An aileron is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll, which normally results in a change in flight path due to the tilting of the lift vector. Movement around this axis is called 'rolling' or 'banking'.
The Caproni Ca.4 was an Italian heavy bomber of the World War I era.
The Pitts Special is a series of light aerobatic biplanes designed by Curtis Pitts. It has accumulated many competition wins since its first flight in 1944. The Pitts biplanes dominated world aerobatic competition in the 1960s and 1970s and, even today, remain potent competition aircraft in the lower categories.
The Wright Flyer made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown by brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, it marked the beginning of the pioneer era of aviation.
An airplane or aeroplane, informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne-kilometers of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled such as drones.
Early flying machines include all forms of aircraft studied or constructed before the development of the modern aeroplane by 1910. The story of modern flight begins more than a century before the first successful manned aeroplane, and the earliest aircraft thousands of years before.
The Fairey Spearfish was a British carrier-based, single-engined, torpedo bomber/dive bomber that was ordered from Fairey Aviation for the Fleet Air Arm during World War II. Designed during the war, the prototype did not fly until July 1945. Much larger than earlier naval bombers, it was designed for use aboard the large Malta-class aircraft carriers that were cancelled after the war and was itself cancelled thereafter. Seven prototypes were ordered, but only five were built, of which four actually flew. They were mostly used for experimental work until the last aircraft was scrapped in 1952.
The Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo, often referred to as the Noviplano (nine-wing) or Capronissimo, was the prototype of a large nine-wing flying boat intended to become a 100-passenger transatlantic airliner. It featured eight engines and three sets of triple wings.
The Albatros W.4 was a military floatplane designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Albatros Flugzeugwerke.
Horatio Frederick Phillips was an English aviation pioneer, born in Streatham, Surrey. He was famous for building multiplane flying machines with many more sets of lifting surfaces than are normal on modern aircraft. However he made a more lasting contribution to aeronautics in his work on aerofoil design.
The Curtiss Models F made up a family of early flying boats developed in the United States in the years leading up to World War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with the United States Navy under the designations C-2 through C-5, later reclassified to AB-2 through AB-5. Several examples were exported to Russia, and the type was built under license in Italy.
The SAI-Ambrosini SS.4 was an Italian fighter prototype developed in the late 1930s, featuring a canard-style wing layout and a pusher propeller. Development of the SS.4 was abandoned after the prototype crashed on its second flight.
The Ikarus C42 is a two-seat, fixed tricycle gear, general aviation microlight aircraft, manufactured in Germany by Comco Ikarus. It is used primarily for flight training, touring and personal flying.
The Kellett KD-1 is a 1930s American autogyro built by the Kellett Autogiro Company. It had the distinction of being the first practical rotary-wing aircraft used by the United States Army and inaugurated the first scheduled air-mail service using a rotary-wing aircraft.
The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent that the Wright brothers received for their method of airplane flight control. They were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and making the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903.
The Wings of Freedom Flitplane is an American single-seat, high-wing, single-engine ultralight aircraft that is available as a kit aircraft or as plans for amateur construction from Wings of Freedom of Hubbard, Ohio.
In aviation, a multiplane is a fixed-wing aircraft-configuration featuring multiple wing planes. The wing planes may be stacked one above another, or one behind another, or both in combination. Types having a small number of planes have specific names and are not usually described as multiplanes:
The Stout 2-AT Pullman, or "Air Pullman", was a single engine all-metal monoplane that was used for early airline travel and air mail transport in America.
The L-W-F Model H Owl was a large American twin-boom trimotor biplane designed and built by LWF Engineering as a mail plane in 1920, but after being rejected for that role, the single prototype was sold to the United States Army Air Service for evaluation as a bomber but failed to secure any orders.
The Gallaudet D-2 was a prototype American biplane observation aircraft built by the Gallaudet Aircraft Company during World War I for the United States Army. Based on the earlier Gallaudet D-1, the D-2 had more powerful engines and had other improvements. The first prototype was completed in 1917, but crashed before it was accepted so Gallaudet had to build a replacement at its own expense. Two aircraft were completed in 1918, but further development ceased after the last one crashed with the death of the pilot, the first aviator to be killed in Rhode Island. All aircraft built or in the process of being constructed were subsequently scrapped.
