in the fluid. In other words, the deeper the
object is in the fluid, the greater the pressure on it. Deep-sea divers, who have to accustom
themselves to changes in pressure both on the way down into the sea and again on the way up to
the surface, directly experience this phenomenon.

A direct proportional relationship means that if one part increases, the other will increase by the
same factor. Physicists and mathematicians use the Greek letter alpha () to denote such a
relationship. Applied to pressure and depth, if the depth of an object is doubled, the pressure
exerted on the object would double as well (Depth Pressure). The opposite would also be true.
As altitude increases (negative depth), pressure decreases. Archimedes also demonstrated that, in
order to set a stagnant fluid in motion, the pressure on the fluid must be increased or decreased.
The resultant movement will take place in the direction of the decreasing pressure.
The next contribution to aerodynamics did not occur until the end of the 1400s. In 1490, the
Italian painter, sculptor, and thinker Leonardo da Vinci began documenting his aerodynamic
theories and ideas for flying machines in personal notebooks. An avid observer of birds and
nature, he first believed that birds fly by flapping their wings, and thought that this motion would
have to occur for manmade aircraft to rise. He later correctly concluded that the flapping of the
wings created forward motion, and this forward motion allowed air to pass across the bird's
wings to create lift. It was the movement of the wing relative to the air and the resulting reaction
that produced the lift necessary to fly. As a result of his studies, he designed several ornithopters
machines that were intended to copy the action of a bird's wing with the muscle power being
supplied by man. But these designs did not leave the drawing board. His other designs included
those for the first helicopter and a parachute.
Leonardo noticed another phenomenon that would prove useful in the study of aerodynamics. He
noticed that water in a river moved fasterat a greater velocitywhere the river narrowed. In
numerical terms, the area of a cross-section of a river multiplied by the velocity of the water
flowing through that section equals the same number at any point in the river. This is known as
the law of continuity (Area x Velocity = constant or AV = constant). The law of continuity
demonstrates the conservation of mass, which is a fundamental principal in modern
aerodynamics. He also observed the different ways in which a fluid flowed around an object
called a flow field.
Leonardo also stated that the aerodynamic results are the same if an object moves through the
fluid at a given velocity or if the fluid flows past the object at rest at the same velocity. This
became known as the wind tunnel principal. For example, the results are the same
aerodynamically whether a runner moves at 10 miles per hour in calm air and if the wind is
blowing at 10 miles per hour past a stationary person. He also determined that drag on an object
is directly proportional to the area of the object. The greater the area of an object, the greater the
drag. Further, Leonardo pointed out the benefits of streamlining as a way to reduce an object's
drag.
However, Leonardo's notebooks were not discovered until centuries later, and his ideas remained
unknown until the 19th century.

Scientists working in the 17th century contributed several theories relating to drag. The Italian
mathematician and inventor Galileo Galilei built on Archimedes' work and discovered that the
drag exerted on a body from a moving fluid is directly proportional to the density of the fluid.
Density describes the mass of an object per unit volume. A very dense fluid produces more drag
on objects passing through it than a less dense fluid. The density of air (a fluid) changes with its
distance from the Earth's surface, becoming less dense the farther it is above the Earth's surface
and, as such, exerting less pressure. Thus, an object passing through air high above the Earth's
surface will encounter less drag than the same object passing through air close to the Earth's
surface.
In 1673, the French scientist Edme Mariotte demonstrated that drag is proportional to the square
of the velocity of an object (D V2). Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens had been testing
this theory since 1669 and published his results with the same conclusion in 1690. The English
scientist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton presented a derivation of the drag equation of a
body in 1687: Drag SV2 (where is density and S is cross-sectional surface area of the body).
In 1738, the Dutch scientist Daniel Bernoulli published his findings on the relationship between
pressure and velocity in flowing fluids. Other scientists used his research as a foundation for
further research. The French scientist Jean le Rond d'Alembert, an associate of Bernoulli's,
introduced a model for fluid flows and an equation for the principle of the conservation of mass.
He further presented the idea that velocity and acceleration can vary between different points in
fluid flow. (Remember that air is a fluid.)
Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, also an associate of Bernoulli, derived equations from
Bernoulli's and d'Alembert's principles. The most famous of these became known as Bernoulli's
Principle. It states that, in a flowing fluid, as velocity increases, pressure decreases. This
became a key concept for understanding how lift is created. Euler also introduced equations for
fluid flow, though at the time they could not be solved and applied.
Italian mathematician Joseph Lagrange and French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace studied
Euler's findings and tried to solve his equations. In 1788, Lagrange introduced a new model for
fluid flow as well as new equations for calculating velocity and pressure. In 1789, Laplace
developed an equation that would help solve Euler's equations. It is still used in modern
aerodynamics and physics. Laplace also successfully calculated the speed of sound.
In addition to these theoretical advancements, experiments in aerodynamics were also producing
more practical results. In 1732, the French chemist Henri Pitot invented the Pitot tube, a device
that enables the calculation of velocity at a point in a flowing fluid. This would help explain the
behavior of fluid flow. The English engineer Benjamin Robins performed experiments in 1746
using a whirling arm device and a pendulum to measure drag at low and high speeds.

In 1759, the English engineer John Smeaton also used a whirling arm device to measure the drag
exerted on a surface by moving air. He proposed the equation D = kSV2, where D is the drag, S is
the surface area, V is the air velocity, and k is a constant, which Smeaton claimed was necessary
in the equation. This constant became known as Smeaton's coefficient, and the value of this
constant was debated for years. Those making the first attempts at flight, including the Wright
brothers, used this coefficient. The French scientist Jean-Charles Borda published the results of
his own whirling arm experiments in 1763. Borda verified and proposed modifications to current
aerodynamic theories and was able to show the effect that the movement of one object had on
another nearby object.
Sir George Cayley of England is generally recognized as the father of modern
aerodynamics. He understood the basic forces acting on a wing and built a glider with a wing
and a tail unit that flew successfully. He realized the importance of the wing angle of attack and
that curved surfaces (camber) would produce more lift than flat ones. Stability in his designs
came with the use of dihedralan important concept still used today He first made public the
notion that a fixed-wing aircraft was possible in 1804 in his major publication, On Aerial
Navigation, which described the theoretical problems of flight.

Developments of aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with the study of the motion of air. It is a subfield of fluid and gas dynamics, and the term "aerodynamics" is often used when referring to gas
dynamics.
Early records of fundamental aerodynamics concepts date back to the work of Aristotle and
Archimedes in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, but efforts to develop a quantitative theory of air
flow did not begin until the 18th century. In 1726, Isaac Newton became one of the first
aerodynamicists in the modern sense when he developed a theory of air resistance, which was
later verified for low flow speeds. Air resistance experiments were performed by investigators
throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, aided by the construction of the first wind tunnel in 1871.
In his 1738 publication Hydrodynamica, Daniel Bernoulli described a fundamental relationship
between pressure, velocity, and density, now termed Bernoulli's principle, which provides one
method of calculating lift.
Aerodynamics work throughout the 19th century sought to achieve heavier-than-air flight.
George Cayley developed the concept of the modern fixed-wing aircraft in 1799, and in doing so
identified the four fundamental forces of flight - lift, thrust, drag, and weight. The development
of reasonable predictions of the thrust needed to power flight in conjunction with the
development of high-lift, low-drag airfoils paved the way for the first powered flight. On

December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright flew the first successful powered aircraft. The
flight, and the publicity it received, led to more organized collaboration between aviators and
aerodynamicists, leading the way to modern aerodynamics.
Theoretical advances in aerodynamics were made parallel to practical ones. The relationship
described by Bernoulli was found to be valid only for incompressible, inviscid flow. In 1757,
Leonhard Euler published the Euler equations, extending Bernoulli's principle to the
compressible flow regime. In the early 19th century, the development of the Navier-Stokes
equations extended the Euler equations to account for viscous effects. During the time of the first
flights, several investigators developed independent theories connecting flow circulation to lift.
Ludwig Prandtl became one of the first people to investigate boundary layers during this time.
Although the modern theory of aerodynamic science did not emerge until the 18th century, its
foundations began to emerge in ancient times. The fundamental aerodynamics continuity
assumption has its origins in Aristotle's Treatise on the Heavens, although Archimedes, working
in the 3rd century BC, was the first person to formally assert that a fluid could be treated as a
continuum.[1] Archimedes also introduced the concept that fluid flow was driven by a pressure
gradient within the fluid.[2][3] This idea would later prove fundamental to the understanding of
fluid flow.
In 1687, Newton's Principia presented Newton's laws of motion, the first complete theoretical
approach to understanding mechanical phenomena. In particular, Newton's second law, a
statement of the conservation of momentum, is one of three fundamental physical principles used
to obtain the Euler equations and Navier-Stokes equations.
In 1738, the Dutch-Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli published Hydrodynamica, in which
he described the fundamental relationship between pressure and velocity, known today as
Bernoulli's principle.[4] This states that the pressure of a flowing fluid decreases as its velocity
increases and as such was a significant early advance in the theory of fluid dynamics, and was
first quantified in an equation derived by Leonhard Euler.[5] This expression, often called
Bernoulli's Equation, relates the pressure, density, and velocity at two points along a streamline
within a flowing fluid as follows:

Bernoulli's Equation ignores compressibility of the fluid, as well as the effects of gravity and
viscous forces on the flow. Leonhard Euler would go on to publish the Euler equations in 1757,
which are valid for both compressible and incompressible flows. The Euler equations were

extended to incorporate the effects of viscosity in the first half of the 1800s, resulting in the
Navier-Stokes equations.
Studies of air resistance (Drag)

The retarding effect of air on a moving object was among the earliest aerodynamic
phenomena to be explored. Aristotle wrote about air resistance in the 4th century BC,[3] but
lacked the understanding to quantify the resistance he observed. In fact, Aristotle paradoxically
suggested that the movement of air around a thrown spear both resisted its motion and propelled
it forward.[6] In the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci published the Codex Leicester, in which he
rejected Aristotle's theory and attempted to prove that the only effect of air on a thrown object
was to resist its motion,[7] and that air resistance was proportional to flow speed, a false
conclusion which was supported by Galileo's 17th century observations of pendulum motion
decay.[3] In addition to his work on drag, da Vinci was the first person to record a number of
aerodynamic ideas including correctly describing the circulation of vortices and the continuity
principle as applied to channel flow.[3]
The true quadratic dependency of drag on velocity was experimentally proven independently by
Edme Mariotte and Christiaan Huygens, both members of the Paris Academy of Sciences, in the
late 17th century.[8] Sir Isaac Newton later became the first person to theoretically derive this
quadratic dependence of air resistance in the early 18th century, [9] making him one of the first
theoretical aerodynamicists. Newton stated that drag was proportional to the dimensions of a
body, the density of the fluid, and the square of the air velocity, a relationship which was
demonstrated to be correct for low flow speeds, but stood in direct conflict with Galileo's earlier
findings. The discrepancy between the work of Newton, Mariotte, and Huygens, and Galileo's
earlier work was not resolved until advances in viscous flow theory in the 20th century.
Newton also developed a law for the drag force on a flat plate inclined towards the direction of
the fluid flow. Using F for the drag force, for the density, S for the area of the flat plate, V for
the flow velocity, and for the angle of attack, his law was expressed as:
This equation overestimates drag in most cases, and was often used in the 19th century to argue
the impossibility of human flight. [3] At low inclination angles, drag depends linearly on the sin of
the angle, not quadratically. However, Newton's flat plate drag law yields reasonable drag
predictions for supersonic flows or very slender plates at large inclination angles which lead to
flow separation.[10][11]
Air resistance experiments were carried out by investigators throughout the 18th and 19th
centuries. Drag theories were developed by Jean le Rond d'Alembert,[12] Gustav Kirchhoff,[13] and
Lord Rayleigh.[14] Equations for fluid flow with friction were developed by Claude-Louis
Navier[15] and George Gabriel Stokes.[16] To simulate fluid flow, many experiments involved
immersing objects in streams of water or simply dropping them off the top of a tall building.

Towards the end of this time period Gustave Eiffel used his Eiffel Tower to assist in the drop
testing of flat plates.
A more precise way to measure resistance is to place an object within an artificial, uniform
stream of air where the velocity is known. The first person to experiment in this fashion was
Francis Herbert Wenham, who in doing so constructed the first wind tunnel in 1871. Wenham
was also a member of the first professional organization dedicated to aeronautics, the Royal
Aeronautical Society of the United Kingdom. Objects placed in wind tunnel models are almost
always smaller than in practice, so a method was needed to relate small scale models to their
real-life counterparts. This was achieved with the invention of the dimensionless Reynolds
number by Osborne Reynolds.[17] Reynolds also experimented with laminar to turbulent flow
transition in 1883.

Developments in aviation
Working from at least as early as 1796, when he constructed a model helicopter, [18] until his death
in 1857, Sir George Cayley is credited as the first person to identify the four aerodynamic forces
of flightweight, lift, drag, and thrustand the relationships between them.[19][20] Cayley is also
credited as the first person to develop the modern fixed-wing aircraft concept; although da
Vinci's notes contain drawings and descriptions of a fixed-wing heavier-than-air flight machine,
da Vinci's notes were disorganized and scattered following his death, and his aerodynamics
achievements were not rediscovered until after technology had progressed well beyond da Vinci's
advances.[21]
By the late 19th century, two problems were identified before heavier-than-air flight could be
realized. The first was the creation of low-drag, high-lift aerodynamic wings. The second
problem was how to determine the power needed for sustained flight. During this time, the
groundwork was laid down for modern day fluid dynamics and aerodynamics, with other less
scientifically-inclined enthusiasts testing various flying machines with little success.
In 1884, John J. Montgomery, an American trained in physics, began experimenting with glider
designs. Using a water table with circulating water and a smoke chamber he began applying the
physics of fluid dynamics to describe the motions of flow over curved surfaces such as airfoils.
[22]
In 1889, Charles Renard, a French aeronautical engineer, became the first person to
reasonably predict the power needed for sustained flight.[23] Renard and German physicist
Hermann von Helmholtz explored the wing loading (weight to wing-area ratio) of birds,
eventually concluding that humans could not fly under their own power by attaching wings onto
their arms. Otto Lilienthal, following the work of Sir George Cayley, was the first person to
become highly successful with glider flights. Lilienthal believed that thin, curved airfoils would
produce high lift and low drag.

Octave Chanute's 1893 book, Progress in Flying Machines, outlined all of the known research
conducted around the world up to that point.[24] Chanute's book provided a great service to those
interested in aerodynamics and flying machines.
With the information contained in Chanute's book, the personal assistance of Chanute himself,
and research carried out in their own wind tunnel, the Wright brothers gained enough knowledge
of aerodynamics to fly the first powered aircraft on December 17, 1903. The Wright brothers'
flight confirmed or disproved a number of aerodynamics theories. Newton's drag force theory
was finally proved incorrect. This first widely-publicised flight led to a more organized effort
between aviators and scientists, leading the way to modern aerodynamics.
During the time of the first flights, John J. Montgomery,[25] Frederick W. Lanchester,[26] Martin
Wilhelm Kutta, and Nikolai Zhukovsky independently created theories that connected circulation
of a fluid flow to lift. Kutta and Zhukovsky went on to develop a two-dimensional wing theory.
Expanding upon the work of Lanchester, Ludwig Prandtl is credited with developing the
mathematics[27] behind thin-airfoil and lifting-line theories as well as work with boundary layers.
Prandtl, a professor at the University of Gttingen, instructed many students who would play
important roles in the development of aerodynamics, such as Theodore von Krmn and Max
Munk.

Design issues with increasing speed

Compressibility is an important factor in aerodynamics. At low speeds, the compressibility of air
is not significant in relation to aircraft design, but as the airflow nears and exceeds the speed of
sound, a host of new aerodynamic effects become important in the design of aircraft. These
effects, often several of them at a time, made it very difficult for World War II era aircraft to
reach speeds much beyond 800 km/h (500 mph).
Some of the minor effects include changes to the airflow that lead to problems in control. For
instance, the P-38 Lightning with its thick high-lift wing had a particular problem in high-speed
dives that led to a nose-down condition. Pilots would enter dives, and then find that they could
no longer control the plane, which continued to nose over until it crashed. The problem was
remedied by adding a "dive flap" beneath the wing which altered the center of pressure
distribution so that the wing would not lose its lift.[28]
A similar problem affected some models of the Supermarine Spitfire. At high speeds, the ailerons
could apply more torque than the Spitfire's thin wings could handle, and the entire wing would
twist in the opposite direction. This meant that the plane would roll in the direction opposite to
that which the pilot intended, and led to a number of accidents. Earlier models weren't fast
enough for this to be a problem, and so it wasn't noticed until later model Spitfires like the
Mk.IX started to appear. This was mitigated by adding considerable torsional rigidity to the
wings, and was wholly cured when the Mk.XIV was introduced.

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Mitsubishi Zero had the exact opposite problem in which the
controls became ineffective. At higher speeds, the pilot simply couldn't move the controls
because there was too much airflow over the control surfaces. The planes would become difficult
to maneuver, and at high enough speeds aircraft without this problem could out-turn them.
These problems were eventually solved as jet aircraft reached transonic and supersonic speeds.
German scientists in WWII experimented with swept wings. Their research was applied on the
MiG-15 and F-86 Sabre and bombers such as the B-47 Stratojet used swept wings which delay
the onset of shock waves and reduce drag.
In order to maintain control near and above the speed of sound, it is often necessary to use either
power operated all-flying tailplanes (stabilators), or delta wings fitted with power operated
elevons. Power operation prevents aerodynamic forces overriding the pilots' control inputs.
Finally, another common problem that fits into this category is flutter. At some speeds, the
airflow over the control surfaces will become turbulent, and the controls will start to flutter. If the
speed of the fluttering is close to a harmonic of the control's movement, the resonance could
break the control off completely. This was a serious problem on the Zero and VL Myrsky. When
problems with poor control at high speed were first encountered, they were addressed by
designing a new style of control surface with more power. However, this introduced a new
resonant mode, and a number of planes were lost before this was discovered. On design of VL
Myrsky, this problem was countered by increasing the rigidity and weight of the wing, therefore
increasing the dampening of the harmonic oscillation, which compromised the performance to
some extent.
All of these effects are often mentioned in conjunction with the term "compressibility", but in a
manner of speaking, they are incorrectly used. From a strictly aerodynamic point of view, the
term should refer only to those side-effects arising as a result of the changes in airflow from an
incompressible fluid (similar in effect to water) to a compressible fluid (acting as a gas) as the
speed of sound is approached. There are two effects in particular, wave drag and critical mach.
Wave drag is a sudden rise in drag on the aircraft, caused by air building up in front of it. At
lower speeds, this air has time to "get out of the way", guided by the air in front of it that is in
contact with the aircraft. But at the speed of sound, this can no longer happen, and the air which
was previously following the streamline around the aircraft now hits it directly. The amount of
power needed to overcome this effect is considerable. The critical mach is the speed at which
some of the air passing over the aircraft's wing becomes supersonic.
At the speed of sound, the way that lift is generated changes dramatically, from being dominated
by Bernoulli's principle to forces generated by shock waves. Since the air on the top of the wing
is traveling faster than on the bottom, due to Bernoulli effect, at speeds close to the speed of

sound the air on the top of the wing will be accelerated to supersonic. When this happens, the
distribution of lift changes dramatically, typically causing a powerful nose-down trim. Since the
aircraft normally approached these speeds only in a dive, pilots would report the aircraft
attempting to nose over into the ground.
Dissociation absorbs a great deal of energy in a reversible process. This greatly reduces the
thermodynamic temperature of hypersonic gas decelerated near an aerospace vehicle. In
transition regions, where this pressure dependent dissociation is incomplete, both the differential,
constant pressure heat capacity and beta (the volume/pressure differential ratio) will greatly
increase. The latter has a pronounced effect on vehicle aerodynamics including stability.

Faster than sound later 20th century

As aircraft began to travel faster, aerodynamicists realized that the density of air began to change
as it came into contact with an object, leading to a division of fluid flow into the incompressible
and compressible regimes. In compressible aerodynamics, density and pressure both change,
which is the basis for calculating the speed of sound. Newton was the first to develop a
mathematical model for calculating the speed of sound, but it was not correct until Pierre-Simon
Laplace accounted for the molecular behavior of gases and introduced the heat capacity ratio.
The ratio of the flow speed to the speed of sound was named the Mach number after Ernst Mach,
who was one of the first to investigate the properties of supersonic flow which included
Schlieren photography techniques to visualize the changes in density. William John Macquorn
Rankine and Pierre Henri Hugoniot independently developed the theory for flow properties
before and after a shock wave. Jakob Ackeret led the initial work on calculating the lift and drag
on a supersonic airfoil.[29] Theodore von Krmn and Hugh Latimer Dryden introduced the term
transonic to describe flow speeds around Mach 1 where drag increases rapidly. Because of the
increase in drag approaching Mach 1, aerodynamicists and aviators disagreed on whether
supersonic flight was achievable.

Image showing shock waves from NASA's X-43A hypersonic research vehicle in flight at Mach 7,
generated using a computational fluid dynamics algorithm.

On September 30, 1935, an exclusive conference was held in Rome with the topic of high
velocity flight and the possibility of breaking the sound barrier.[30] Participants included
Theodore von Krmn, Ludwig Prandtl, Jakob Ackeret, Eastman Jacobs, Adolf Busemann,

Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, Gaetano Arturo Crocco, and Enrico Pistolesi. Ackeret presented a
design for a supersonic wind tunnel. Busemann gave a presentation on the need for aircraft with
swept wings for high speed flight. Eastman Jacobs, working for NACA, presented his optimized
airfoils for high subsonic speeds which led to some of the high performance American aircraft
during World War II. Supersonic propulsion was also discussed. The sound barrier was broken
using the Bell X-1 aircraft twelve years later, thanks in part to those individuals.
By the time the sound barrier was broken, much of the subsonic and low supersonic
aerodynamics knowledge had matured. The Cold War fueled an ever evolving line of high
performance aircraft. Computational fluid dynamics was started as an effort to solve for flow
properties around complex objects and has rapidly grown to the point where entire aircraft can be
designed using a computer, with wind-tunnel tests followed by flight tests to confirm the
computer predictions.
With some exceptions, the knowledge of hypersonic aerodynamics has matured between the
1960s and the present decade. Therefore, the goals of an aerodynamicist have shifted from
understanding the behavior of fluid flow to understanding how to engineer a vehicle to interact
appropriately with the fluid flow. For example, while the behavior of hypersonic flow is
understood, building a scramjet aircraft to fly at hypersonic speeds has seen very limited success.
Along with building a successful scramjet aircraft, the desire to improve the aerodynamic
efficiency of current aircraft and propulsion systems will continue to fuel new research in
aerodynamics. Nevertheless, there are still important problems in basic aerodynamic theory, such
as in predicting transition to turbulence, and the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the
Navier-Stokes equations.
According to the theory of aerodynamics, a flow is considered to be compressible if its
change in density with respect to pressure is non-zero along a streamline. This means that
unlike incompressible flow changes in density must be considered. In general, this is the case
where the Mach number in part or all of the flow exceeds 0.3. The Mach .3 value is rather
arbitrary, but it is used because gas flows with a Mach number below that value demonstrate
changes in density with respect to the change in pressure of less than 5%. Furthermore, that
maximum 5% density change occurs at the stagnation point of an object immersed in the gas
flow and the density changes around the rest of the object will be significantly lower. Transonic,
supersonic, and hypersonic flows are all compressible.
Transonic flow

The term Transonic refers to a range of flow velocities just below and above the local speed of
sound (generally taken as Mach 0.81.2). It is defined as the range of speeds between the critical
Mach number, when some parts of the airflow over an aircraft become supersonic, and a higher
speed, typically near Mach 1.2, when all of the airflow is supersonic. Between these speeds,
some of the airflow is supersonic, while some of the airflow is not supersonic.

Supersonic flow

Supersonic aerodynamic problems are those involving flow speeds greater than the speed of
sound. Calculating the lift on the Concorde during cruise can be an example of a supersonic
aerodynamic problem.
Supersonic flow behaves very differently from subsonic flow. Fluids react to differences in
pressure; pressure changes are how a fluid is "told" to respond to its environment. Therefore,
since sound is in fact an infinitesimal pressure difference propagating through a fluid, the speed
of sound in that fluid can be considered the fastest speed that "information" can travel in the
flow. This difference most obviously manifests itself in the case of a fluid striking an object. In
front of that object, the fluid builds up a stagnation pressure as impact with the object brings the
moving fluid to rest. In fluid traveling at subsonic speed, this pressure disturbance can propagate
upstream, changing the flow pattern ahead of the object and giving the impression that the fluid
"knows" the object is there and is avoiding it. However, in a supersonic flow, the pressure
disturbance cannot propagate upstream. Thus, when the fluid finally does strike the object, it is
forced to change its properties temperature, density, pressure, and Mach numberin an
extremely violent and irreversible fashion called a shock wave. The presence of shock waves,
along with the compressibility effects of high-flow velocity (see Reynolds number) fluids, is the
central difference between supersonic and subsonic aerodynamics problems.
Hypersonic flow

In aerodynamics, hypersonic speeds are speeds that are highly supersonic. In the 1970s, the term
generally came to refer to speeds of Mach 5 (5 times the speed of sound) and above. The
hypersonic regime is a subset of the supersonic regime. Hypersonic flow is characterized by high
temperature flow behind a shock wave, viscous interaction, and chemical dissociation of gas.
Aircraft structures
Aircraft have changed enormously over the last century from the early Wright Flyer flown at
Kittyhawk to the supersonic SR-71 Blackbird flown today. Of course the developments in
aeronautical engineering can be broken down into separate divisions that have developed at
different rates: a) the aerodynamics, b) power plant engineering, c) control, radios and navigation
aids, d) airframe engineering (e.g. hydraulic/electrical systems, interior fittings etc.), and finally
e) the structural design. For example, power plants have developed in two large steps separated
by a series of sudden burst of ingenuity. In order to facilitate the first successful flight the Wright
Brothers had to find a light yet powerful engine system. The next stride was the ingenious
invention of the jet engine prior and during WWII by Sir Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain. In
between, the power output of piston engines increased almost 200 times from 12 bhp to over
2000 bhp in just 40 years, with only a ten times increase in mass (3) . As will be outlined in this
article, the design of aerospace structures on the other hand has only made one fundamental
stride forward, but this change was sufficient to change the complete design principle of modern
aircraft. Today however, the strict environmental legislation and advent of the composite era may
induce further leaps in structural design.

A schematic drawing of the Wright Flyer

The modern supersonic SR-71 Blackbird

1) Wire Braced Structures

If we look at the early design of aircraft such as the Wright Flyer in Figure 1 there can really be
no misunderstanding of the construction style. The entire aircraft, including most notably the
wings, forward and rear structures were all constructed from rectangular frames that were
prevented from shearing (forming a parallelogram) or collapsing by diagonally stretched wire.
There were two major innovative thoughts behind this design philosophy. Firstly, the idea that
two parallel wings would facilitate a lighter yet stronger structure than a single wing, and
secondly, that these two wings could be supported with two light wires rather than with a single,
thicker wooden member. The structural advantage of the biplane construction is that the two
wings, vertical struts and wires form a deep light beam, which is more resistant to bending and
twisting than a single wing. Much like a composite sandwich beam it can be treated as two stiff

outer skins for high bending rigidity connected by a lightweight core to provide resistance to
shear and torsion.

Cutaway drawing of the 1917 Sopwith Camel

Cutaway drawing of the 1935 Hawker Hurricane (3)

The biplane construction with wire bracing was the most notable feature of aircraft construction
for much of the following years and paired nicely with lightweight materials such as bamboo and
spruce . Wood is a composite of cellulose fibres embedded in a matrix of lignin and the early
aeronautical engineers knew to take advantage of its high specific strength and stiffness.
Strangely enough, after the era of metals we are now returning back to the composite roots of
aircraft, albeit in a more advanced fashion. The biplane era lasted until the 1930s at which point
metal was taking over as the prime aerospace material. Initially the design philosophy was not
adapted to take full advantage of thin sheet metal manufacturing techniques such that wooden
spars and struts were just replaced by thinner metal tubing. Consequently there remained a
striking similarity in construction between a 1917 and a 1931 fighter. Even though some thin
metal sheets were being used these components generally did not carry much load such that the
main fuselage structure featured 4 horizontal longerons supported by vertical struts and wire
bracing. This so called Warren Girder design can also be seen in some of earliest monoplane
wing constructions such as the 1935 Hawker Hurricane. Aeronautical engineers were initially
unsure how to combine the new metal construction with a traditional fabric covering used on
earlier aircraft. The onset of WWII meant that some safe and conservative design decisions were
made to facilitate monoplane wings and the Warren Girder principle was directly copied to the
internal framework of monoplane wings .These early designs were far from optimised and
perfectly characterise the transition period between wire-frame structures and the semimonocoque structures we use today.

The Hawker Hurricane wing construction

2) Semi-Monocoque Structures
The internal cross-bracing was initially acceptable for the early single or double seater aircraft,
but would obviously not provide enough room for larger passenger aircrafts. To overcome this,
inspiration was taken from the long tradition and expertise in boat building which had already
been applied to construct the fuselages of early wooden flying boats. The highest standards of
yacht construction at the time featured bent wooden frames and double or triple skinswith a
clear varnished finishand presented a much more open and usable fuselage interior .The well-

established boat building techniques were thus passed on to aircraft construction to produce
newer aircraft with very smooth, aerodynamic profiles.

Semi monocoque fuselage construction of an early wooden flying boat (4)

The major advantage of this type of construction is that the outer skin of the fuselage and wing
no longer just define the shape and aerodynamic profile of the aircraft, but become an active
load-carrying member of the structure as well. Thus, the structure becomes multifunctional and
more efficient, unlike the braced fuselage which would be just as strong without the fabric
covering the girders. As a consequence the whole structure is generally at a uniform and lower
stress level, reducing stress concentrations and giving better fatigue life. Finally, as the majority
of the material is located at the outer surface of the structure the second and polar moments of
area, and therefore the bending and torsional rigidities are much increased. On the other hand,
the thin-skinned construction means that compression and shear buckling become the most likely
forms of failure. In order to increase the critical buckling loads the skins are stiffened by
stringers and broken up into smaller sections by spars and ribs.

Components of a semi monocoque wing (5)

Because the external skin is now a working part of the structure this type of construction became
to be known as stressed skin or semi-monocoque, where monocoque means shell in one piece
and semi is an english addition to describe the discrete discontinuities of internal stiffeners.
The adoption of the semi-monocoque construction and a change from wood to metal naturally
coincided since sheet metal production allowed a variety of thin skins to be easily manufactured
quite cheaply, with better surface finish and superior material properties. Furthermore, metal
construction was conducive to riveting which would overcome the adhesive problems of early
wooden semi-monocoque aircraft such as the deHavilland Mosquito.

. Cutaway Drawing of the recently released A400M aircraft (6).

Figure 8 shows the typical construction of a modern aircraft. There have been numerous different
structural arrangements over the past number of years but all generally feature some sort of
vertical stiffener (ribs in the wings and rings in the fuselage) and longitudinal stiffener (called
stringers). Over the years the main driver has been towards a) a reduction in the number of rivets
by reverting to bonded assembly or ideally manufacturing separate components as a single piece
and b) understanding the effects and growth of cracks under static and fatigue loading by
building structures that can easily be inspected or have multiple redundancies (load paths). The
design and manufacturing methods of semi-monocoque aircraft are now so automated that the
development of a new aluminium, medium sized airliner could be regarded as a routine exercise
(1). However, the continuing legislative pressure to reduce weight and fuel consumption
provides enough incentive for further development.
3) Sandwich Structures and Composite Materials

One of the major disadvantages of thin-skinned structures is their lack of rigidity under
compressive loading which gives them a tendency to buckle. A sheet of paper nicely illustrates
this point, since it is quite strong in tension but will provide no support under compression. One
way of improving the rigidity of thin panels is by increasing the bending stiffness with the aid of
external stiffeners, which at the same time break the structure up into smaller sections. The
critical buckling load is a function of the square of the width of the plate over which the load is
applied. Therefore skins can be made 4 times stronger in buckling by just cutting the width in
half. As a wing bends upwards the main compressive loads act on the top skin along the length of
the wing and therefore a large number of stringers are visible across the width.

Another technique to provide more rigidity is sandwich construction. This generally features a
very lightweight core, such as a honeycomb lattice or a foam, sandwiched between two thin yet
stiff outer panels. Here the role of the sandwich core is to carry any shear loads and separate the
two skins as far as possible. The second moment of area is a function of the cube of the depth
and therefore the bending rigidity is greatly increased with this technique. Ideally, in this manner
it would be possible to design an entire fuselage without any internal rings or stringers and the
Beech Starship is an excellent example of a successful application. However, there are problems
of forming honeycomb cores onto doubly curved shells since the material is susceptible to strong
anticlastic curvature, forming a saddle shape when bent in one direction. Furthermore, there are
problems with condensation and water ingress into the honeycomb cells and the ability to
guarantee a good bond surface between the core and the outer skins. There is the possibility to
use foam cores instead, but these tend to be heavier with lower mechanical properties. Perhaps
the current trend is away from sandwich construction (10).

A carbon fibre composite/honeycomb sandwich panel (9)

The Beech Starship whose fuselage was design using sandwich construction with minimal
internal bulkheads and ribs (8)
One of the major applications of honeycomb structures has been in combination with composite
materials. Stiff carbon composite panels are the ideal candidate for the outer skins and the whole
assembly can be co-cured together in an autoclave without having to perform any secondary
bonding operations. Furthermore, the incredible specific strength and stiffness of carbon
composites makes this combination an ultra lightweight yet resilient structure for aerospace
applications. Indeed, we are now at the start of the black carbon age in commercial aircraft
design. Apart from their excellent specific strength and stiffness properties composites exhibit
the ability to tailor optimum mechanical properties by orientating the majority of plies in the
direction of the load and allowing for less material waste during manufacture. As a result, the
first generation of commercial aircraft that contain large proportions of composite parts, such as
the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 XWB, are planned to enter service throughout the
next years.

Considerable delamination leading to catastrophic failure (11)

Considerable effort has been made to mature composite technology in order to reduce
manufacturing costs, guarantee reliably high quality laminates, understand the highly complex
failure criteria and built hierarchical, multifunctional or self-healing structures. One of the major
shortcomings is that the structural advantages of fibre-reinforced plastics must be viewed with
respect to applications where the primary loads are aligned with the fibre direction. However, if a
composite plate is subjected to significant out-of-plane stresses subsurface delaminations may
develop between layers due to the weak through-thickness cohesive strength of the composite.
These intralaminar delaminations are a significant problem as they are difficult to detect by
visual inspection and may reduce the compressive strength of the laminate by up to 60%.
4) Novel Designs
With environmental legislation becoming ever so strict it is adamant that new concepts for
lightweight and fuel efficient aircraft are found swiftly. Although the pressure on developing
advanced composite materials is high it must be remembered that 100 years of innovation were
required to reach the stage that large metal semi-monocoque structures could be manufactured in
the 1940s and another 30 years to fully understand all failure criteria. Thus we may still require
significant research and development before all current issues with composite materials are
resolved. Apart from carbon fibre and other composites other researchers have been looking into
completely redefining the shape of aircraft. Researchers at MIT have been developing the
blended wing concept and NASA are exploring the technology of morphing or shape-changing
aircraft, taking inspiration directly from nature.

Illustration of the MIT Silent Aircraft concept (12).

. NASA morphing wing aircraft (13)

Propulsion system development over years

Resiprocating engines

inline
v line
horizontally opposed
radial engine

At the start of the twentieth century, aircraft engines were simple, low-powered machines that were designed and built one by one
for specific aircraft. But very soon, engines started being built in quantity, often by several manufacturers in different countries
who were licensed by the designer or initial manufacturer. In the United States, particularly during World War I, automobile
manufacturers dominated the aero-engine field until companies that specialized in aircraft engines were established in the 1920s.

A cutaway drawing of the 1903 Wright Flyer engine.

The earliest aero engines were stationaryeither radial in style or in line. The Antoinette series was the most commonly used.
These were succeeded by the popular rotary engine. The best known were the Gnome and Le Rhne, which were used on the
majority of aircraft until the in-line Liberty engine, designed for mass production, started dominating the aero-engine market.
From that point on, increasingly more sophisticated and powerful stationary in-line engines were developed until the arrival of
the jet engine a couple of decades later.
The most advanced aircraft engine early in the century was the 50-horsepower (37-kilowatt) engine designed by Charles Manley
for use on Samuel Langley's aerodromes. But because Langley's aircraft never succeeded in flying, these engines did not have the
opportunity to demonstrate their potential. The engine designed and built by Charlie Taylor and the Wright brothers for their
Flyer, although much lower powered, had a greater place in history because it propelled the first successful powered flight in

1903. Wright's engine had four inline cylinders, was water-cooled, generated 12 horsepower (9 kilowatts) (as compared to
Manley's 50 horsepower), and had weighed about 179 pounds (81 kilograms) without the fuel. It had no fuel pump, carburettor,
or spark plugs.

This Curtiss four-cylinder water-cooled engine was America's first military aircraft engine. It was used to power the 1908 Signal Corps Dirigible No. 1.

The Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corporation produced two notable engines. A four-cylinder water-cooled engine used in the
1908 Signal Corps Dirigible No. 1 was America's first military aircraft engine. It could generate about 25 horsepower (19
kilowatts) and drove a 22-foot (6.7-metre)-long tubular steel shaft that turned a wooden propeller.
Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge designed it. In its speed trial, it reached 19.6 miles per hour (31.5 kilometres per hour). Curtiss also
produced thousands of OX-5 water-cooled engines during World War I, primarily for the Curtiss "Jenny." It generated only 90
horsepower (67 kilowatts) but, compared to other engines of the period, was very reliable.

Thousands of Curtiss OX-5 water-cooled engines were produced in the United States during World War I, primarily for the Curtiss Jenny airplane.

The Antoinette engine was designed and built in France by Lon Levavasseur. Named after the designer's daughter, it was
Europe's most widely used engine until 1909-1910. The first Antoinette engine dated from about 1901 and was used in a
speedboat. By 1905, Levavasseur had produced a water-cooled engine with eight-cylinders arranged in a 90-degree "V" and with
direct fuel injection. It was safe, strong, and fairly powerful, generating 50 horsepower (37 kilowatts) and weighing about 110
pounds (50 kilograms). Its power-to-weight ratio was not surpassed for 25 years.

The French and British-built Anzani 10 was an air-cooled radial engine that was installed in French Caudron aircraft.

An Anzani engine carried Louis Blriot's monoplane across the English Channel in 1909. It was a three-cylinder, air-cooled,
semi-radial engine that developed 25 horsepower (19 kilowatts). It was relatively low-powered for such a long flight. The engine
had automatic inlet valves and mechanically operated exhaust valves, with auxiliary exhaust ports in the cylinders. Later Anzani
engines generated 90-100 horsepower (67-75 kilowatts) and were used in French-produced Caudron aircraft in 1915.

The Gnome 9-N engine was the first successful air-cooled rotary engine used extensively in airplanes during the 1909-1910 period. Numerous types of
Gnome engines were designed and built, one of the most famous being the 165-hp 9-N "Monosoupape" (one valve) that was used during World War I
primarily in the Nieuport 28.

The Gnome 50-horsepower (37-kilowatt) rotary engine revolutionized aviation. Although F.O. Farwell developed the first
successful air-cooled rotary engine in the United States in 1896, it was the French-built Gnome rotary that was first used
extensively in airplanes during the first years of World War I. Designed by the Sguin brothers and first marketed in 1908, it was
the first of a long line of ever more powerful wartime engines. A typical rotary engine, it had a fixed crankshaft and rotating
cylinders and crankcase that carried the propeller with them.
Numerous types of Gnome engines were subsequently designed and built. One of the most famous was the 165-horsepower (123kilowatt) 9-N "Monosoupape" (one valve). The engine had one valve per cylinder. Having no intake valves, its fuel mixture
entered the cylinders through circular holes or "ports" cut in the cylinder walls. It was used during World War I primarily in the
Nieuport 28, which the U.S. Air Service purchased from France, and also by the thousands in other Allied aircraft. This engine,
produced under the names of Bentley Rotary B.R.1 in Britain, the Thulin in Sweden, and the Oberursel UR.I in Germany,
dominated the industry until 1916.

The Clerget rotary engine was used in many Allied fighter planes during World War I. One powered the famous Sopwith Camel.

Around 1911, other engine manufacturers began building rotary engines. LeRhne and Clerget engines, both built in France,
were used in many Allied fighter planes.

The LeRhone C-9 was a French air-cooled rotary engine. It was used in combat airplanes early in World War I, but as larger and more powerful engines
became available, it was relegated to use in training-type airplanes.

LeRhne engines were quite reliable and, by the end of the war, were being manufactured in Britain, Italy, and the United States
in addition to France. The Germans also produced the 110-horsepower (82-kilowatt) Oberursel, which was practically an exact
copy of the 110-horsepower LeRhne. The Clerget powered Britain's Sopwith Camel.

The Rolls-Royce Hawk was used in World War I British airships sent against German U-boats.

The British Rolls-Royce Eagle and its successor, the Falcon, marked the beginning of a famous line of aviation engines that
produced the Merlins and Griffons of World War II. This liquid-cooled V-12 was developed in 1915. It was built in several
versions that culminated with the 375-horsepower Mark VII of 1917. It powered the Vimy plane that John Alcock and Arthur
Whitten Brown flew across the Atlantic in June 1919.
Mercedes engines powered some of the best-known German fighter planes in the last two years of the warthe Albatros D.V.,
Fokker D VII, and Pfalz D XII. Nearly all German-designed engines were durable and dependable, with six water-cooled
cylinders in line.

The Hispano-Suiza 8BE is a V-type liquid-cooled engine. This type of engine was especially compact for the amount of power it produced and was used in
numerous types of aircraft.

A Swiss engineer of a Spanish car company, Marc Birkigt, designed a number of Hispano-Suiza products. These included a large
number of water-cooled V-8 and V-12 engines that were made in France, Britain, and the United States during the war. They were
especially compact for the amount of power they produced.

In 1916 and 1917, Curtiss produced R-3 and R-4 airplanes that were powered by the Curtiss V2-3 engine. Because this engine was heavy for the amount of
horsepower it produced, it was replaced during World War I by the Liberty engine.

By far, the most important of all Allied engines, and America's most significant contribution to the war effort, was the Liberty. In
May of 1917, Jesse G. Vincent of the Packard Motor Car Company, and E.J. Hall, of the Hall-Scott Motor Car Company, took
over a hotel room in Washington, D.C., for nearly a week and designed the eight- and twelve-cylinder Liberty engines with massproduction in mind.

The Liberty V eight-cylinder engine preceded the Liberty-12. It was the first Liberty engine tested in an aircraft, on August 29, 1917.

On June 4, 1917, the Aircraft Production Board authorized final design, and manufacture. Assembly of the first eight-cylinder
version was completed in the remarkably short span of less than six weeks.
The eight-cylinder version debuted on August 29, 1917. It generated 270 horsepower (201 kilowatts) initially but its output was
later boosted to 330 horsepower (246 kilowatts). The initial version vibrated excessively and since another engine with this
capacity had already been perfected, its development was halted after only 15 had been built.

America's greatest technological contribution during World War I was the Liberty 12-cylinder water-cooled engine.

The Liberty 400-horsepower (298-kilowatt) V-12, air-cooled engine, on the other hand, was one of the war's most powerful
engines and one of the workhorses of the war. Designed to be mass-produced with interchangeable parts, the Liberty became the
standard wartime aircraft engine, produced by Packard, Lincoln, Ford, General Motors (Cadillac and Buick), Nordyke, and
Marmon. It was used most often on the DH-4, the only U.S.-made airplane to go into combat on the Western Front. More than
13,000 engines came off the assembly line before the Armistice, and more than 20,000 were built by the time wartime production
ended early in 1919.
Following the war, the Air Corps used the engine for more than a decade in numerous types of airplanes. Some were sold to
civilians as war surplus and were illegally used in speedboats for "rum running" during the Prohibition era of the 1920s. Others
proved their longevity by staying in use much longer, even being used in Russian and British tanks during World War II.

JET and Turbine engines

After the era of reciprocating engine jet engines and turbine engines are developed, its construction and working will be
explained in following modules

Points to remember
flapping wing aircraft concept
fixed wing aircraft concept

balloon flight, hot air balloon construction and working principle

Ornithopter, da vinci concept, advantage and disadvantage

Wright flyer,

Biplane & monoplane advantage and disadvantages

Four forces, lift equation, L/D ratio, Drag equation, Type of drags,

Materials- wood, al , alloys, composites , properties and advantages

Semi monocoque , truss, monocoque, solid structures

Reciprocating engines , inline, v line, opposed, radial, jet engine, turbine engine