Many stories from antiquity involve flight, such as the Greek legend of Icarus and Daedalus, and the Vimana in ancient Indian epics.

Around 400 BC in Greece, Archytas was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have flown some 200 m (660 ft).

[16][17] Some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century Andalusian and Arabic-language poet Abbas ibn Firnas and the 11th-century English monk Eilmer of Malmesbury; both experiments injured their pilots.

In 1799, George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control.

[6] In 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first powered flight, by having his glider "L'Albatros artificiel" pulled by a horse on a beach.

Sir Hiram Maxim built a craft that weighed 3.5 tons, with a 110-foot (34 m) wingspan that was powered by two 360-horsepower (270 kW) steam engines driving two propellers.

[27] In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave conducted research on wing structures and developed a box kite that lifted the weight of a man.

It was a bat-like design run by a lightweight steam engine of his own invention, with four cylinders developing 20 horsepower (15 kW), driving a four-blade propeller.

In 1906, the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made what was claimed to be the first airplane flight unassisted by catapult[32] and set the first world record recognized by the Aéro-Club de France by flying 220 meters (720 ft) in less than 22 seconds.

Airplanes demonstrated their potential as mobile observation platforms, then proved themselves to be machines of war capable of causing casualties to the enemy.

The earliest known aerial victory with a synchronized machine gun-armed fighter aircraft occurred in 1915, by German Luftstreitkräfte Leutnant Kurt Wintgens.

Fighter aces appeared; the greatest (by number of Aerial Combat victories) was Manfred von Richthofen, also known as the Red Baron.

They were an essential component of the military strategies of the period, such as the German Blitzkrieg, The Battle of Britain, and the American and Japanese aircraft carrier campaigns of the Pacific War.

Currently, flying electric aircraft are mostly experimental prototypes, including manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, but there are some production models on the market.

Variants of the jet engine include the ramjet and the scramjet, which rely on high airspeed and intake geometry to compress the combustion air, prior to the introduction and ignition of fuel.

An afterburner may be used on combat aircraft to increase power for short periods of time by injecting fuel directly into the hot exhaust gases.

Ramjets require forward motion before they can generate thrust and so are often used in conjunction with other forms of propulsion, or with an external means of achieving sufficient speed.

[46] A scramjet is a specialized ramjet that uses internal supersonic airflow to compress, combine with fuel, combust and accelerate the exhaust to provide thrust.

The design and planning process, including safety tests, can last up to four years for small turboprops or longer for larger planes.

First the construction company uses drawings and equations, simulations, wind tunnel tests and experience to predict the behavior of the aircraft.

[50] When a part or component needs to be joined together by welding for virtually any aerospace or defense application, it must meet the most stringent and specific safety regulations and standards.

Airplanes have flexible wing surfaces which are stretched across a frame and made rigid by the lift forces exerted by the airflow over them.

But to be structurally efficient, and hence light weight, a wing must have a short span but still enough area to provide lift (low aspect ratio).

The pilots of manned aircraft operate them from a cockpit located at the front or top of the fuselage and equipped with controls and usually windows and instruments.

[59] The flying wing configuration was studied extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, notably by Jack Northrop and Cheston L. Eshelman in the United States, and Alexander Lippisch and the Horten brothers in Germany.

Some general interest continued until the early 1950s but designs did not necessarily offer a great advantage in range and presented several technical problems, leading to the adoption of "conventional" solutions like the Convair B-36 and the B-52 Stratofortress.

However, modern computer-controlled fly-by-wire systems allowed for many of the aerodynamic drawbacks of the flying wing to be minimized, making for an efficient and stable long-range bomber.

This enables the entire craft to contribute to lift generation with the result of potentially increased fuel economy.

Flexible-wing types often rely on an anchor line or the weight of a pilot hanging beneath to maintain the correct attitude.

Some free-flying types use an adapted airfoil that is stable, or other ingenious mechanisms including, most recently, electronic artificial stability.