Aircraft were perhaps the most necessary of inventions in transportation.

An English Paper I wrote. I would like for someone to attempt to debate it. Thanks! Ever since he first saw birds, man has been possessed with an overwhelming desire to fly. He determined that he would accomplish this goal regardless of how long it took. As a result of that tenacity to accomplish flight, we have the aircraft and technology we have today because of this passion for flight. Countless stories have been written on flight, one of the most famous ones being of Daedalus and his son, Icarus1. In this story, Daedalus and his son have completed the Labyrinth for King Minos, which was involved in the story of Theseus. Daedalus and Icarus were locked up in a tower with no way down on the completion of the Labyrinth, because King Minos wanted no man to know how to get in or out. Daedalus had to collect the feathers of birds to make artificial wings for himself and his son. In the story Daedalos escapes, but Icarus dies, because he doesn't listen and flies too close to the sun which melts the wax holding the feathers in place. Man has also associated flying in myths with gods like Apollo, who was responsible for the sun moving across the sky. Zeus was the god of the air, and he controlled flight. In Indian legend, there was a teepee at the end of the world Christopher Lee, 2 where the Sun, and Moon, the Sun"s wife, lived and took turns walking across the sky. Man has always included his desire to fly in stories and fables throughout our time on earth. Along with writing stories and fables, man has tried several things to attempt to fly. They've tried anything from making wings that strapped onto their backs to drinking specially brewed liquids to help achieve flight. Several people have died as the result of botched flight attempts. Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the first to sketch drawings of flying machines. Before then, the only things that came close to flying machines were Chinese kites, and little helicopter-like toys that you spun and they went flying into the air. Leonardo DaVinci sketched possibly the first design for what could be a parachute, and later, he drew a flying screw that would function like a helicopter. Then he concepted the Ornithopter. The Ornithopter was an early concept of what it would take to fly. The Ornithopter was pedal driven, which the operator turned to flap the wings up and down. It was an interesting design, but if built, would fail to get off the ground2. Christopher Lee, 3 About a century after Leonardo Da Vinci, a man came along called Francesco de Lana Terzi. He is given the moniker, "The Father of Modern Aeronautics". He wrote a book called Prodromo, and in that book he included a chapter on flying. He conceptualized a flying ship with giant balloons attached where the mast were on the ship. He was closer to the designs of the hot air balloon and dirigibles than actual airplanes, but he foresaw the weaponization of aircraft. He wrote, "God will never allow that such a machine be built"because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids"iron weights, fireballs and bombs could be hurled from a great height.3" Little did he know that he was right. A few centuries after Leonardo Da Vinci and Francesco de Lana Terzi, flight started advancing by leaps and bounds. We developed hot air balloons and gas balloons. The earliest history of balloon flight says that the first successful manned flight was in 1783, just seven years after the British Colonies in the New World declared their independence from Great Britain4. It was an exciting time of discovery, and the balloon introduced man to prolonged flight that usually didn"t result in death. Christopher Lee, 4 Before the air balloon was made, Bartolomeu Lauren"o de Gusmao conceptualized the glider, but the air balloon was first to get off the ground. It took nearly two centuries for the first successful glider to be built from the first semi-feasible concept5. Some of the first plane-like flights were made by people building gliders. These gliders were built off the technology that the Chinese used to make their kites, only they made them much larger to allow for the weight of a man. The earliest glider flights didn"t last very long, because if they got too high or went too fast, the glider returned to the ground violently, tearing the glider apart, and injuring or killing the pilot. There were several advances made in gliding technology which lead to modern aeroplane designs. We have come a long way from the simple bird-shaped gliders they conceptualized in 1707 and finally built in 18916. Today, gliders can stay in the air for long periods of time, while the first few flights were mere seconds long. Several people enjoy the feeling of flight without having a noisy engine, and they Christopher Lee, 5 use primarily gliders instead of airplanes. As long as you have a decent amount of thermals, you can keep gliders in the sky for hours! Orville and Wilbur Wright are the two men who built the first airplane reported to fly. Orville and Wilbur were just two bicycle repairman from a little town in Ohio. They had some experience in mechanics, and they were able to build the Wright Flyer. The engine on the Wright Flyer was small, with only 22 horsepower, and you had to lay down flat on the lower wing to control the plane. They went all the way to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and there they achieved the first powered flight. For a few victorious seconds, the Flyer stayed in the air, and landed back on a rail. It may have been only 13 seconds, but it was still a huge advancement in aeronautics. Other men claimed to have accomplished powered flight, but there were no witnesses there when it happened. I personally feel like the Wright Flyer was the single most important invention of the 20th century. The Flyer holds a significant place in the history of flight, because it ushered in an era of progress for aviation7. The first helicopter was flown in September of 1907 by Frenchmen Jacques and Louis Breguet8. The helicopter was Christopher Lee, 6 quite an odd development, because instead of relying on a fixed wing it made use of what some called rotating wings. Unlike the airplane, the helicopter is difficult to maintain in the air, and can be the most difficult aircraft to master. Some of the first few were kept in the air just by the luck and a prayer. The rocket was the brainchild of a man named Robert Goddard. He experimented with different shapes and different propellants in the early 1900's. It wasn't until 1944 that the Germans finally succeeded at putting a rocket into space9. Shortly after his discovery, we were locked into a race to see who would conquer Outer Space. Russia was first to successfully get a satellite into space, and proceeded to accomplish several landmarks in space exploration. The United States was the first successful nation to land on the Moon and claimed a major victory in the space race. NASA, the agency responsible for the American Space program, has stopped launching space shuttles and is now opening space exploration to the civilian sector. This has created jobs and has developed new businesses that are helping the economy. Now, in little less than a century after Christopher Lee, 7 man first landed on the moon, we plan to put people on distant planets like Mars with the use of civilian space vehicles. Several milestones in aviation history occurred during the first century of flight. Calbraith Perry Rodgers was the first person to succeed in crossing the entire United States. He didn't do it in one flight, but he made it from New York to Los Angeles. Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic ocean in The Spirit of St. Louis from the East Coast, and all the way to France. He did so in a specially modified plane that was designed to be little more than a flying gas tank. The Spirit of St. Louis was gutted and refitted to put gas tanks in every available space. Chuck Yeager was the test pilot who broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1. This pilot had suffered broken ribs the day before he made his record-breaking flight, and he suffered through the pain to make history. Now we have a passenger jet that can go faster than the speed of sound, and it is called the Concord. Christopher Lee, 8 Airplanes have changed how we travel. In days past,we had means of transportation, but they have lowered the time it takes to get from continent to continent. We can now enjoy shorter journeys from place to place thanks to air travel. Aircraft also opened up third w