Airplane

An airplane (North American English) or aeroplane

(British English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing Airplane
aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet
engine, propeller, or rocket engine.[1] Airplanes come
in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations.
The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes
recreation, transportation of goods and people,
military, and research. Worldwide, commercial
aviation transports more than four billion passengers
annually on airliners[2] and transports more than 200 United Airlines Boeing 777-200 landing at
billion tonne-kilometers[3] of cargo annually, which is Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in February 2011

less than 1% of the world's cargo movement.[4] Most Classification Vehicle

airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but Industry Various
some are designed to be remotely or computer- Application Transportation
controlled such as drones.
Fuel source Gasoline, electricity, diesel,
The Wright brothers invented and flew the first natural gas, hydrogen, solar
airplane in 1903, recognized as "the first sustained and Powered Yes
controlled heavier-than-air powered flight". [5] They Self-propelled Yes
built on the works of George Cayley dating from 1799,
Inventor Orville Wright
when he set forth the concept of the modern airplane
(and later built and flew models and successful Wilbur Wright
passenger-carrying gliders)[6] and the work of German Invented 1903
pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal, who,
between 1867 and 1896, also studied heavier-than-air flight. Lilienthal's flight attempts in 1891 are seen
as the beginning of human flight.[7] Following its limited use in World War I, aircraft technology
continued to develop. Airplanes had a presence in all the major battles of World War II. The first jet
aircraft was the German Heinkel He 178 in 1939. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, was
introduced in 1952. The Boeing 707, the first widely successful commercial jet, was in commercial
service for more than 60 years, from 1958 to 2019.[8]

Etymology and usage

First attested in English in the late 19th century (prior to the first sustained powered flight), the word
airplane, like aeroplane, derives from the French aéroplane, which comes from the Greek ἀήρ (aēr),
"air"[9] and either Latin planus, "level",[10] or Greek πλάνος (planos), "wandering".[11][12] "Aéroplane"
originally referred just to the wing, as it is a plane moving through the air.[13] In an example of
synecdoche, the word for the wing came to refer to the entire aircraft.
In the United States and Canada, the term "airplane" is used for powered fixed-wing aircraft. In the
United Kingdom and Ireland and most of the Commonwealth, the term "aeroplane" (/ˈɛərəpleɪn/[13]) is
usually applied to these aircraft.

History

Antecedents
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
Le Bris and his glider, Albatros II,
steam, said to have flown some 200 m (660 ft).[14][15] This photographed by Nadar, 1868
machine may have been suspended for its flight.[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.[18] Leonardo da Vinci
researched the wing design of birds and designed a man-powered
aircraft in his Codex on the Flight of Birds (1502), noting for the
first time the distinction between the center of mass and the center
of pressure of flying birds.
Otto Lilienthal in mid-flight, Berlin, c.
In 1799, George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern 1895

airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for

lift, propulsion, and control.[19][20] Cayley was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early
as 1803, and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853.[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.[21] Then the Russian Alexander F. Mozhaisky also made some innovative designs. In 1883, the
American John J. Montgomery made a controlled flight in a glider.[22] Other aviators who made similar
flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, and Octave Chanute.

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. In 1894, his machine was tested
with overhead rails to prevent it from rising. The test showed that it had enough lift to take off. The craft
was uncontrollable and it is presumed that Maxim realized this because he subsequently abandoned work
on it.[23]

Between 1867 and 1896, the German pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal developed heavier-than-
air flight. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights.
Lilienthal's work led to him developing the concept of the modern wing,[24][25] his flight attempts in 1891
are seen as the beginning of human flight,[26] the "Lilienthal Normalsegelapparat" is considered to be the
first airplane in series production and his work heavily inspired the Wright brothers.[27]
In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave conducted research on wing structures and developed a box kite that
lifted the weight of a man. His box kite designs were widely adopted. Although he also developed a type
of rotary aircraft engine, he did not create and fly a powered fixed-wing aircraft.[28]

Early powered flights

The Frenchman Clement Ader constructed his first of three flying
machines in 1886, the Éole. 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.
The engine weighed no more than 4 kilograms per kilowatt
(6.6 lb/hp). The wings had a span of 14 m (46 ft). All-up weight
was 300 kilograms (660 lb). On 9 October 1890, Ader attempted
to fly the Éole. Aviation historians give credit to this effort as a Patent drawings of Clement Ader's
powered take-off and uncontrolled hop of approximately 50 m Éole.
(160 ft) at a height of approximately 200 mm (7.9 in).[29][30]
Ader's two subsequent machines were not documented to have
achieved flight.[31]

The American Wright brothers's flights in 1903 are recognized by

the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the standard-
setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics, as "the first
sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight".[5] By
1905, the Wright Flyer III was capable of fully controllable, stable
flight for substantial periods. The Wright brothers credited Otto
Lilienthal as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue
manned flight. The Wright Flyer's first flight on 17
December 1903
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.[33] This flight was also certified by the FAI.[34][35]

An early aircraft design that brought together the modern

Santos-Dumont 14-bis, between monoplane tractor configuration was the Blériot VIII design of
1906 and 1907 1908. It had movable tail surfaces controlling both yaw and pitch,
a form of roll control supplied either by wing warping or by
ailerons and controlled by its pilot with a joystick and rudder bar.
It was an important predecessor of his later Blériot XI Channel-crossing aircraft of the summer of
1909.[36]

World War I served as a testbed for the use of the airplane as a weapon. 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.

Following WWI, aircraft technology continued to develop. Alcock and Brown crossed the Atlantic non-
stop for the first time in 1919. The first international commercial flights took place between the United
States and Canada in 1919.[37]

Airplanes had a presence in all the major battles of World War II.
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.

North American P-51 Mustang, a

Development of jet aircraft
World War II fighter aircraft The first practical jet aircraft was the German Heinkel He 178,
which was tested in 1939. In 1943, the Messerschmitt Me 262, the
first operational jet fighter aircraft, went into service in the
German Luftwaffe.

The first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in

1952. The Boeing 707, the first widely successful commercial jet,
was in commercial service for more than 50 years, from 1958 to
2010. The Boeing 747 was the world's biggest passenger aircraft
from 1970 until it was surpassed by the Airbus A380 in 2005.

Supersonic airliner flights,

including those of the
American Airlines Boeing 737-800
Concorde, have been
landing at Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport in July limited to over-water flight
2024 at supersonic speed
because of their sonic
boom, which is prohibited
over most populated land areas. The high cost of operation per
The Concorde supersonic transport
passenger-mile and a deadly crash in 2000 induced the operators aircraft
of the Concorde to remove it from service.[38][39]

Propulsion

Propeller
An aircraft propeller, or airscrew, converts rotary motion from an engine or other power source, into a
swirling slipstream which pushes the propeller forwards or backwards. It comprises a rotating power-
driven hub, to which are attached two or more radial airfoil-section blades such that the whole assembly
rotates about a longitudinal axis.[40] Three types of aviation engines used to power propellers include
reciprocating engines (or piston engines), gas turbines, and electric
motors. The amount of thrust a propeller creates is determined, in
part, by its disk area—the area through which the blades rotate.
The limitation on blade speed is the speed of sound; as when the
blade tip exceeds the speed of sound, shock waves decrease
propeller efficiency. The rpm required to generate a given tip
speed is inversely proportional to the diameter of the propeller.
The upper design speed limit for propeller-driven aircraft is Mach
An Antonov An-2 biplane
0.6. Aircraft designed to go faster than that employ jet engines.[41]

Reciprocating engine
Reciprocating engines in aircraft have three main variants, radial, in-line and flat or horizontally opposed
engine. The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the
cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel and was commonly used
for aircraft engines before gas turbine engines became predominant. An inline engine is a reciprocating
engine with banks of cylinders, one behind another, rather than rows of cylinders, with each bank having
any number of cylinders, but rarely more than six, and may be water-cooled. A flat engine is an internal
combustion engine with horizontally-opposed cylinders.

Gas turbine
A turboprop gas turbine engine consists of an intake, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling
nozzle, which provide power from a shaft through a reduction gearing to the propeller. The propelling
nozzle provides a relatively small proportion of the thrust generated by a turboprop.

Electric motor
An electric aircraft runs on electric motors with electricity coming
from fuel cells, solar cells, ultracapacitors, power beaming,[42] or
batteries. Currently, flying electric aircraft are mostly experimental
prototypes, including manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, but
there are some production models on the market.[43]

Solar Impulse 1, a solar-powered

Jet aircraft with electric motors.
Jet aircraft are propelled by jet engines, which are used because
the aerodynamic limitations of propellers do not apply to jet
propulsion. These engines are much more powerful than a reciprocating engine for a given size or weight
and are comparatively quiet and work well at higher altitude. 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. Rocket motors provide thrust by burning a fuel with an oxidizer
and expelling gas through a nozzle.

Turbofan
Most jet aircraft use turbofan jet engines, which employ a gas turbine to drive a ducted fan, which
accelerates air around the turbine to provide thrust in addition to that which is accelerated through the
turbine. The ratio of air passing around the turbine to that passing through is called the by-pass ratio.[44]
They represent a compromise between turbojet (with no bypass) and turboprop forms of aircraft
propulsion (primarily powered with bypass air).[45]

Subsonic aircraft, such as airliners, employ high by-pass jet engines for fuel efficiency. Supersonic
aircraft, such as jet fighters, use low-bypass turbofans. However at supersonic speeds, the air entering the
engine must be decelerated to a subsonic speed and then re-accelerated back to supersonic speeds after
combustion. 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. Many jet aircraft also use thrust reversers to slow down
after landing.[45]

Ramjet
A ramjet is a form of jet engine that contains no major moving
parts and can be particularly useful in applications requiring a
small and simple engine for high-speed use, such as with missiles.
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. The Lockheed D-21 was a Mach 3+ ramjet-powered
reconnaissance drone that was launched from a parent aircraft. A
ramjet uses the vehicle's forward motion to force air through the
Artist's concept of X-43A with
engine without resorting to turbines or vanes. Fuel is added and
scramjet attached to the underside
ignited, which heats and expands the air to provide thrust.[46]

Scramjet
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 engine operates at supersonic speeds only. The
NASA X-43, an experimental unmanned scramjet, set a world speed record in 2004 for a jet-powered
aircraft with a speed of Mach 9.7, nearly 12,100 kilometers per hour (7,500 mph).[47]

Rocket
Whereas jet aircraft use the atmosphere both as a source of
oxidant and of mass to accelerate reactively behind the aircraft,
rocket aircraft carry the oxidizer on board and accelerate the
burned fuel and oxidizer backwards as the sole source of mass for
reaction. Liquid fuel and oxidizer may be pumped into a
combustion chamber or a solid fuel with oxidizer may burn in the Bell X-1 in flight, 1947
fuel chamber. Whether liquid or solid-fueled, the hot gas is
accelerated through a nozzle.[48]

In World War II, the Germans deployed the Me 163 Komet rocket-powered aircraft. The first plane to
break the sound barrier in level flight was a rocket plane – the Bell X-1 in 1948. The North American X-
15 broke many speed and altitude records in the 1960s and pioneered engineering concepts for later
aircraft and spacecraft. Military transport aircraft may employ rocket-assisted take offs for short-field
situations. Otherwise, rocket aircraft include spaceplanes, like SpaceShipTwo, for travel beyond the
Earth's atmosphere and sport aircraft developed for the short-lived Rocket Racing League.

Design and manufacture

Most airplanes are constructed by companies with the objective of
producing them in quantity for customers. The design and
planning process, including safety tests, can last up to four years
for small turboprops or longer for larger planes.

During this process, the objectives and design specifications of the

aircraft are established. First the construction company uses
drawings and equations, simulations, wind tunnel tests and
experience to predict the behavior of the aircraft. Computers are
used by companies to draw, plan and do initial simulations of the Assembly line of the SR-71
aircraft. Small models and mockups of all or certain parts of the Blackbird at Skunk Works,
plane are then tested in wind tunnels to verify its aerodynamics. Lockheed Martin's Advanced
Development Programs (ADP).
When the design has passed through these processes, the company
constructs a limited number of prototypes for testing on the
ground. Representatives from an aviation governing agency often make a first flight. The flight tests
continue until the aircraft has fulfilled all the requirements. Then, the governing public agency of aviation
of the country authorizes the company to begin production.

In the United States, this agency is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In the European Union,
European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA); in the United Kingdom it is the Civil Aviation Authority
(CAA).[49] In Canada, the public agency in charge and authorizing the mass production of aircraft is
Transport Canada's Civil Aviation Authority.[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. Nadcap, or the
National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program sets global requirements for quality,
quality management and quality assurance for aerospace engineering.[51]

In the case of international sales, a license from the public agency of aviation or transport of the country
where the aircraft is to be used is also necessary. For example, airplanes made by the European company,
Airbus, need to be certified by the FAA to be flown in the United States, and airplanes made by U.S.-
based Boeing need to be approved by the EASA to be flown in the European Union.[52]

Regulations have resulted in reduced noise from aircraft engines in response to increased noise pollution
from growth in air traffic over urban areas near airports.[53]

Small planes can be designed and constructed by amateurs as homebuilts. Other homebuilt aircraft can be
assembled using pre-manufactured kits of parts that can be assembled into a basic plane and must then be
completed by the builder.[54]
Few companies produce planes on a large scale. However, the
production of a plane for one company is a process that actually
involves dozens, or even hundreds, of other companies and plants,
that produce the parts that go into the plane. For example, one
company can be responsible for the production of the landing gear,
while another one is responsible for the radar. The production of
such parts is not limited to the same city or country; in the case of
large plane manufacturing companies, such parts can come from
all over the world. The parts are sent to the main plant of the plane An Airbus A321 on final assembly
company, where the production line is located. In the case of large line 3 in the Airbus Hamburg-
planes, production lines dedicated to the assembly of certain parts Finkenwerder plant.
of the plane can exist, especially the wings and the fuselage. [55][56]

When complete, a plane is rigorously inspected to search for

imperfections and defects. After approval by inspectors, the plane is put through a series of flight tests to
assure that all systems are working correctly and that the plane handles properly.[57] To meet a particular
customer need, the airplane may be customised using components or packages of components provided
by the manufacturer or the customer.[58]

Characteristics

Airframe
The structural parts of a fixed-wing aircraft are called the
airframe. The parts present can vary according to the aircraft's type
and purpose. Early types were usually made of wood with fabric
wing surfaces, When engines became available for powered flight
around a hundred years ago, their mounts were made of metal.
Then as speeds increased more and more parts became metal until Major components of an airplane.

by the end of WWII all-metal aircraft were common. In modern

times, increasing use of composite materials has been made.

Typical structural parts include:

One or more large horizontal wings, often with an airfoil

cross-section shape. The wing deflects air downward as
the aircraft moves forward, generating lifting force to
support it in flight. The wing also provides stability in roll An IAI Heron - an unmanned aerial
to stop the aircraft from rolling to the left or right in vehicle with a twin-boom
steady flight. configuration

A fuselage, a long, thin body, usually with tapered or

rounded ends to make its shape aerodynamically smooth. The fuselage joins the other parts
of the airframe and usually contains important things such as the pilot, payload and flight
systems.
A vertical stabilizer or fin is a vertical wing-like surface mounted at the rear of the plane and
typically protruding above it. The fin stabilizes the plane's yaw (turn left or right) and mounts
the rudder, which controls its rotation along that axis.
 A horizontal stabilizer or tailplane, usually mounted at
the tail near the vertical stabilizer. The horizontal
stabilizer is used to stabilize the plane's pitch (tilt up or
down) and mounts the elevators, which provide pitch
control. The An-225 Mriya, which could carry
a 250-tonne payload, had two
Landing gear, a set of wheels, skids, or floats that
vertical stabilizers.
support the plane while it is on the surface. On
seaplanes, the bottom of the fuselage or floats
(pontoons) support it while on the water. On some
planes the landing gear retracts during flight to reduce drag.

Wings
The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are static planes extending either side of the aircraft. When the aircraft
travels forwards, air flows over the wings, which are shaped to create lift. This shape is called an airfoil
and is shaped like a bird's wing.

Wing structure
Airplanes have flexible wing surfaces which are stretched across a frame and made rigid by the lift forces
exerted by the airflow over them. Larger aircraft have rigid wing surfaces which provide additional
strength.

Whether flexible or rigid, most wings have a strong frame to give them their shape and to transfer lift
from the wing surface to the rest of the aircraft. The main structural elements are one or more spars
running from root to tip, and many ribs running from the leading (front) to the trailing (rear) edge.

Early airplane engines had little power, and lightness was very important. Also, early airfoil sections were
very thin, and could not have a strong frame installed within. So, until the 1930s, most wings were too
lightweight to have enough strength, and external bracing struts and wires were added. When the
available engine power increased during the 1920s and 30s, wings could be made heavy and strong
enough that bracing was not needed any more. This type of unbraced wing is called a cantilever wing.

Wing configuration
The number and shape of the wings varies widely on different
types. A given wing plane may be full-span or divided by a central
fuselage into port (left) and starboard (right) wings. Occasionally,
even more wings have been used, with the three-winged triplane
achieving some fame in WWI. The four-winged quadruplane and
other multiplane designs have had little success.
Captured Morane-Saulnier L wire-
A monoplane has a single wing plane, a biplane has two stacked braced parasol monoplane
one above the other, a tandem wing has two placed one behind the
other. When the available engine power increased during the
1920s and 30s and bracing was no longer needed, the unbraced or cantilever monoplane became the most
common form of powered type.
The wing planform is the shape when seen from above. To be aerodynamically efficient, a wing should be
straight with a long span from side to side but have a short chord (high aspect ratio). 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).

At transonic speeds (near the speed of sound), it helps to sweep the wing backwards or forwards to
reduce drag from supersonic shock waves as they begin to form. The swept wing is just a straight wing
swept backwards or forwards.

The delta wing is a triangle shape that may be used for several
reasons. As a flexible Rogallo wing, it allows a stable shape under
aerodynamic forces and so is often used for ultralight aircraft and
even kites. As a supersonic wing, it combines high strength with
low drag and so is often used for fast jets.

A variable geometry wing can be changed in flight to a different

shape. The variable-sweep wing transforms between an efficient
straight configuration for takeoff and landing, to a low-drag swept Two Dassault Mirage G prototypes,
configuration for high-speed flight. Other forms of variable one with wings swept
planform have been flown, but none have gone beyond the
research stage.

Fuselage
A fuselage is a long, thin body, usually with tapered or rounded ends to make its shape aerodynamically
smooth. The fuselage may contain the flight crew, passengers, cargo or payload, fuel and engines. 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. A plane may have more than one fuselage,
or it may be fitted with booms with the tail located between the booms to allow the extreme rear of the
fuselage to be useful for a variety of purposes.

Wings vs. bodies

Flying wing
A flying wing is a tailless aircraft which has no definite fuselage. Most of the crew, payload and
equipment are housed inside the main wing structure.[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. After the war, several experimental designs were based on the flying wing concept, but the
known difficulties remained intractable. 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. Due to the
practical need for a deep wing, the flying wing concept is most practical for designs in the slow-to-
medium speed range, and there has been continual interest in using it as a tactical airlifter design.
Interest in flying wings was renewed in the 1980s due to their
potentially low radar reflection cross-sections. Stealth technology
relies on shapes which only reflect radar waves in certain
directions, thus making the aircraft hard to detect unless the radar
receiver is at a specific position relative to the aircraft - a position
that changes continuously as the aircraft moves. This approach
eventually led to the Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. In this
case, the aerodynamic advantages of the flying wing are not the
primary needs. 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
The US-produced B-2 Spirit is a
long-range bomber.
strategic bomber. It has a flying wing
configuration and is capable of
Blended wing body intercontinental missions

Blended wing body aircraft have a flattened and airfoil shaped

body, which produces most of the lift to keep itself aloft, and
distinct and separate wing structures, though the wings are
smoothly blended in with the body.

Thus blended wing bodied aircraft incorporate design features

from both a futuristic fuselage and flying wing design. The
Computer-generated model of the
purported advantages of the blended wing body approach are
Boeing X-48
efficient high-lift wings and a wide airfoil-shaped body. This
enables the entire craft to contribute to lift generation with the
result of potentially increased fuel economy.

Lifting body
A lifting body is a configuration in which the body itself produces
lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or
no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a
fuselage with little or no conventional wing. Whereas a flying
wing seeks to maximize cruise efficiency at subsonic speeds by
eliminating non-lifting surfaces, lifting bodies generally minimize
the drag and structure of a wing for subsonic, supersonic, and
hypersonic flight, or, spacecraft re-entry. All of these flight
regimes pose challenges for proper flight stability.
The Martin Aircraft Company X-24
was built as part of a 1963 to 1975
Lifting bodies were a major area of research in the 1960s and 70s
experimental US military program.
as a means to build a small and lightweight crewed spacecraft. The
US built several famous lifting body rocket planes to test the
concept, as well as several rocket-launched re-entry vehicles that were tested over the Pacific. Interest
waned as the US Air Force lost interest in the crewed mission, and major development ended during the
Space Shuttle design process when it became clear that the highly shaped fuselages made it difficult to fit
fuel tankage.

Empennage and foreplane

The classic airfoil section wing is unstable in flight and difficult to
control. 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.

To achieve stability and control, most fixed-wing types have an

empennage comprising a fin and rudder which act horizontally Canards on the Saab Viggen
and a tailplane and elevator which act vertically. These control
surfaces can typically be trimmed to relieve control forces for
various stages of flight. This is so common that it is known as the conventional layout. Sometimes there
may be two or more fins, spaced out along the tailplane.

Some types have a horizontal "canard" foreplane ahead of the main wing, instead of behind it.[60][61][62]
This foreplane may contribute to the lift, the trim, or control of the aircraft, or to several of these.

Controls and instruments

Airplanes have complex flight control systems. The main controls
allow the pilot to direct the aircraft in the air by controlling the
attitude (roll, pitch and yaw) and engine thrust.

On manned aircraft, cockpit instruments provide information to

the pilots, including flight data, engine output, navigation,
communications and other aircraft systems that may be installed.

Safety A light aircraft (Robin DR400/500)

cockpit

When risk is measured by deaths per passenger kilometer, air

travel is approximately 10 times safer than travel by bus or rail. However, when using the deaths per
journey statistic, air travel is significantly more dangerous than car, rail, or bus travel.[63] Air travel
insurance is relatively expensive for this reason—insurers generally use the deaths per journey
statistic.[64] There is a significant difference between the safety of airliners and that of smaller private
planes, with the per-mile statistic indicating that airliners are 8.3 times safer than smaller planes.[65]

Environmental impact
Like all activities involving combustion, fossil-fuel-powered
aircraft release soot and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) are also
produced. In addition, there are environmental impacts specific to
airplanes: for instance,

Airplanes operating at high altitudes near the tropopause

(mainly large jet airliners) emit aerosols and leave
contrails, both of which can increase cirrus cloud Water vapor contrails left by high-
formation – cloud cover may have increased by up to altitude jet airliners. These may
0.2% since the birth of aviation. [66] contribute to cirrus cloud formation.
Airplanes operating at high altitudes near the tropopause
can also release chemicals that interact with greenhouse
gases at those altitudes, particularly nitrogen compounds, which interact with ozone,
increasing ozone concentrations.[67][68]
Most light piston aircraft burn avgas, which contains tetraethyllead (TEL). Some lower-
compression piston engines can operate on unleaded mogas and turbine engines and
diesel engines – neither of which require lead – are used on some newer light aircraft. Some
non-polluting light electric aircraft are already in production.
Another environmental impact of airplanes is noise pollution, mainly caused by aircraft taking off and
landing.

See also
Aircraft flight mechanics
Aviation
Fuel efficiency
List of altitude records reached by different aircraft types
Rotorcraft

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(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AtmEn..35.3421G). doi:10.1016/S1352-
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Bibliography
Blatner, David. The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered About Flying On
Airplanes. ISBN 0-8027-7691-4

External links
The Aeroplane centre (http://www.aerocentre.blogspot.com/)
Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/info/)
Aerospaceweb.org (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/)
How Airplanes Work – Howstuffworks.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20081219063248/ht
tp://travel.howstuffworks.com/airplane.htm)

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