Control, not the engine
Engines already existed; the problem was how to control an aircraft. The Wrights came up with wing warping, which let them bank the aeroplane into a turn, and they carried out hundreds of experiments with gliders and their own wind tunnel.
Rapid progress
- 1903Wright Flyer
- 1909Blériot flew across the English Channel
- 1914Štefan Banič patented the parachute
- 1939The first jet-powered aircraft
- 1969First flights of both the Boeing 747 and Concorde
- 2020sElectric and autonomous aircraft in testing
The Slovak connection
Slovaks contributed to aviation with Štefan Banič's parachute and Ján Bahýľ's helicopter experiments. Today Slovak flying cars carry on this tradition.