You might have heard such a phrase as "Climb High, Climb Far", but here we are talking about the ecstatic science of aviation and the history of flight, and not about motivation in this article.
Birds of various kinds have been in existence since ages and I can easily imagine a Paleolithic man or woman standing and wondering what those flying objects are, and how they can be eaten for food. But then not all consciousness is riveted to the stomach hence some of the more intelligent men might have thought about imitating those birds by flying in the sky.
Even otherwise flying can be psychologically associated with freedom, which is one of the features dearest to mankind and there have been battles for freedom across all ages. But let me not divert from the main topic, so when the desire to fly was ignited it surely had to materialize one day.
The desire which might have originated in the Stone Age (perhaps) finally got satisfied in the 20 century A.D. when the Wright brothers flew their first device (it was very basic machine as compared to sophisticated jets of today) and traveled a short distance in air. That possibly marked the beginning of the science of flying machines in the modern era, and we know it as aviation. I used the word “possibly” because though the Wright brothers’ flight is the first officially accredited successful attempt to fly in the air, there had been innumerable attempts earlier as well and people had actually flown using different means such as hot air balloons, kites and so forth. Of course this flight was the first heavier than air flight but we should still salute spirits of those unsung heroes who dedicated their lives to make this dream come true. So whenever you sit comfortably in an airplane next time, just remember how it all began.
Starting with the relatively humble beginnings towards the beginning of the twentieth century, the scenario in aviation has totally changed in little over a century that has elapsed since then. Infact so many advances have been made that in some cases the line of demarcation between aviation and space travel seems to be diminishing. Of course there are no aeroplanes as such which match the power of a space shuttle but projects such as SpaceShipOne are a major step in that direction. Aviation is a highly specialized branch of knowledge and has different aspects such as air traffic control, aircraft engineering, catering to name a few. Moreover aviation is now divided into civil and military aviation depending whether the purpose of the flight vehicles is of a civil nature or military nature.
Aircraft manufacturing is a big business these days and we have huge companies such as Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, Thales, EADS etc which are major players of the aviation manufacturing industry. Another important aspect of aviation is the environmental issue concerned with the increasing number of aircrafts in the sky. Of course we will take up these topics in detail in future articles in this channel.
Lastly I would like to mention that the hobby which led to the development of aviation, namely bird watching, still exists and has diversified into two wings – natural bird watching by wild life lovers and the observation of natural beauties (in the slang sense of the term).