Great engineering acheivement ( airplanes ) - Essay Example

This paper aims at examining the timeline of the development of the airplane, the contribution of various engineers to this achievement and how airplanes have improved lives. In addition, this paper will examine some of the possible future developments on airplanes. The history of the development of the airplane dates back to the late nineteenth century when a German engineer named Otto Lilienthal started to experiment with gliders (National Academy of Engineering, 2014). During the same period, Octave Chanute, an American engineer also experimented with multiple gliders.

Through these early experiments, Lilienthal and Chanute demonstrated that it was possible to have a controlled device in floating in air. In 1901, a gasoline-powered version of the tandem-winged aerodrome was built by Samuel Langley. In 1903, the Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright made the first powered and piloted flight in North Carolina. On this day, Wilbur flew for 852 over the ground in about 59 seconds. Ludwig Prandtl, a German professor, presented a paper in 1904 that described the concept of the ‘boundary layer’ (National Academy of Engineering, 2014).

This is the molecular layer of air that is found on an aircraft’s wing. This paper was an important contribution in the study of aerodynamics. Eugene Ely piloted a Curtiss biplane on a takeoff from a ship in 1910. The following year, he was able to take off from shore and landed on a ship in California. These early planes required the assistance of the pilot to make them stable and travel in a straight line. The concept of the gyrostabilizer was introduced in 1914 by Lawrence Sperry. The gyrostabilizer was used to stabilize the plane and make it fly in a straight line without the assistance of a pilot.

In 1916, Sperry, with the help of his father Elmer, demonstrated the first automatic pilot. Starting 1914 to 1918, many improvements in the structure and control of the airplane were