The History of Airplanes by Rahul Kollu
People have wanted to fly from the time that humanity has ever existed. The first powered flight happened in 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by 2 now-infamous brothers in Wilber and Orville Wright. Today, airplanes are widely used around the world such as traveling quickly from one place to another.
Wilbur and Orville were born 4 years apart in 1867 and 1871. They didn’t graduate high school nor college. They were interested in flight in fact because of a man named Otto Lilienthal who died while proving that flight would be possible. They started experimenting in the Dunes of North Carolina and they elected to choose a 2 winged plane that could be steered by making less lift on one side. They decided that they needed a gas-powered engine to power their flight, but they could not find one that fit their specifications so they built their own. Their first test flight was unsuccessful and their plane suffered minor damage. It was on their second attempt with Orville on the plane that the attempt was successful. It stayed in the air for 12 seconds, and it covered 120 feet.
Nowadays Planes are widely used around the world as they are much faster than some of the other ways to travel such as cars. There are more than 10 million flights scheduled annually and over 19,000 airports. Air travel feels much less safe, because of the fact that people think that they are in a metal tube thousands of feet in the sky. This is a misconception as the odds of someone dying in an automobile accident is 1 in 98 in an average lifetime compared to 1 in 7,178 in a plane-related accident. A major drawback of planes is the environmental impact that they produce. In total, the aviation industry accounts for about 5% of the world’s global warming problem.
All in all, Air travel has many advantages as well as disadvantages. This sector will continue to grow and continue to get safer. There will also be further advancements in making aircraft more fuel efficient and better for the environment. This industry has a pretty bright future.
Sources:
https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Wright_Brothers
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/advantages-air-travel-12486.html
https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_Airplane/History_of_the