The History of Flight
Air travel has always had a great influence on me. Air travel has also had a great effect on mankind, and even more it also has a long and complicated history. Man’s first known attempt at flight dates back around to 1010AD when Oliver of Malmesbury, an English Benedictine monk, strapped a huge pair of wings to his body and wanted to soar high into the air from Malmesbury Abbey. However the result is that he fell and broke both his legs. Similar disastrous attempts had also been conducted for the next few centuries until the world’s first successful plane was a two winged aeroplane called the flier.
It was built in the United States by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright on 17th December 1903. The first flight which took place at Kitty Hawk, USA .The historic flight lasted for only 12 seconds, in which the Flier travelled 37m and landed safely. After the first flight the aircraft industry went into vigorous development which led to the development of various aeroplanes such as mono planes, biplanes etc.
The aviation industry from there on had a tough ordeal of maintaining aeroplanes because of the World War I and II. The aviation Industry has picked up from there and has a long years of successful runs. People can now easily travel from place to place easily. Distances that would have taken months to travel now take only a few hours to travel. Aviation has revolutionised the way in which we live in and will always continue to affect our lives and in the way in which we live in.
This is just a brief snapshot of the aviation Industry. I would like to conclude this article with a famous saying,” Aviation has led to the creation of the greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The aeroplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas and values together.
- Adapted from a speech
by
Gav. Manu Mohan