Timelineof aviation |
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pre-18th century |
18th century |
19th century |
20th century |
21st century begins |
This is a list of aviation-related events occurring before the end of the 17th century (on 31 December 1700):
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships, gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred solely to operating the aircraft, it has since been expanded to include technology, business, and other aspects related to aircraft. The term "aviation" is sometimes used interchangeably with aeronautics, although "aeronautics" includes lighter-than-air craft such as airships, and includes ballistic vehicles while "aviation" technically does not.
Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi was an Ottoman scientist, inventor, chemist, astronomer, physician, Andalusi musician, and poet from Istanbul, reported in the writings of traveler Evliya Çelebi to have achieved sustained unpowered flight.
Year 559 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 559 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft, and ornithopters. The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily rigid; kites, hang gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft, and airplanes that use wing morphing are all classified as fixed wing.
Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere or through the vacuum of outer space. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift associated with gliding or propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy, or by ballistic movement.
The history of aviation spans over two millennia, from the earliest innovations like kites and daring attempts at tower jumping to supersonic and hypersonic flight in powered, heavier-than-air jet aircraft. Kite flying in China, dating back several hundred years BC, is considered the earliest example of man-made flight. Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century dream of flight found expression in several rational designs, though hindered by the limitations of contemporary science.
Eilmer of Malmesbury was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings.
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought 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 flying animals. Larger, crewed ornithopters have also been built and some have been successful. Crewed ornithopters are generally powered either by engines or by the pilot.
Samuel Franklin Cowdery was a Wild West showman and early pioneer of manned flight.
This is a list of aviation-related events during the 19th century :
Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini, known as Abbas ibn Firnas was an Andalusi polymath: an inventor, astronomer, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusi musician, and Arabic-language poet. He was reported to have experimented with unpowered flight.
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.
A hybrid airship is a powered aircraft that obtains some of its lift as a lighter-than-air (LTA) airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne.
A man-lifting kite is a kite designed to lift a person from the ground. Historically, man-lifting kites have been used chiefly for reconnaissance. Interest in their development declined with the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the 20th century. Recreational man-lifting kites gradually gained popularity through the latter half of the 20th century, branching into multiple sports. In the 21st century man-lifting kites are often used in kitesurfing, where brief launches can be followed by safe water landings and parasailing, where kites are towed behind a vehicle.
Yuan Huangtou was the son of emperor Yuan Lang of Northern Wei dynasty of China. At that time, paramount general Gao Yang took control of the court of Northern Wei's branch successor state Eastern Wei and set the emperor as a puppet. After Gao deposed the last Eastern Wei emperor and established himself as the emperor of Northern Qi, he exterminated the imperial clan of the previous dynasty. Yuan Huangtou was imprisoned by Gao Yang and, along with other prisoners and against his will, flown via a large kite from the tower of Ye, China. The History of Northern Dynasties and Zizhi Tongjian record that all the condemned kite airmen died except for him. "Gao Yang made Yuan Huangtou and other prisoners take off from the Tower of the Phoenix attached to paper owls. Yuan Huangtou was the only one who succeeded in flying as far as the Purple Way, and there he came to earth." The Purple Way, a road, was 2.5 km from the approximately 33 metre tall Golden Phoenix Tower.
A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining the altitude with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch.
Istanbul Beneath My Wings is a 1996 Turkish film, written and directed by Mustafa Altıoklar. It is a dramatization of Hezârfen Ahmet Çelebi's reported flight across the Bosphorus from Galata.