Flying Machines
Strap your wings for a flight from dawn
Man must rise above the Earth — to the top of the atmosphere and beyond — for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
– Socrates
We seem to endlessly long for something that can change our whole idea of existence — something delightful, an exhilarating rush or a groundbreaking discovery. Isn’t it always boring to find ourselves firmly rooted to the ground, solely employing our own two hind limbs for primary human transport?
Many of us love to travel, to see new things, to experience what different places have to offer, and of course, have a change of scenery from the laborious routine we put in each day. We often look outside through our window, gaze at the sky mirroring our desire to be free, to be unchained of our burdens, relieved of any worries and soar through its horizons unexpected of what lies ahead.
Imagine yourself ascending towards the clouds, gliding through the air, towering above skyscrapers, wind brushing past you- like you’re on a roller coaster, heart pumped, eyes thrilled and at last escaping the gravity that binds you to the earth’s crust.
I am sure in recent years with the rapid increase in love of science fiction, most people would have already been asked this really interesting yet recurrent question “If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?”
For several reasons, the option of having the ability to fly seems the most magnetic, even though invisibility, teleportation and superhuman strength appear equally beckoning. If humans were gifted with the power to fly, envision the many differences we would have in our lives, the adventures we’d have, perhaps a new range of sports to test our newfound ability (Yes, I was thinking about Quidditch). For anatomic reasons, human beings have not been blessed with the ability to fly and are left feeling rather envious of creatures that can roam through the skies traveling a million miles across continents. Nevertheless, that hasn’t let the human race to cease their dreams of flying nor their pursuit of constructing machines and vehicles that could enable us to fly. For centuries we have and are still coming up with ingenious ideas and continuously striving to make flight a reality.
Mythology of Flight and Early Flying Machines
A greatly cherished story in Greek mythology concerning flight is the tale of Daedalus, a famous architect and inventor. He built wings for himself, fashioned with feathers and held together by wax to escape his imprisonment from the Labyrinth.
Another such anecdote is one from Persia which recounts the mythological king Kay Kāvus who claimed to have attached eagles to his throne and flew around his kingdom.
Ancient myths and legends have played an important role in aiding man’s conquest of flight, as they symbolically represented that if humans could fly; they could escape the troubles of earth, be free as a bird and be closer to the gods. Similarly Indian Mythology reminds us of chronicles of flying chariots that carried the gods through the skies.
Nature and Flight
Early efforts to make human flight possible leads us to the 15th and 16th century where the most prominent and brilliant inventor of the time Leonardo Da Vinci had a fascination for aviation. Inspired by the mechanics on how wings of birds and insects functioned, he set forth to create a flying machine, later to be known as the “Ornithopter.” The machine was assembled in a specific way such that the operator had to pedal a crank connected to a rod-and-pulley system while lying face down. As the operator would spin the crank with his hands and feet, the wings of the machine would flap. The machine also had a hand crank for increased energy output, and a head piece for steering, akin to the motion of a bird while flying.
However, unfortunately Da Vinci had to confront the reality that the man power of an individual wasn’t enough for sustaining a steady flight.
Human Flight
The ongoing endeavour of flight and aerial expedition was a yearning aspiration of mankind since the time they had realized their shortcomings of the lack of effective aerial front limbs. This in turn fueled the ambition of human flight and aviation in many inventors just like Da Vinci during the Renaissance era.
In the 17th century, known as the “Age of Enlightenment,” the profound desire of humanity had been triumphed. On the 19th of September 1783, two gentlemen Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier from France began to experiment with lighter-than-air flight. The Montgolfiers built a balloon made of silk and lined with paper that was 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter and launched it. The balloon rose to around 1,600 to 2,000 m (5,200 to 6,600 feet), and stayed aloft for 10 minutes, traveling more than a mile. They later suspended a basket below the balloon containing a sheep, duck and a rooster. The balloon and its animal passengers lifted off on Sept. 19, 1783, and the flight lasted 8 minutes and was witnessed by the French king, Marie Antoinette and an enormous crowd of 130,000 dumbstruck onlookers. The device flew about 2 miles before landing safely. After this initial success, the Montgolfiers’ next step was to test a balloon with a person as the passenger. On Oct. 15, 1783, the brothers launched another hot air balloon on a tether with Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a teacher, aboard. He stayed aloft for almost 4 minutes, being the first human to experience aerial flight in a hot air balloon.
With the success of hot air balloons, lighter-than-air aircraft further expanded and scrupulously guided the path to establishment of airships (also known by many names like Dirigibles, Blimps and Zeppelins). The 19th Century, motivated by the triumph of the hot air balloon, attempted to add propulsion to flying machines. It resulted in airships to be the first aircrafts capable of controlled powered flight.
The first aircraft
In the present day, airplanes that ferry you over long distances - between cities, states, countries and even continents are not a myth, rumour or hallucination. They are a reality due to the genius and hard work of two exceptional men named Wilbur and Orville Wright. Wilbur and Orville Wright played with a powered rubber flying toy as children and flew kites, spurring their inspiration for flight from their prime of life.
These two men known to history as the Wright brothers revolutionized the entire archive of flight attempts throughout the past. They mapped several propeller designs, relentlessly experimented on them and tackled numerous obstacles to construct the first human aircraft.
The Wright Flyer, which made its first flight in 1903, was the first crewed, powered, heavier-than-air controlled flying machine. Their eventual first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was a success due to their innovations in flight control and self-propulsion which were both necessary for the aircraft to stay aloft without crashing during its first successful flight tests, on Dec. 17, 1903. The date also signifies the 120th anniversary of the first accomplishment of human flight.
Helicopters
Another remarkable innovation in aerodynamics is the helicopter we all are familiar with. Intriguingly, the roots for insight of the helicopter were laid in ancient China where children played with bamboo sticks shaped like a propeller on a stick and twirled them around in the air. This idea stimulated the first inception regarding vertical flight.
The abstraction of vertical flight involved the taking off and landing motions to be vertical while the motion of travel of the helicopter was horizontal in direction. This conception of flight was found to be pleasing to many scientists as it felt logically simple and feasible.
Helicopters are designed with overhead propellers that provide the necessary gyroscopic torque to raise the helicopter body in the required directions. The first accomplishment of flight in a helicopter is credited to the Breguet brothers, Louis and Jacques. They made a short flight in their helicopter called the Gyroplane No 1 on 29th September 1907 around 4 years after the first successful aircraft was launched.
SpaceFlight
Engineers, scientists and the human race have never let their boundaries be restrained. However, challenging it was to achieve human flight taking around 3 centuries to build the first hot air balloon and for aircrafts to hit the skies. We have never set our confines to flight within the earth’s atmosphere but have expanded to the reaches of the universe above it. Spaceflight is the application of flying into outer space beyond the earth’s atmosphere.
It is usually categorised for uncrewed and crewed missions. Uncrewed spaceflights involve the launch of spacecrafts such as satellites that revolve around the earth in stationary orbits, while crewed spaceflight engages humans to be transported to space via space vehicles like rockets and space shuttles. The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, in which cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin of the USSR made one orbit around the Earth.
With the development of technology and evolution of spacecraft design, mankind has reached several exceptional milestones in the course of history. From the Lunar missions where the first human set foot on the moon to building the international space station(ISS), we have come a long way.
It’s wind and air, and knowing how to ride it, how to catch it, how to join it — Wonder Woman 1984
What does the future hold?
- Endurance (from Interstellar): We received a wonderful sneak peek into the world of futuristic flying machines by witnessing the spacecraft ‘Endurance’ from the 2014 space fiction Interstellar. The ring-shaped spacecraft with 12 docking ports moves through space by adapting a rotatory motion during its cosmic travel to distant planetary systems (it even survives the wormhole). The motion of the spacecraft was ideated in such a way that the ship rotated 5.6 times per hour in order to mimic gravity on earth while traveling through space. Additionally, its design included several laws that govern interstellar travel.
- Jet packs: Jet packs are flying devices that are usually depicted as tanks or cylinders strapped to or worn on a person’s back that release jet fuel/gas to propel the wearer to fly upwards, hence combating the effect of gravity. Also known as rocket packs or rocket belts, jet packs have been a common recurring concept pertaining to flight in science fiction. The idea has been around for almost a century and was widely admired in the 1960s. The first fictional sighting of this notion was perhaps in pulp fiction magazines and later on the cover of “Amazing Stories” in 1928. While jet packs were believed to be made-up flying machines, Bell Aerosystems began the development of a rocket pack which it called the “Bell Rocket Belt” or “man-rocket” for the US Army in the mid 1950s.
- Flying Cars: Flying cars are basically cars equipped with their original functionalities along with an ability to fly. Some may conceptualize it such that it can act as both a personal car as well as a flying machine. Attempts to create prototypes for flying cars have been going on since the early 20th century sidelong with their appearances in fantasy and science fiction themes. Flying cars are deemed as futuristic endeavours that many people believe will be existent in the imminent future. Several companies too claim to have invented an actual flying car in the present day. Flying cars have been picturized throughout many science fiction films, a recognizable cameo being in the 1985 film “Back to the Future” as well as in “BladeRunner”.
- UFOs: UFO, an abbreviation for Unidentifiable Flying Object are perceived as aerial phenomena or sightings in the sky. A UFO which is literally defined by its full name does not surprisingly have the word flying in it. UFOs are asserted as unidentifiable because the reason of its appearance in the sky is usually unknown nor its physical features are well interpreted. Most UFO sightings have been dismissed as comets, meteors or flight debris, nevertheless, there have been a handful of these observations that still do not have any scientific evidence to state the explanation of their occurrence in the sky. Many believe (or like to believe) that most UFOs are alien spaceships that come from other planets and hence are extra-terrestrial intelligence.
UFO’s have been a perennially favourite concept in science fiction since the middle of the 20th century as they paved scope to write about alien invasions and human interaction with extra-terrestrial world.
5. Escape pods: Escape pods are lifesize capsules/aircrafts that are capable of instant flight and can usually accommodate not more than a single human being. Escape pods are intended to travel at extremely high speeds usually for the purpose of emergency and escape. The presence of the conception of escape pods is ubiquitously found in science fiction and action genres alike.
Escape pods behave similar to mini personalized aircrafts propelled by a high-speed jet engine. They are also known to be attached to space and aircrafts in certain situations and dispensed during critical emergency escapes.
The journey of the desire to fly and making flight possible for human beings has been fulfilling and triumphant yet exhausting — from seeking to dreaming to fantasising, designing and most importantly engineering!
Our ideas into actual flying machines satiate our innate creativity. The dreams of mankind which were once considered vague and quixotic have now sprouted wings and flown into existence. No longer do we take our imagination for granted and question our sanity. Flying cars may exist in the future, the generation after that might travel to school on jetpacks and maybe today’s science fiction might be tomorrow’s reality. We can never tell but there isn’t any harm in trying to live our dreams, just like how the people before us did.
