Introduction

History of aviation and aircrafts

The Americans Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, spent a great deal of time observing birds in flight. They
noticed that birds soared into the wind and that the air flowing over the curved surface of their wings created lift.
Birds change the shape of their wings to turn and maneuver. They believed that they could use this technique in
. flying experiments

At 10:35 a.m., on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wrights have designed the first
heavier-than-air powered airplane with a pilot aboard. The airplane was equipped with an internal combustion
engine which is a simple four-cylinder engine producing shaft power of 12hp.Thier first flight was about 37 meters
(120 feet) and lasted 12 seconds.

Development of the aircrafts

Through decades, a great improvement was achieved to engine design structures and material, fuel injection,
aerodynamics shapes of propellers blades and engine superchargers. On January 1929, Frank Whittle, a pilot officer
in the Royal Air Force, got the idea of a ducted fan driven by a reciprocating engine and afterburner to expansion of
the fan gas. But at the same time, the Italian Caproni Campini conceived this idea and established it, as Frank
predicted in 1929.Later, In December 1929, Frank was struck by the idea of increasing the fan pressure ratio and
replacing the reciprocating engine by a turbine engine. After that in 1936, Hans von Ohain, an American physician,
investigated in the idea of separating the compressor and the turbine by a shaft and to employ an annular
connecting duct from the exit of the compressor diffuser to the inlet of the turbine. The first flight of a turbojet
aircraft was on August 27, 1939 with Erich Warsitz as pilot. (Jack D. Mattingly, Elements of Gas Turbine Propulsion,
background page)