essay about history of helicopter

that attempted to solve these problems, but progress came only in small steps.

design in 1906. Crocco recognized that a way to change the pitch cyclically on the blades was needed if a helicopter was to work properly in forward flight.

began their helicopter experiments and meticulously tested airfoil shapes under the guidance of Professor Charles Richet. In 1907, they built the Bréguet-Richet Gyroplane No. 1, one of the first mechanical devices to actually hover. The gyroplane flew for one minute on August 24, 1907 (some sources say September 29, 1907) in what is generally accepted as the first vertical flight. A 45-horsepower (33.5-kilowatt) engine provided just enough power to achieve vertical flight. However, there was no means of control or stability, and it needed four men to steady it while it hovered about 2 feet (0.6 meters) off the ground. Without a control system, it was not a practical helicopter.

became the first person to rise vertically in powered free flight. His helicopter used two counter-rotating rotors to cancel torque. Some control was achieved by placing auxiliary paddle-like wings below the rotors, and sticks held by men on the ground stabilized the machine. Although Cornu achieved a historic first, rising about one foot (0.6 meter) and hovering for about 20 seconds, the controls were inadequate, and the craft never developed into a practical helicopter.

built his first helicopter, the S-1, in Kiev, Russia. The wooden craft weighed 450 pounds (204 kilograms) and had dual . But the two blades were inefficient, and the most powerful engine that was available, a 25-horsepower (20 kilowatt) Anzani engine, could not lift its own weight. The next year, he built the S-2, which weighed only 400 pounds (181 kilograms) and had a three-blade rotor system. This model could rise, but the engine was too weak to carry a passenger. The machine also shook and vibrated violently because it needed a stiffer frame. Sikorsky turned to airplane development, returning to helicopters only in the 1930s after he emigrated to the United States.

mechanism was used to change the pitch of the rotating blades and for control. Ellehammer made several short hops in the craft.

inboard of the propellers achieved control. He took several low-altitude flights, which ended in October 1925, when the machine crashed.

. He was also the first to demonstrate that a helicopter with engine failure could still reach the ground safely by means of autorotation—the phenomenon that caused blades to turn even without power being applied to them that resulted from the flow of air as the craft moved through it. His coaxial helicopter had biplane-type rotors with a total of 20 lifting surfaces. In 1924, Pescara set a new world record by flying his craft almost one-half mile (0.8 kilometer) in 4 minutes and 11 seconds—a speed of about eight miles per hour (13 kilometers per hour)—at a height of six feet (1.8 meters).

. A later design had four lifting airscrews and five auxiliary propellers. On April 14, 1924, he flew this type of craft, powered by a 180-horsepower (134-kilowatt) Rhone engine, 1,181 feet (360 meters), establishing the first helicopter distance record officially recognized by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. On May 4, he was the first to fly a helicopter at least one kilometer (0.6 mile) in a closed circuit in a 5,550-foot (1.692-kilometer) flight that lasted 14 minutes and rose to 50 feet (15 meters).

. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.

. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1969.

. New York: Exeter Books, 1985.

. Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1990.

. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1982.

Century." American Helicopter Society, International. Presented at the AHS German Chapter Meeting, July 7, 2000. http://www.vtol.org/History.htm.

.

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The World’s First Helicopter Civilian Rescue

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The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy: Development of the Helicopter as an Anti-Submarine Weapon

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Introduction

How a Helicopter Flies

Like an airplane, a helicopter flies using wings. A helicopter’s wings are thin, narrow blades that rotate, or spin around. The blades on top of a helicopter, along with the parts that connect them, are called the main rotor. The main rotor is connected to an engine. The engine sends power to the main rotor to spin the blades. Most helicopters have just one main rotor, but some have two or more.

As the blades spin, air pushes against them. A helicopter pilot has controls that change the position of the blades. This affects how the air hits them. The pilot also controls how much power the engine sends to the rotor. Using these controls together, the pilot can move the helicopter up, down, forward, backward, or sideways.

A helicopter also has a small set of blades in the back. This is called the tail rotor. To turn the helicopter, the pilot pushes pedals that move the tail rotor. The tail rotor also keeps the helicopter from spinning around.

Helicopters are useful because they can fly almost anywhere. They are used to rescue people from disasters such as fires, floods, and earthquakes. Helicopters can quickly carry injured people to a hospital. They can even land on the roofs of some hospitals and other buildings. Armies use helicopters to attack the enemy and to carry soldiers and equipment. Police use helicopters to look for criminals. Farmers use them to spread seeds and fertilizers on their fields.

People in China and Europe made toys that worked like helicopters many hundreds of years ago. In the 1400s the Italian artist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci drew an aircraft much like today’s helicopters. It was never built. In 1843 an English inventor built a helicopter powered by a steam engine. It could barely get off the ground.

By the 1900s more powerful engines were available. Engineers used these engines to improve the helicopter. They also made improvements that helped keep helicopters stable in the air. The first successful helicopters were built in Germany in the 1930s. After that, engineers designed new types of helicopters that were used for all kinds of different purposes.

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The Sound and Fury of the Huey Helicopter

Stephen E. Nash is a historian of science and an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He studies a wide range of subjects, including dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), the history of museums, the archaeology of New Mexico, and Soviet gem-carving sculptures by Vasily Konovalenko. Nash has published numerous books, most recently Stories in Stone: The Enchanted Gem-Carving Sculptures of Vasily Konovalenko . Follow him on Twitter @nash_dr .

What is the most iconic military vehicle ever created? For both visual and acoustic reasons, I’d suggest it’s the Huey helicopter of the Vietnam War era.

World War I gave us biplanes for the first time, World War II and the Korean War gave us the Jeep—now part of American pop and recreational culture—and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gave us Predator drones. But nothing tops the Huey, if you ask me.

Visually, the helicopter looks vaguely like a dragonfly, a grasshopper, or some other large insect with big eyes. Painted black or dark green, it is frighteningly utilitarian, if not sinister.

Acoustically, the rhythmic, thumping sound of a Huey is primal and tantalizing, and iconic in and of itself. For injured or trapped U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, the sound communicated the promise of rescue and transport to safety, and was therefore inspirational and heroic. On the other hand, for the North Vietnamese soldiers who were on the receiving end of an attack, the sound would’ve been insidious and demonic. Ground-based American medical personnel often had mixed feelings about the sound, for it often meant that new casualties were being transported back from the front lines.

Formally known as the Bell UH-1 Iroquois Helicopter (originally the HU-1, hence the nickname), the Huey was first flown during training exercises in 1956 as a medical evacuation and general utility helicopter for the U.S. Army. During the Vietnam War, its role expanded greatly to include search-and-rescue operations, troop transport, disaster response, firefighting, cargo transport, and special operations. Officially, a total of 7,013 Hueys were used in Vietnam; 3,305 of them were destroyed, leading to the deaths of over 2,700 pilots, crew members, and passengers.

The Huey has been made famous by its prominent role in Hollywood films, from Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning classic Apocalypse Now (1979) to Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) among many others. Indeed, the vehicle has become synonymous with the Vietnam War.

Direct U.S . military involvement in Vietnam officially ended on August 15, 1973, just before I turned 9. I was too young to understand much about the war, and frankly, I don’t remember anything special about that date. But 10 years later I had a personal encounter with a Huey, and I’ve not forgotten it.

On July 20, 1983, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago held an outdoor festival to celebrate its 50th anniversary. I was a tour guide, a position I had held for nearly two years. Most days, I worked at the information desk, giving driving directions and pointing out the cafeteria or nearest restroom to harried guests. Other days I worked in the famous Coal Mine exhibit, replete with working equipment and a passenger train, where we offered tours to up to 2,000 people on busy days.

Given the repetition involved in our daily tasks, I jumped at the chance to work outside at the festival. I knew full well I would be working in the heat of a Chicago summer in my standard, museum-issue formal uniform—white, short-sleeve dress shirt, blue necktie, navy blue slacks, and dress shoes. It didn’t matter. A little heat-induced sweat was a small price to pay for the chance to break the tedium of yet another day inside.

I was assigned to guard a Huey helicopter that was displayed by the U.S. Army. To my surprise, a lot of visitors asked me if I was the pilot. I never had any desire to join the military and didn’t think I would ever be mistaken for a military man. That said, I was two months shy of my 19th birthday. I played a lot of soccer and was in great shape. I had an anomalously short haircut given that it was 1983 and big hair was all the rage. I wore aviator-style Ray-Ban sunglasses (who didn’t?). And I was wearing an uncomfortable dress uniform outside, in 90 percent relative humidity and Chicago heat. Looking back through the mists of time, their question seems a bit less preposterous.

I remember chatting briefly with the pilot, who allowed me to sit in the back of the aircraft. All of the seats had been removed, and I noticed tiny ringlets, not much bigger than the width of a man’s index finger, recessed into the floor. I asked what they were for. “Handles,” the pilot nonchalantly replied. “For cargo?” I asked. He nodded, “And for people.” I was astounded. How could a soldier, fully loaded with gear, reasonably expect to hold on to an aircraft with just a finger or two? Rough going, I guess. On the flip side, how could such an aircraft have reasonably served as a medical evacuation vehicle? Then it hit me—I realized the emphasis was on “evacuation” more than “medical.” A flying ambulance, it wasn’t.

On April 30 , 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army, marking the strategic, tactical, and symbolic end to the Vietnam War. For many North Vietnamese , it was the happiest day of their lives. Firmly ensconced in Chicago, I remember the day well, and I remember being torn. I was happy that the war was over but sad, as any fourth-grader would be, that we Americans had indeed finally and conclusively lost.

More starkly, I remember seeing around that time a photograph of a Huey and a line of desperate people making a last-ditch effort to flee Saigon on April 29. Some two dozen people are easily visible in the photograph. They push up a staircase leading from an otherwise nondescript rooftop to the top of a small utility room. A lone Huey rests precariously on the roof of that utility room, which is clearly not a landing pad. Someone, perhaps an American military man, pushes on the lead person, trying to get him to retreat.

As it turned out, the Huey in the photo was one of many helicopters involved in the U.S. evacuation of Saigon, dubbed Operation Frequent Wind . It has been called the largest helicopter evacuation ever. In less than 24 hours, around 80 helicopters ferried more than 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese out of Saigon to ships waiting offshore. We have no way of knowing how many people didn’t make it out.

I thought I had come to terms with the harshness of war and the fact that people die and get injured. But I know I hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that desperate civilians frequently get left behind, often in large numbers.

I now know that even if they used all the ringlets on the floor of that Huey, it could at best take about 15 people at a time. Even with all the Hueys and other helicopters waiting in the wings, there were just too many people in the city to rescue. The majority of them were out of luck. I wonder when they finally knew it. I wonder how they felt hearing the rhythmic “whoomp, whoomp, whoomp” of the last helicopter fading off into the distance, taking with it their last chance at freedom. The finality of it all is heartbreaking.

As Operation Frequent Wind wound down, some of the Hueys and other helicopters had to be jettisoned or ditched in the sea after making it safely to waiting American Navy ships—they took up space that was needed to continue the evacuation. In a sad twist on the famous image from World War II, in which victorious U.S. military personnel struggle to raise a flag on the newly controlled island of Iwo Jima, another famous Huey photograph shows Navy personnel pushing a perfectly good helicopter off a ship’s flight deck and into the ocean.

Hope, like an icon, can sink like a stone.

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11.1: First Flight

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History of Engineering: Case History of Flight

Invention of the Aeroplane

The invention of the airplane was accomplished by the accumulation of knowledge, testing, and creative engineering of a many individuals and teams. To first understand the invention of the airplane, what an airplane is needs to be clearly understood (note this is a general theme in engineering and science - know what you are talking about first). In general we refer to an airplane as a heavier than air powered flying machine . Other types of airplanes would be lighter than air flying machines such as balloons and dirigibles, unpowered flying machines such as gliders, and minimally powered flying machines such as the modern demoiselles (single-person very light airplanes powered by human motion).

Lighter than air flying machines depended on balloons for lift. Balloons were first developed by competing groups, the Montgolfier brothers (paper mill owners) and the Paris Academy of Sciences. The Montgolfier brother's balloon used an open flame hot air balloon design while the Paris Academy of Science's lead physicist-engineer Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles' balloon used hydrogen gas. Interestingly, the Montgolfier's theory of why their balloon flew was mostly wrong, even a little comical given our modern understanding. This theme of successful design yet lack of understanding of why the design is a success repeats itself in engineering.

For a small period of time balloons, charlières and montgolfières, as a method of transportation was very popular. However the fashion faded relatively fast given that there was little practical purposes to them. Eventually powered balloons would be developed but control was still an issue. For any reasonable purpose the flying machine must go from one place to another in a controllable manner.

Alberto Santos-Dumont

The Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont developed the first true lighter than air powered flying machine giving his cigar-shaped dirigibles a highly effective control system with his rudder and elevator. He rounded the Eiffel tower in dirigible No. 6 on October 19, 1901 after a 30 minute controlled flight (which he won money for and gave the money, which he did not need because he was rich, to the poor and underpaid staff). Santos-Dumont flew the first true-controllable airplane inspiring many others to continue their work in heavier than air flight. Alberto Santos-Dumont is considered the inventor of the airplane in some countries, this has lead to heavy and heated debate. All unnecessary because real invention is a team effort.

Of crucial design in this airplane was the automobile -like engine which Santos-Dumont had to redesign to allow for air flight with the any possible inclinations. Engine design was crucial to all successful powered airplane flights whether heavier or lighter than air. Many of these designs could only have been manufactured at the time airplanes started to take the skies. While this is not a history of the automobile, it is clear that the invention (1700s) and continual improvement of the automobile (combustion engine early 1800s) was required before powered flight.

Sir George Cayley and Otto Lilienthal

Heavier than air machines unlike lighter than air machines needed to achieve lift using some form of wing like a bird. Studies of birds were used to design the first wings. Detailed work by Sir George Cayley of England, lead to the first flight of man, possibly one of Cayley's servant, in a heavier than air unpowered flying machine in 1853.

His work lead to the design of Otto Lilienthal's glider that formed the basis of Samuel Pierpont Langley's, the Wright brother's, and the Aerial Experiment Association's airplanes. With the glider's development and aerial engines that were used in lighter than air flying machines, the only problem left to solve was the stability problem that heavier than air machines all seem to have. Cayley had made some progress using a rudder to enhance stability, but for powered machines the rudder was not sufficient.

Samuel Langley

The head of the Smithsonian Institute an astronomer named Samuel Langley, who had experiment with heavier than air flying machines since 1889, developed a rudimentary aileron called a dihedral wing to alleviate the stability problem. While some worked in secret to develop their airplane, Langley was widely published and undoubtedly instrumental in other designers development of the airplane. Langley's model planes (not toys, prototypes) flew very well, but Langley's manned planes never flew and he was ridiculed for his failures with statements indicating that humans would never fly just all the government money spent on flight. Note, however, his work which included confirmation of previous work before him made possible the continued progress towards a sustainable useful heavier than air powered flight.

The Wright brother's developed the warp wing idea to alleviate the stability problem. This worked well but was very difficult to control and their planes were very dangerous to fly. Wilbur Wright seemed to have the uncanny ability to control their planes and flew from a rail the first heavier than air powered flight on December 17, 1903. However this was not like any plane we know today.

It should be noted that in July 1901 the first heavier-than-air helicopter was briefly flown with two passengers on board however there is no evidence it was controllable like Santos-Dumond's dirigible No. 5 and 6 of the same time period. Interestingly, Santos-Dumond had a design of a helicopter, the Wright brothers were inspired by a toy helicopter, and Leonardo da Vinci had his own design of a helicopter along with his "aeroplane." Helicopters are another fascinating story, but are not the topic of this essay, however it might be of interest for the student to write an essay on this topic (i.e. The history of the helicopter).

It was up to the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) whose members consisted of Glenn Curtiss, Alexander Graham Bell, Frederick Baldwin, Thomas E. Selfridge, and Douglas McCurdy to fly the first plane as we understand it today. They solved the stability problem by using ailerons which all modern planes use in some fashion. Glenn Curtiss flew their first successful plane, the June Bug, in 1908 and continued developing innovations that enabled him to built a successful business that would eventually absorb the Wright brother's business. This plane, unlike the Wright brothers' plane, took off using wheels like modern planes. The Wright brothers' plane took off using a rail and catapult system (like Langley which possibly contributed to his failures), though interestingly some French pilots licensed by the Wright brothers did fit wheels to the aircraft. The AEA planes (the most famous being the June Bug and Silver Dart) had superior stability over the Wright brothers' planes and other advantages, such as wheels for take-off and landing and a perfected engine (which would be expected since Curtiss' company originally centered around engine design for his "motorcycle").

With their successful flights and the death of one of their members in a Wright brothers' plane, the AEA disbanded though Glenn Curtiss continued to produce innovative airplanes, using the designs of the AEA, through the first licensed US aircraft manufacturer, the Curtiss Company. In 1910 Glenn Curtiss broke the Wright brothers' distance record by flying from Albany, New York to New York City along the Hudson river, 150 miles, proving to the US the viability of airplanes and establishing his company as well. Eventually in the 1920s the Curtiss company merged with the Wright brothers company forming the Curtiss-Wright Company (note Wright company became a division). The Curtiss (and Curtiss-Wright) company produced some of the finest aircrafts until superseded by other companies that had new innovation such as Douglas (DC-3) and Lockheed (U-2). The large airplanes we fly today are not based off the original airplanes described here, they are another history of flight story.

Unfortunately, lawsuits between the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss stifled progress on airplanes in the United States for years until the government demanded an end to the petty bickering due to the war effort at the time (World War I). Airplanes were crucial to the war effort and Europe had made considerable strides in this technology while the United States was embroiled in legal limbo. The lawsuits contented that warped wings and ailerons were the same idea. Each were initially patented separately, but the courts disputed this with no clear resolution.

Today it would be hard to make the contention that the two technologies are the same as the ideas are sufficiently different as to be considered separate distinct ideas. However, patent laws were substantially different 100 years ago (even a vague idea could be patented). We might consider it fortunate that the government stepped in to allow progress of the airplane to continue despite the patent laws.

Lessons Learned

What are the lessons learned? Discuss in class or with friends.

Suggested books

• Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight , Paul Hoffman, Theia, New York (2003)
• Progress in Flying Machines , Octave Chanute, Dover Publications, New York (1997) -- Originally published in 1894
• Unlocking the Sky , Seth Shulman, Perennial (HarperCollins), New York (2002)
• Rocket Man , David A. Clary, Theia, New York (2003)
• How We Invented the Airplane , Orville Wright, Dover Publications, New York(1988) -- Note that most books and web sites on the Wright brothers' planes are derived from this book, and are largely unoriginal with no independent research - it is best just to read the original and read other works not centered on the Wright brothers (i.e. do your own research). Almost all Wikipedia page suffers from this as well (and extends to discrediting others work in the history of flight). Do real research. Wikipedia is not very good for topics that are politically charged (this includes science and engineering). Non-politically charged subjects are usually done very well by Wikipedia however.

Some important dates

• Unmanned Langley Aerodrome model number 5 flies for about 0.5 miles - May 6, 1896: Samuel Langley and Charles Manly (powerful light weight motor)
• Flight Around Eiffel Tower - October 19, 1901: Santos-Dumont (rudder, elevator, and airplane motor). Dirigible No 6, though technically he rounded the Eiffel Tower on July 13, 1901 with dirigible No. 5 but that one crashed on its way back and is not considered a success.
• "Flying Car" lands at cafe for breakfast - July 23, 1903: Santos-Dumont, Dirigible No. 9.
• Full scale Aerodrome fails to fly - October 7 and December 8, 1903: Samuel Langley and Charles Manly (airplane motor 4 times more powerful than the engine the Wright brothers used just a few days later)
• First flight heavier than air machine: Wright Flyer - December 17, 1903: Wright Brothers (rudder, elevator, and warp-wing; while the Wright brothers engine was less powerful then other engines it did have one significant innovation - the first use of aluminum for part of the system)...the documentation on this flight is mostly the Wright Brothers documentation
• First public flight of heavier than air machine: 14-bis (bird of prey) - October 23, 1906: Santos-Dumont - This was likely less stable then the Wright Brothers (this had ailerons , but the wings were problematic though it could be said that most of the early wings of all the airplane inventors were problematic)
• First public filming of a heavier than air machine - November 12, 1906: Santos-Dumont
• First public flight of heavier than air machine in North America - March 12, 1908: Aerial Experiment Association
• First flight of air machine to win first Aeronautical prize in the United States: the June Bug - May 21, 1908: Aerial Experiment Association - This was stable and worked well. (This had ailerons with good wings).
• First flight of the modified Langley Aerodrome - 1914: Glenn Curtiss - There is a debate on the extent of the modifications (whether "modern" material was used or not) with each side clearly being heavily biased (Numerous items of this plane would have worked - especially the engine). Unfortunately a clear history at this point is impossible to determine because of the partisan nature of this debate. This is a case where you will have to figure it out on your own by reading and studying a lot. If you are unwilling to do this, then it is probably best that you stay on the sidelines.
• Working with Samuel Langley was Charles Manly who produced the most powerful airplane light weight airplane engines for the Aerodromes.
• Ailerons were patented (and probably invented by...but not sure) by Matthew Boulton in 1868 from a paper the British scientist wrote in 1864. He clearly recognized this device as a lateral control device as did the patent office that issued him the patent. At the time these were referred to as rudders along with what we now call rudders. The patent details what we call ailerons, not rudders however. The first "modern" aileron was probably designed by Henri Farman and both the Curtiss corporation and the Wright corporation were using his designs by about 1915.
• Wing warping was known before the Wright brothers use of it, but it was not believed to be primarily used for lateral control, but instead a breaking method to allow for turning (which can be done with rudders only). It is believed the Wright brothers first recognized its use as a primary control device when used in conjunction with the rudder and they successfully implemented the idea. It should be noted that the patent office probably should not have given a patent for this device as it was already known, however patents is less of a science and more of a government sanctioned business method of control even today.

Items not invented by the Wright brothers, but erroneously credit to them by others (the Wright brothers never claimed they invented these items):

• Wind tunnel - invented in 1871 by Francis Wenham. The idea was developed from the "whirling arm" invented by Benjamin Robins and used by Sir George Cayley for his "wind tunnel" experiments
• Air-screw propeller - The idea is that the twisted shape of the propeller is due to the Wright brothers, but it is not. Many early airplane pioneers used this propeller shape including Samuel Langley and Alberto Santos Dumont. The idea to make these cambered type propellers which lead to the better designs of Samuel Langley, Alberto Santos Dumont, and the Wright brothers was pioneered by George Cayley; there is no credit of invention on this, just continual improvement.
• Yaw-pitch-roll control method of flying - Not really an invention, so this is baffling why this is called an invention by some. Everyone knew you needed to control yaw, pitch, and roll and all early 'airplanes' had designs to control the yaw, pitch, and roll with most of them being ineffective (including the Wright brother's implementation of wing warping). This is usually an invention credited to the Wright brothers in order to overinflate their accomplishments (which were important, but was continual improvement over the past workers in the field).
• Planform of the airplane - Not really an invention, so this is baffling why this is called an invention by some. There were many different yet effective planforms from the beginning of airplane design. Leonardo da Vinci (maybe even earlier) was a pioneer in this (from studying birds and bats; just like Cayley and Lilienthal ). Note: Santos Dumont was known to be influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's ideas and drawings (check them out for yourself).

History of Aviation

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Early aviation

• Aviation in 19th century

Works Cited

Aviation refers to the design, manufacture, operation or use of aircraft or vehicles capable of flight. Aircrafts can be lighter than air like balloons and airships, or heavier than air, which include autogiros, airplanes, helicopters, gliders and ornithopters (Global Aircraft para. 1). Famous inventors of aviation include Leonardo da Vinci, Lawrence Hargrave, John String fellow and the Wright Brothers. History of aviation is traced in early years, as early as the 5 th century.

Kite was the first form of aircraft that was designed in 5thcentury B.C. Later, Roger Bacon, in 13 th century carried out studies and found out that like water supports a boat, air could support a craft. 16 th century saw Leonardo da Vinci study bird’s flight, which enabled him to produce parachutes and airscrew (Global Aircraft para. 2).

The idea of the airscrews, propellers and parachutes contributed to great heights in the aviation industry. Furthermore, Leonardo set the pace in invention of heavier-than-air craft such as helicopter and gliders. He became the first person to make scientific suggestions that contributed later development of aviation industry.

Aviation in 19 th century

Credible developments in aviation industry happened in the 19 th century. John Stringfellow designed steam engine-powered aircraft but failed to climb. The aircraft was launched from a wire. The period also saw British sir George Cayley design a horizontally propelled aircraft with combined helicopter. British, Francis Herbert Wenham predicted application of multiple wings of an aircraft using wind tunnels in his studies.

A British borne Australian Lawrence Hargrave invented a rigid wing aircraft in 1891. The aircraft had flap blades and operated on a compressed-air motor. His invention provided hope in the aviation industry after his aircraft flew 95 m above the ground. Another important contributor in this field is Marie Jeane that tested a glider with movable wings (Global Aircraft para. 3).

Kites were used in testing aerodynamics and the stability of the flight. This kite box was first created in 1893 by Lawrence Hargrave while gigantic passenger carrying tetrahedral celled kite was developed by Alexander Graham Bell from 1895 to 1910 (Gold et al. 95).

In December 1903, aviation industry received a boost when the Wright brothers managed to make a heavier than air machine-powered flight. The flight spanned 120 feet and lasted for 12 seconds. The invention which have been dreamt for long became a reality. In 1908, Wilbur demonstrated full control of his aircraft when he completed a 2hour 20 minute flight (Global Aircraft para. 5). The flyer was purchased by military, becoming a successful military airplane in August 2, 1908.

Between 1919 and 1926, amazing progress was recorded in airplane field when Captain F. White made a nonstop flight journey from Chicago to New York, a distance of 1170km. This development contributed to major turns in the postal delivery department, as mails were delivered or transported by airplanes after the creation of 14 domestic airmail companies in 1926 in US (Global Aircraft para. 6).

Before World War 1

Before World War I, the design in airplane had improved greatly. For instance, pusher biplanes were replaced by tractor biplanes (two-winged airplane, with engine and propeller in the front of the wings). This improved the aviation industry as airplanes could travel long distances.

During world war II

During this period, aircraft became a key instrument in warfare. It was used to transport weapons and in waging attacks to the enemies. This period also saw Pan American Airways emerge as the largest operation airline. It operated in 46 countries across the continents. Small aircraft production also increased and before the World War II, around 193,000 people were employed in the airline industry (Global Aircraft para. 10).

After world war II

Earlier years after World War II, aviation industry had developed high technology such as radar and aerodynamics. The period also experienced high demand in aircrafts as the number of people travelling by air increased drastically. For instance, by 1945, an approximate of 40,000 aircrafts were on demand (Gold et al. 96). Because of the technology, airlines were larger, able to travel faster and had featured and pressurized cabins, which incorporated sophisticated technologies.

Aviation industry has witnessed progressive development since the 5 th century to the current 21 st century. The industry has witnessed a progressive development that incorporates sophisticated technology.

Global Aircraft. History of Aviation . Web.

Gold Sarah, Emily Chenoweth, Lynn Andriani, and Mark Rotella. Wings: A History a Aviation, from Kites to the Space Age (Book) . 250.38 (2003): 95-95. Print.

• Ecological Effects of the Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms
• The Kite Runner as a Metaphor
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Subsidies in the Airline
• Regional Airlines: SkyWest Airlines
• Analysis of Boeing and Airbus
• Analysis of the article “Emergency Response Framework for Aviation XML Services on MANET”
• Information Technology and Low-Cost Airlines
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, October 31). History of Aviation. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-aviation/

"History of Aviation." IvyPanda , 31 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-aviation/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'History of Aviation'. 31 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "History of Aviation." October 31, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-aviation/.

1. IvyPanda . "History of Aviation." October 31, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-aviation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "History of Aviation." October 31, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-aviation/.

• Corpus ID: 111919132

A History of Helicopter Flight

• J. Leishman
• Published 2000
• History, Engineering

17 Citations

Estratégia de controle adaptiva para estabilização de um quadricóptero na presença de variação de massa.

• Highly Influenced

Autonomous Vertical Recovery of Fixed Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Quadrotor uav control : online learning approach, design, analysis and fabrication of a fully articulated helicopter main rotor system, avionics human-machine interfaces and interactions for manned and unmanned aircraft, the influence of the development of private air communication on the architecture and urban planning of the 21st century, platform for quadrirotors: analysis and applications, construction and pid control for stability of an unmanned aerial vehicle of the type quadrotor, simulation platform for quadricopter: using matlab/simulink and x-plane, the need for high speed in next generation rotorcraft, 66 references, the autogiro.

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Principles of Helicopter Aerodynamics

A history of aerodynamics and its impact on flying machines, the aviation careers of igor sikorsky, the illustrated encyclopedia of helicopters, related papers.

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History | September 15, 2022

The Real Warriors Behind ‘The Woman King’

A new film stars Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, the all-woman army of the African kingdom of Dahomey

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

At its height in the 1840s, the West African kingdom of Dahomey boasted an army so fierce that its enemies spoke of its “ prodigious bravery .” This 6,000 -strong force, known as the Agojie, raided villages under cover of darkness, took captives and slashed off resisters’ heads to return to their king as trophies of war. Through these actions, the Agojie established Dahomey’s preeminence over neighboring kingdoms and became known by European visitors as “ Amazons ” due to their similarities to the warrior women of Greek myth .

The Woman King , a new movie starring Viola Davis as a fictionalized leader of the Agojie, tells the story of this all-woman fighting force. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the film takes place as conflict engulfs the region and the specter of European colonization looms ominously. It represents the first time that the American film industry has dramatized this compelling story.

As the Hollywood Reporter ’s Rebecca Keegan writes, The Woman King is “the product of a thousand battles” fought by Davis and Prince-Bythewood, both of whom have spoken out about the obstacles the production team faced when pitching a historical epic centered on strong Black women.

“The part of the movie that we love is also the part of the movie that is terrifying to Hollywood, which is, it’s different, it’s new,” Davis tells Keegan. “We don’t always want different or new, unless you have a big star attached, a big male star. … [Hollywood studios] like it when women are pretty and blond or close to pretty and blond. All of these women are dark. And they’re beating … men. So there you go.”

From the origins of the Agojie to Dahomey’s eventual fate, here’s what you need to know about the true history behind The Woman King ahead of its arrival in theaters on September 16.

Is The Woman King based on a true story?

In short, yes, but with extensive dramatic license. Though the broad strokes of the film are historically accurate, the majority of its characters are fictional, including Davis’ Nanisca and Thuso Mbedu ’s Nawi, a young warrior-in-training. (Nanisca and Nawi share names with documented members of the Agojie but are not exact mirrors of these women.) King Ghezo (played by John Boyega) is the exception; according to Lynne Ellsworth Larsen , an architectural historian who studies gender dynamics in Dahomey, Ghezo (who reigned 1818 to 1858) and his son Glele (who reigned 1858 to 1889) presided over what’s seen as “the golden age of Dahomean history,” ushering in an era of economic prosperity and political strength.

The Woman King opens in 1823 with a successful raid by the Agojie, who free captives bound for enslavement from the clutches of the Oyo Empire , a powerful Yoruba state in what is now southwestern Nigeria. Dahomey has long paid tribute to the Oyo but is beginning to assert itself under the leadership of Ghezo and General Nanisca. A parallel plotline finds Nanisca, who disapproves of the slave trade after experiencing its horrors personally, urging Ghezo to end Dahomey’s close relationship with Portuguese slave traders and shift to production of palm oil as the kingdom's main export.

The real Ghezo did, in fact, successfully free Dahomey from its tributary status in 1823. But the kingdom’s involvement in the slave trade doesn’t align as neatly with the historical record. As historian Robin Law notes , Dahomey emerged as a key player in the trafficking of West Africans between the 1680s and early 1700s, selling its captives to European traders whose presence and demand fueled the industry—and, in turn, the monumental scale of Dahomey’s warfare.

Though the majority of individuals taken prisoner by Dahomey were enslaved abroad, a not-insignificant number remained in the kingdom, where they served on royal farms, in the army or at the palace. In truth, Ghezo only agreed to end Dahomey’s participation in the slave trade in 1852, after years of pressure by the British government , which had abolished slavery (for not wholly altruistic reasons ) in its own colonies in 1833 . Though Ghezo did at one point explore palm oil production as an alternative source of revenue, it proved far less lucrative, and the king soon resumed Dahomey’s participation in the slave trade.

In response to concerns about how her movie will depict Dahomey’s engagement with European slave traders, Prince-Bythewood told the Hollywood Reporter , “We’re going to tell the truth. We’re not going to shy away from anything. But also we’re telling a part of the story which is about overcoming and fighting for what’s right.”

Portraying the Agojie, through Nanisca’s actions, as critics of the slave trade makes for a “nice story,” says Larsen in an interview. “Do I think it’s historically accurate? I’m skeptical.” She adds, “These women are symbols of strength and of power. But … they’re [also] complicit in a problematic system. They are still under the patriarchy of the king, and they are still players in the slave trade.”

Maria Bello, an actress and producer who co-wrote the story The Woman King ’s script is based on, first learned about the Agojie during a 2015 trip to Benin. Recognizing the subject’s cinematic appeal, she persuaded producer Cathy Schulman to find a studio willing to finance the project. Prince-Bythewood and Davis joined the team soon after. “It was a constant push and fight to convince people that we deserve a big budget, that we deserved to tell a story like this,” Prince-Bythewood tells the Los Angeles Times .

That the film was greenlit at all likely stems from the blockbuster success of 2018’s Black Panther , which testified to the demand for entertainment created by and featuring Black creatives. The movie’s Dora Milaje regiment was inspired by the Agojie .

“For so long, Hollywood has only ever framed Africa in stereotypical ways,” Aje-Ori Agbese , an expert on African cinema at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, tells Ms. magazine . “So [ The Woman King ], centered on African women and African history, will generate a conversation. We have Black Panther to thank for that.”

Who were the Agojie?

The first recorded mention of the Agojie dates to 1729 . But the unit was possibly formed even earlier, toward the beginning of Dahomey’s existence, when King Huegbadja (reigned circa 1645 to 1685) created a corps of woman elephant hunters . Alternatively, Queen  Hangbe , who briefly ruled as regent following the death of her brother in the early 18th century, may have introduced the women warriors as part of her palace guard. Either way, the Agojie reached their peak in the 19th century, under Ghezo, who formally incorporated them into Dahomey’s army. Thanks to the kingdom’s ongoing wars, Dahomey’s male population had dropped significantly, creating an opportunity for women to replace men on the battlefield.

“More perhaps than any other African state, Dahomey was dedicated to warfare and slave-raiding,” wrote Stanley B. Alpern in Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey , the first full-length English-language study of the Agojie. “It may also have been the most totalitarian, with the king controlling and regimenting practically every aspect of social life.”

Dahomey’s standing army was an anomaly in and of itself, as most other African kingdoms disbanded their forces when not actively at war. The fact that the Agojie and their male counterparts wore uniforms also set them apart, establishing the Dahomean military as an organized, highly visible fighting force.

“They’re meant to have a public face,” says Larsen. “They wanted to … be feared by their neighbors. This was a slave-trading kingdom, so warfare was part of their annual cycle. They needed to gather humans to be part of this heinous trans-Atlantic slave trade,” as well as for human sacrifices to posthumously deified kings.

The Agojie’s ranks included volunteers and forced conscripts alike. “Regiments were recruited from slaves, some of them captured as early in age as 10 years old, also the poor, and girls who were rebellious,” said Terri Ochiagha , an expert on colonial and postcolonial Nigeria at the University of Edinburgh, in the 2018 Smithsonian Channel documentary series “ Epic Warrior Women .” In The Woman King , Nawi ends up in the army after refusing to marry an elderly suitor.

All of Dahomey’s women warriors were considered ahosi , or wives of the king. They lived in the royal palace alongside the king and his other wives, inhabiting a largely woman-dominated space. Aside from eunuchs and the king himself, no men were allowed in the palace after sunset.

As Alpern told Smithsonian magazine in 2011, the Agojie were considered the king’s “third-class” wives, as they typically didn’t share his bed or bear his children. Because they were married to the king, they were restricted from having sex with other men, although the degree to which this celibacy was enforced is subject to debate . In addition to enjoying privileged status, the warriors had access to a steady supply of tobacco and alcohol. They also had enslaved servants of their own.

To become an Agojie, recruits underwent intensive training, including exercises designed to harden them to bloodshed. In 1889, French naval officer Jean Bayol witnessed Nanisca (who likely inspired the name of Davis’ character in The Woman King ), a teenager “who had not yet killed anyone,” easily pass a test of wills. Walking up to a condemned prisoner, she reportedly “swung her sword three times with both hands, then calmly cut the last flesh that attached the head to the trunk. … She then squeezed the blood off her weapon and swallowed it.”

Another common form of training involved mock assaults that found recruits scrambling across towering walls of acacia thorns. In the words of a British traveler who examined the barriers, “I could not persuade myself that any human being, without boots or shoes, would, under any circumstances, attempt to pass over so dangerous a collection of the most efficiently armed plants I had ever seen.” The warriors bore the pain without complaint, and the bravest among them received acacia thorn belts marking their stoicism.

The Agojie’s divisions consisted of five branches: blunderbuss or artillery women, elephant hunters, musketeers, razor women and archers. Surprising the enemy was of the utmost importance. Warriors snuck up on villages at or before dawn, taking captives and decapitating those who resisted. Though European accounts of the Agojie vary widely, what “is indisputable … is their constantly outstanding performance in combat,” wrote Alpern in Amazons of Black Sparta . With the rest of the Dahomean army, these women warriors were “the scourge and terror of the whole surrounding country, always at war and generally victorious,” as an American missionary later recounted.

What happened to the Agojie?

Dahomey’s military dominance started to wane in the second half of the 19th century, when its army repeatedly failed to capture Abeokuta , a well-fortified Egba capital in what is now southwest Nigeria. An 1851 battle with the Egba, who’d settled in the region following the decline of the Oyo Empire, resulted in the deaths of up to 2,000 Agojie; in 1864, King Glele, who succeeded Ghezo a few years earlier, sought to avenge his father’s defeat at Abeokuta but was forced to retreat after just an hour and a half of fighting. Dahomean forces continued to target Egba villages until the early 1890s, when war with the French threatened the kingdom’s very existence.

Dahomey’s encounters with European colonizers had historically revolved mainly around the slave trade and religious missions . As the Scramble for Africa ramped up, however, tensions between Dahomey and France escalated. In 1863, the French declared the neighboring kingdom of Porto-Novo a colonial protectorate, angering Glele, who considered Porto-Novo a vassal of Dahomey. Glele also clashed with the French over the port city of Cotonou .

As Larsen articulates, the existence—and dominance—of Dahomey’s women warriors upset the French’s “understanding of gender roles and what women were supposed to do” in a “civilized” society. The women’s “flaunting of ferocity, physical power and fearlessness was manipulated or corrupted as Europeans started to interpret [it] in their own context of what they felt societies should be,” she says. For the French, the Agojie were simply “more fuel for their civilizing mission ,” which sought to impose European ideals on African countries.

The First Franco-Dahomean War began on February 21, 1890, just two months after the accession of Glele’s son Kondo, who took the name Béhanzin upon claiming the throne. On March 4, the Dahomean army attacked the French at Cotonou, only to fall to the Europeans’ vastly superior firepower. Nanisca, the teenager who’d left such an impression on French officer Bayol the previous year, decapitated the enemy’s chief gunner but died on the battlefield. Upon seeing Nanisca’s body, Bayol wrote that a “cleaver, its curved blade engraved with fetish symbols, was attached to her left wrist by a small cord, and her right hand was clenched round the barrel of her carbine covered with cowries.”

After facing a similar defeat at the Battle of Atchoupa on April 20, Dahomey agreed to a peace treaty assenting to French control over Porto-Novo and Cotonou. The lull in warfare lasted less than two years—an intermediary period that Béhanzin spent equipping his army with weapons equal to, or at least better matched with, the French’s. According to Alpern, upon receiving news of the French’s declaration of war, the Dahomean king said , “The first time, I was ignorant of how to make war, but now I know. … If you want war, I am ready. I wouldn’t stop even if it lasted 100 years and killed 20,000 of my men.”

Béhanzin proved true to his word. Over the course of seven weeks in fall 1892, Dahomey’s army fought valiantly to repel the French. The Agojie participated in 23 separate engagements during that short time span, earning the enemy’s respect for their valor and dedication to the cause. As one marine noted , “[N]either the cannons, nor the canister shot, nor the salvo fire stops them. … It is really strange to see women so well led, so well disciplined.” Though sources disagree on the number of women warriors who fought in the Second Franco-Dahomean War , Alpern cites 1,200 to 2,500 as a likely range.

At the village of Adégon on October 6, the Agojie suffered arguably their worst losses yet, with just 17 soldiers returning from an initial force of 434. Béhanzin’s brother Sagbaju Glele, who lived until the 1970s, told a local historian that the battle brought a moment of clarity for Dahomey’s courtiers, who now realized the inevitability of their kingdom’s destruction. The Dahomean army made a final stand at Cana in early November. The last day of fighting, reported a French marine colonel, was “one of the most murderous” of the entire war, beginning with the dramatic entrance of “the last Amazons … as well as the elephant hunters whose special assignment was to direct their fire at the officers.” The French officially seized the Dahomey capital of Abomey on November 17.

Between 2,000 and 4,000 Dahomean soldiers—including both men and women—died during the seven-week war. Of the roughly 1,200 Agojie in fighting shape at the beginning of the war, just 50 or 60 remained ready for battle by its end. Comparatively, the French side lost 52 Europeans and 33 Africans on the battlefield.

After the war, some of the surviving Agojie followed Béhanzin into exile in Martinique or served his brother, a puppet king installed by the French. Others tried to reenter society, to varying degrees of success. Still others toured Europe and the United States, performing dances and battlefield reenactments at “ living exhibitions ” that played into racist stereotypes of African people. At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, visitors to the “ Dahomey Village ” were welcomed by a pair of juxtaposed paintings: an Agojie holding up an enemy’s severed head and a white colonizer raising his helmet. “You have these parallel images of what was considered barbaric and what the civilizers were here to correct,” says Larsen.

Last year, Leonard Wantchekon , an economist at Princeton University and native of Benin who leads research seeking to identify the Agojie’s descendants, told the Washington Post that French colonization proved detrimental to women’s rights in Dahomey, with colonizers barring women from political leadership (in addition to serving as warriors, ahosi could become royal cabinet ministers) and educational opportunities.

“The French made sure this history wasn’t known,” he explained. “They said we were backward, that they needed to ‘civilize us,’ but they destroyed opportunities for women that existed nowhere else in the world.”

Nawi, the last known surviving Agojie with battlefield experience (and the probable inspiration for Mbedu’s character), died in 1979 , at well over 100 years old. But Agojie traditions continued long after Dahomey’s fall, with descendants of the warrior women sharing stories about their formidable ancestors and participating in religious rituals. When actress Lupita Nyong’o visited Benin for a 2019 Smithsonian Channel special , she met a woman identified by locals as an Agojie who’d been trained by older warriors as a child and kept hidden within a palace for decades.

Speaking with History.com , Wantchekon emphasizes the central role played by women in Dahomean society. “When we push back against [colonialist] misconception[s] and embrace the culture of gender equality that was thriving in Benin and places like it before colonization,” he says, “it is a way to embrace the legacy of this exceptional group of African female leaders that European history tried so hard to erase.”

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Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

Iran helicopter crash shows Tehran’s reliance on an aging fleet as well as its challenges at home

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By the time Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi boarded his window seat on a helicopter ferrying him, the foreign minister and six others, thick clouds already had begun forming around the mountaintops along the Azerbaijan-Iran border. Despite the worsening weather, the helicopter lifted off for a trip about 145 kilometers (90 miles) southwest to a new oil pipeline near Tabriz.

Within an hour, the Bell 212 helicopter had crashed into a cloud-covered mountainside.

While the cause of the May 19 crash remains unknown, the sudden death of the hard-line protégé of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exposed the contradictions and challenges facing the country’s Shiite theocracy.

The Iranian military investigators probing the crash have previously faced international criticism over their report on troops shooting down a Ukrainian airliner in 2020. The hourslong desperate rescue attempt after the helicopter crash saw Tehran even reach out to the United States for help, just weeks after launching an unprecedented attack on Israel and as it enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Even the type of helicopter that crashed links back to Iranian history, both before and after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Iran is a culture of dualities,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy who studies Iran’s military. “Some aspects, they seem so good and well-managed, well-oiled and very capable. ... In many levels, it’s quite lacking.”

Iranian military investigators have released two statements on the crash, largely ruling out possibilities rather than offering a suspected cause. They’ve rejected the possibility of an onboard “explosion caused by sabotage” or a “cyberattack” targeting the Bell 212, a two-blade, twin-engine helicopter more widely known as the Huey for its use by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.

“The recorded conversations between the flight crew show that the last contact with the pilots up to the time of the incident and when they stopped responding lasted 69 seconds,” the investigators said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “No emergency declaration was recorded during that time.”

In conspiracy-minded Iran , some officials still insist foul play could have caused the crash. However, some other officials have begun to ask why the helicopter took off from the site of the new Giz Galasi Dam when the weather had started to turn.

Mostafa Mirsalim, a member of the country’s Expediency Council, wrote on the social platform X that he had asked prosecutors to “address the mistakes that led to the loss of the president and his delegation,” without elaborating.

Abbas Abdi, a prominent journalist, also wrote on X that the flight path taken by Raisi’s helicopter suggested the pilot didn’t follow a standard Iranian practice of shadowing main roads in rural areas. That can both help navigation and provide a safe landing area in an emergency. Former Iranian Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Abolhassan Banisadr both survived helicopter crashes while in office.

The helicopter involved in the crash, nearly 30 years old, came directly from a Bell manufacturing plant in Montreal, Canada, to the Iranian air force, according to data from the firm Cirium. It counts 12 Bell 212 aircraft registered in Iran that are still in service.

Bell Textron Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas, said it “does not conduct any business in Iran or support their helicopter fleet, and we do not have knowledge about the active state of the helicopter involved in this accident.”

But despite being decades old, the Bell 212 and its military counterpart the Huey still are flown around the world. In the United States, Hueys still fly as part of America’s nuclear forces to support its silos and for some VIP missions, said Roger D. Connor, an aeronautics curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Over 440 still fly worldwide, according to Cirium.

“It’s a simple aircraft to fly by medium helicopter standards. It doesn’t typically have much automation which can have both positive and negative implications for operators,” Connor said. “More automation means more opportunities for pilot confusion in certain circumstances, but also better capabilities in low-visibility conditions.”

Iran’s use of the Bell 212 remains pervasive, in part due to the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who struck deals to purchase hundreds of the helicopters and had plans to build a local variant, Nadimi said. Those already in the country at the time of the Islamic Revolution ended up being a key component of Iran’s bloody war against Iraq in the 1980s.

But as Western sanctions dried up the supply of parts, fewer of the aircraft were airworthy, despite efforts to locally overhaul them. That saw Iran engage in covert means to secure parts, sparking several U.S. criminal cases for those involved, who sought everything from safety equipment to full engines and night-vision goggles for the aircraft.

Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame sanctions for the crash. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded by saying America was “not going to apologize for our sanctions regime at all” as Iran has used aircraft to “transport equipment to support terrorism.”

“Ultimately, it’s the Iranian government that is responsible for the decision to fly a ... helicopter in what was described as poor weather conditions, not any other actor,” Miller said.

Meanwhile, questions remain over why Iran couldn’t find the helicopter for hours, even though one of the victims reportedly talked by cellphone with officials. Such calls, in theory, can be triangulated by security services. Also, it remains unclear if the helicopter had any emergency tracker, which are common on aircraft.

While the investigation continues, Nadimi said he believed that the Bell 212 that flew Raisi did not have advanced avionics that could have been useful for low-visibility flight. However, he stressed that the major issue in the crash likely involves who allowed the flight to take off as the weather turned poor and whether the pilot faced pressure from his VIP passengers to make the journey no matter what.

“Pilot error, human error might be to blame, but there was a chain of events that caused this crash, not just pilot error,” Nadimi said. “That helicopter should have been able to clear that terrain and fly safely to its destination. They should not have been dispatched for flying.”

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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history of helicopter

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Ahilan Appar

Jefferson A Conza

Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology

Antonio Apicella

Geoffrey S DeSena

Michael Todorov Tf T.2531

This chapter is dedicated to present the principles that constitute the fundamentals of helicopter flight physics, starting from the basics of the main rotor aerodynamics and of the component parts related to flight control. The chapter opens with a short history of helicopter development, taking the date of 13th November 1907 for a reference point; this is the date when the first helicopter flight occurred, having the French man, Paul Cornu, for a pilot. The main constructive solutions for helicopters are presented and the basic equations of fluid mechanics are applied on a helicopter model with one main rotor and tail rotor. Helicopter hovering, vertical flight, and forward flight are approached, too, one by one. Furthermore, the ground effect, autorotation, stability, and helicopter control are focused on. At the end of the chapter, the main factors that determine the helicopter performances are mentioned.

Rome, IAI, September 2023, 58 p. (Documenti IAI ; 23|19)

Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine highlighted the importance of helicopters in modern military operations, showing strengths and weaknesses of these assets in high-intensity scenarios. The preliminary lessons from the war come at a time in which most leading Western powers need to modernise their respective helicopters fleets, which until recently had experienced only limited technological leaps from the 1970s. Today, while the US is heavily invested in the Future Vertical Lift programme, European countries have shown a more cautious approach. Nevertheless, relevant EU and NATO collaborative projects show that there is widespread interest in the future of military helicopters. Italy, which is a leading country in the helicopter sector, finds itself at a crossroad and will need to carefully ponder its strategic options, both considering industrial and operational aspects inherent in the adoption of new rotorcraft technologies.

Giovanni Di Giorgio

JUAN OLVERA

Inderjit Chopra

Elizabeth (Weiner) Ward

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Here’s How Israel’s Mission to Rescue Four Hostages Unfolded

The operation required weeks of planning and received the final go-ahead just a few minutes before it began, according to Israeli officials.

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By Ronen Bergman and Aaron Boxerman

• Published June 8, 2024 Updated June 9, 2024, 5:41 a.m. ET

The Israeli military’s mission to rescue four hostages was a rare operation that required weeks of planning, and was given the final go-ahead just a few minutes before it commenced on Saturday morning, according to Israeli officials.

Israeli special forces, backed by the military, intelligence and air force, raided two buildings several hundred feet apart in a neighborhood in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. They brought home the four hostages — Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41 — alive and in good medical condition. One police officer, part of the force that led the raid, was killed.

Scores of Palestinians, including women and children, were killed during the rescue operation, according to local Gaza health officials. The Israeli military said it had targeted militants who had threatened its forces as they sought to extract the hostages. Neither the Israeli military nor Palestinian health officials provided a breakdown of civilians and combatants killed in the raid.

Israeli troops have swept through much of Gaza since their ground invasion began in late October. But they have managed to rescue only seven living hostages in three separate military operations, with roughly 120 captives remaining in Gaza. Several proposed rescue missions did not go forward for fear that the hostages or the forces would die in the process, according to two Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.

In December, Israeli special forces tried to rescue a hostage from Hamas captivity, according to the two defense officials. Sahar Baruch, an Israeli hostage, was killed during the exchange of fire and two Israeli officers were seriously wounded.

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