HISTORY OF AVIATION Transportation Systems All notes are

HISTORY OF AVIATION Transportation Systems All notes are in RED

Lighter than Air vehicles • Balloons • Blimps, Dirigibles

• Airships: – Hindenburg- bursts into flames New Jersey 1937 • Stops Airship use Hindenberg exploding

Early airplanes - Propeller • Wright Brothers - 1909 – • Orville and Wilbur

Prepping the Wright Flyer for takeoff. . .

• Charles Lindberg 1927 – Spirit of St. Louis flies across the Atlantic. – The first solo Transatlantic flight with instruments.

Charles Lindberg, won the $25, 000 cash prize that a NY hotel tycoon had put up for the first aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and land in Paris, France.

Amelia Earhart • First woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean • One of the first woman flying instructors • Flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast solo on several occasions. Amelia wanted to end her career by flying around the world. . .

Unfortunately, Amelia’s plane went down 35 miles off the coast of Howland Island. In the South Pacific Islands.

Jet-engine airplanes • Chuck Yeager – 1947 breaks the sound barrier: Bell X-1

• Jet Engine Marvels; by 1964 top speed reaches over Mach 3; SR-71 A spyplane SLOW FLYBY FAST FLYBY

TOP SPEED: 2300 mph Altitude: 85, 000 ft

WWI War time aircraft • Planes evolving from observation missions to air combat • First air to air combat was having the pilots shoot at each other with their hand pistols

– Fokker Dr. 1 German airplane • Baron Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen – Red Baron - Shot down around 80 allied airplanes makes him the #1 flying ace of WWI

World War II • Planes evolve even further to allow the ability to do more jobs • Planes are built for: – Dog fighting – Surveillance – Bombing B-25 Mitchell

WWII Allied planes • P-40 Warhawk • P-51 Mustang • P-38 Lightning

WWII Axis planes • Stuka dive bomber • Japanese Zero • Me 262: first Jet fighter

ME 262 JET PLANE Germany was the only country to use JET fighters toward the end of WWII. ME 262 s were really fast, but they had to slow down to engage Allied propeller planes which gave us the advantage.

Commercial Jet Liners • Transport passengers and cargo as fast and comfortable as possible. • With a unstable economy, most companies are filing for bankruptcy

. . . the future…perhaps!