Illustrated History of Aircraft

168 Pages·1977·20.53 MB·English

by  Brendan Gallagher

ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF
BRENDAN GALLAGHER
OVER
ILLUSTRATIONS
170
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ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF
AIRCRAFT
This history is a concise introductionto the
great developments in aviation from its
origins to modem times. The splendid and
classic achievements ofSir George Cayley,
Otto Lilienthal, the Wright brothers and the
many other pioneers are engrossingly
portrayed. The importance ofthe two world
wars to the aviation story is recognized and
a chapter is devoted to each. The reader is
brought up to date with innovations such as
the Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat, the Rockwell
International B-l bomber, the largest
variable-geometry aircraft flying, and the
Panavia Ibrnado and the F-16, the fighters of
the 1980s.
The book is fully illustrated with more than
170 photographs.

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Inter-War Years
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Chapter
1
.*
O
single invention has changed the world
> I and the lives of men as much as the
aeroplane. Yet the realization of man's
age-old yearning to share the lofty domain of the
birds came only at the turn of our own century.
Through countless ages before this, great men
and eccentrics had speculated, prophesied and
experimented with all manner of devices.
Leonardo da Vinci made numerous sketches for
man-powered ornithopters in the 15th century, and
also proposed the helicopter and parachute. None
were built, however, and his beliefthat man could
fly by his own muscle-power was ill-founded, as
was to be proved by Giovanni Alphonso Borelli, a
professor of mathematics at Messina and Pisa, in
De Motu Animalium, published in 1680 after his
death.
Man's first essays into the atmosphere were
made by hot-air balloon. The first person to
conceive ofthis means ofascensionwas a Brazilian