AE152 - Spring 2009

A brief history of flight

Those magnificent men and their flying machines

Course Instructor - Prof. K. Sudhakar

TA - Mallesh Bommanahal
TA - Tannishtha Sanyal

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Identify the Greek mythological characters shown below (left).
Connect Oliver of Malmesbury, Denis Bolor, and Besnier. (right)
Identify the craft and its inventor
 The Ancients
• Mimic Flight of Birds - fly with wings!
– 2500 BC Auca (Inca founder)
– 1000 BC Oliver of Malmesbury
– (1488 - 1514) Leonardo da Vinci
– (1536) Denis Bolor
– (1678) Besnier - duck feet wings!
• Kites
– Chinese scout guides
– Marco Polo's records?
– Manned kites in vogue at end of nineteenth century
What invention are the Montgolfier Brothers credited to have
made in 1700's?
Who were the 3 passengers in the first non unmanned flight?
 1700’s – Full of Hot Air
• 1709 - Father Bartolomeu de Gusmao demonstrated a
model hot air balloon to King John V
• Joseph and Jacques Montgoler played a key role in
subsequent development of hot air balloons
– June 4, 1783 - first unmanned flight
– Sept 19, 1783 - second trial for Emperor Louis XVI
– November 21, 1783 - first manned ight
– Jan 1784 - Montgolfier balloon with six passengers
• Dec. 1, 1783 - Jacques Charles first solo flight at 3500
m. over 36 km.
• Jan 1785 first crossing of the English channel in 2.5
hours
• 1797 - First Parachute flight by Andre Garnerin. His
wife made the first by a woman.
He is known as ‘the father of aeronautics’. Who is he?
What is so special about his contribution?
 1800’s - Sir George Cayley
• The father of Aeronautics
– Concept of fixed wing aircraft (1799)
– Built and flew the first model glider (1804)
– Built and flew the manned glider (1853)
• Separated lift and propulsion
• Flat plate/airfoil for lift generation
• Thought about stability
“To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something.
But to fly is everything.“ Who is the man and what is his
achievement?
 1800’s – Development of Aeronautics
• Henson and Stringfellow's designs - triplane
(1868)
• Matthew Boulton - design of ailerons as control
surfaces (1868)
• Horatio Philips - curved airfoil (1884)
• Octave Chanute's biplane glider (1896)
• Lilienthal's gliders
– First controlled glider flight, 2500 flights
– “To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is
something. But to fly is everything."
– “Sacrifices must be made"
 1800’s - Development of Aeronautics
• Powered flight
– Steam engine powered airship own by Henri Giffard
– Clement Ader's steam-engine powered airplane flies
160 ft (1890)
– Samuel Langley - Aerodrome flew 3/4 mile over the
Potomac (steam engine powered)
• Assisted takeoff with power
– Felix du Temple (took off, not sustained)
– Mozaiski (not sustained)
Place Kitty Hawk. Time 12 seconds. Distance 120 ft.
Right? Or will you need more hints?
 1900’s – Flying High the Wright Way
• Bicycle shop in 1892
• Inspired by Lilienthal, Langley and Chanute
• Built the first wind tunnel
• Tested a large number of airfoils and propellers
• Tested a number of gliders
• “For some time now, I've been afflicted with the
belief that flight is possible for man." - Wilbur
Wright
• Dec 17, 1903, 10.35 am first flight at Kitty Hawk,
121 ft. in 12 seconds
Identify the two people shown below
and connect
 What event (1937) is shown below and
how is it related to a popular English rock
group (for brownie points  )?
Davinci, Launoy and Bienvenue, Paul Cornu, Etienne
Oehmichen all tried and Igor Sikorsky successfully
accomplished around 1939. What?
Hans Von Ohain and Frank Whittle
(1939) – Jet Set Go?
Chuck Yeager, does the name ring a
bell? (1947)
Identify the pictures shown below
 1957: The Space Age Begins
• 1957 - Sputnik 1 weighed 83 kg, was 250 km in
height and was luanched on R-7 rocket
• Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to go to
space aboard the Vostok 1 which orbits at
169-315 km in orbit
• July 16th 1969, Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket puts
man on the moon
And in the present times… identify
these headline grabbers
The wealthy lone ranger?
2008 was a sort of historic moment for
women in aerospace. Why? (Hint:
Connect the two pictures shown)
 Rapid Fire Round – How well do you
know the Indian Airspace?
• First Indian airport?
• What was Air India previously known as?
• First Indian indigenous commercial aircraft?
• First Indian satellite?
• First Indian astronaut?
• Name as many Indian missiles as you can
Answers (in order of appearance of question)
• Icarus and Daedalus; All attempted to mimic bird flight and failed
• Ornithopter, Leonardo Da Vinci
• Hot Air Balloons; A duck, a rooster and a sheep
• George Cayley; conceptualized the separation of lift and propulsion
and introduced the fixed wing aircraft
• Otto Lilienthal; the first to repeatedly successfully fly gliders
• The first flight of the powered biplane - Wright Brothers
• JRD Tata and Sarla Thakral - the first Indian man (1929) and woman
(1936) to have flown a plane
• Hindenburg Disaster (many conspiracy theories of why it happened,
popular opinion being if He was used instead of Hydrogen it wouldnt
have happened) ; Led Zeppelin (they use this picture on the cover of
one of their albums and zeppelin is the name of the company which
manufactured the hindenburg)
• The Helicopter
• Heinkel He 178 and Gloster E-28 - The first jet powered flights
• Piloted the Bell X-1 and broke the sound barrier
• Sputnik; Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins
• NASA's Mars Rover and ISRO's Chandrayan - Mission to
the Moon
• Dennis Tito - The first Space Tourist
• For the first time there were more women aboard the
international space station than men in 2008
• Juhu Aerodrome
• Tata Airlines
• Saras - 16 seater aircraft (including 2 pilots)
• Aryabhatta
• Rakesh Sharma
• The strategic Agni ballistic missile, the tactical Prithvi
ballistic missile, the Akash and Trishul, surface-to-air
missiles and the Nag anti-tank guided missile.
 Acknowledgements
This presentation has been adapted from the
course material for AE152 - Spring(2008),
compiled by Prof. Prabhu Ramachandran,
Aditya Paranjape and Rane Nilesh Jairam. We
would like to thank them for their help.